The last ghoul went down without ceremony. Tyson stomped its skull flat with the dull finality of a man closing a door. Maddie's sign caught the next one across the jaw and that was it. No more screaming. No more wet sounds. Just dripping, and breathing, and the strobing emergency lights catching everything in stutters.
Nobody cheered.
"My battery's completely dead," Maddie said. She stared at the heavy highway sign like it had personally betrayed her. "Won't hold a charge at all."
"So are they," Tyson said, nodding at the corpses. "Stop swinging it. You're done."
"Tell my arms that." She held one out. It wouldn't stop shaking. The tremors came from her body running on empty, nothing left to burn. "They didn't get the memo."
Will didn't sheathe the saber. He stood at the new threshold and looked through the doorway.
