She finally looks at him in the mirror. Her eyes are gleaming. “The Day of Judgement, of course.”
Henrik can’t help but feel chills. “I guess if you interpret it that way …”
“What other way is there?”
“Well, I think it’s more like a natural disaster. I think it’s some kind of contagious virus. I don’t believe God has anything to do with it.”
Nasira doesn’t answer at first.
Henrik looks up at the mirror, and she turns her head to look away, then says softly: “I pray you’re right.”
They reach the outskirts of town, and suddenly the road clears up. Henrik is able to speed up considerably. The GPS tells him the address Dan gave him is only four miles outside town.
From the backseat, Nasira and Ali are talking Arabic to each other. Judging from their voices, Henrik assumes Nasira is comforting Ali. He can’t help but think of Jennie again, and this time, the thought of Trine joins in.
How can they both be gone?
How can you lose two of the people you love most in a matter of days?
He feels his eyes fill with tears and blinks rapidly to keep them back. He can’t allow himself to cry, not with two kids in the car, kids who just lost their parents less than an hour ago. He needs to put on a brave face.
He gazes out over the open fields for a moment, fighting back the grief. The sun is baking down over the landscape, a lone buzzard circles the blue sky, and wild flowers nod their heads from the road side. Nature doesn’t know everything has changed; it clearly takes this to be any other ordinary hot summer day.
A house comes up ahead, and as they get closer, Henrik can make out a couple of figures standing by the windows facing the road. Passing by, he slows down just enough to get a look at them. His suspicion was right; it’s zombies, groping at the windows, trying to get in, trying to get at whomever is trapped inside their house.
One glance at Nasira in the mirror is enough to tell him she also notices the zombies.
“Guess they’ve already spread beyond town,” he mutters.
Nasira just nods.
They drive for a minute in silence.
Then, there’s a reflection up ahead. A car at the side of the road.
Henrik checks the GPS. Less than one mile. The destination will come up on their left in a minute or so. But they need to pass the parked car first.
As they get closer, Henrik realizes the car isn’t parked; it’s crashed. Apparently out of nowhere, the driver has suddenly driven into the ditch, and the vehicle—a metallic blue station wagon—is now stuck with its rear pointing upwards at an angle.
A figure jumps out onto the road, and for a moment, Henrik is sure it’s a zombie. Then the person begins flailing their arms in an unmistakable I-need-your-help-please-pull-over manner.
“What do they want?” Nasira asks from the back, having already spotted the person up ahead.
“Probably a ride,” Henrik says, easing off the speed.
They’re close enough now that he can tell the person is a big teenage boy.
“Are you going to pick him up?” Nasira asks, a trace of worry in her voice.
“I can’t just drive by him. I need to at least hear him out.” Henrik sends a smile in the mirror. “Remember that thing about being the exception?”
He slows down and comes to a halt next to the crashed car. The teenager keeps waving frantically even a few seconds after the Prius has stopped. He’s tall for his age, chubby and crew-cut. His round face is glistening from sweat and his eyes are big and anxious. He glances towards the blue car, then comes around to Henrik’s door.
Henrik rolls his window down a few inches. “Hey there. Did you have an accident?”
“Yes!” the boy blurts out, nodding emphatically. “Yes, we had an accident!”
“What happened?” Henrik asks. “How could you crash on an open road like that?”
“It was one of those dead people,” the boy says, pointing. “It came out of nowhere, it did! Just walked right out onto the road. Mom tried not to hit it, but it was too late!”
Henrik looks in the direction of the boy’s finger, and he notices a couple of legs protruding from the ditch in front of the station wagon. Then he also sees a torn-off arm by the side of the road. At least the zombie was killed in the collision.
“What happened to your mom?” Henrik asks.
“She’s still in the car! Could you please help her? She’s unconscious and I don’t know what to do!” The boy is shifting his weight from foot to foot nervously, his eyes darting from the station wagon to Henrik and back.
Henrik looks at the boy a moment longer. He gets the sense that he’s very earnest. He’s obviously in distress. Maybe that’s why he acts and sounds more like a younger kid—the shock of the crash must have shaken him badly.
“Please, could you help her?” he pleads, on the verge of tears now. “I would really appreciate it. I can’t get her out of the car! She’s unconscious.”
“Sure,” Henrik says, unbuckling. “I’ll see if I can help.”
“Wait!” Nasira says, grabbing his shoulder. “Look, Henrik!” She points straight ahead.
Henrik looks. Six or seven figures are coming this way, crossing the open field, their wobbling way of walking leaving no doubt they’re zombies.
The boy also looks in the direction and jumps. “Oh, no! Oh, no, no, no! That’s more of them! They’re coming this way!” He grabs the edge of the window with his chubby fingers, staring in at Henrik desperately. “Please! Please help me! Please help my mom! She’s unconscious!”
“Okay, I’ll help you. Just step back.”
The boy lets go of the window reluctantly and steps back half a step.
Nasira is about to say something, but Henrik turns to look at her and cuts her off: “It’s okay, they’re still a couple minutes away. I’ll be quick. Stay here with your brother.”
Nasira looks grave, but she nods once in silent agreement.
Henrik gets out of the car. The boy grabs him by the elbow and pulls him towards the station wagon. “Hurry! She’s unconscious! You need to help her.”
“You told me already,” Henrik says, freeing himself. “Keep an eye on the zombies, okay?”
“On the what?”
Henrik looks at him briefly, the look of utter confusion on the boy’s face throws him off for a second. “The zombies. The dead people!”
“Oh! Sure!” The boy turns and looks in the direction of the zombies. They’re still far enough away that’s there’s time to get the woman out of the car—if she isn’t too badly injured, of course.
Henrik jumps down into the ditch and looks in through the front window, which is open all the way. A woman with large, curly hair is resting against a flat airbag, facing away from him.
“Hello? Can you hear me?”
He reaches in and gently rocks the woman. She doesn’t react the slightest. Henrik notices a trace of blood on the white air bag.
Is she even still alive?
“Please help her,” the boy pleads from behind him. “She’s unconscious.”
Henrik ignores him. Why does the kid keep repeating that? Is he really just in shock? Or did he already check his mom and realized she’s dead? Is the way he keeps saying she’s unconscious a way of denial?
Henrik yanks the door. It requires all his strength, as the frame is a little bent, but he gets it open just enough. Instead of just pulling out the woman, he wants to make sure she’s not too badly beaten, so he pushes her gently back into the seat, brushing the curls aside to reveal her face. A trickle of blood has run from the side of the mouth and is smeared over her right cheek. Other than that, she looks unharmed.
Suddenly, she opens her eyes and stares right at him. Simultaneously, both her arms shoot out and grab Henrik’s shirt.
“It’s okay,” he tells her. “I’m here to help.”
“The keys,” the woman hisses. “Give them to me.”
“What?” Henrik says, t
rying to pull back, but the woman holds on firmly. Her eyes are blazing at him. They don’t belong to a person who just woke up from a state of unconsciousness; they are the eyes of someone who was just pretending, waiting for the right moment.
“The keys for your car,” the woman says, tightening her grip at his shirt. “Let me have them, now!”
The situation finally dawns on Henrik completely. He realizes in a flash why the boy kept saying the woman was unconscious. Anger rises to his chest.
“Let go of me,” he says, grabbing the woman by the wrists, then pulling back his hand with a roar. He looks at the bloody cut in his palm, then down at the dagger pressed against his collarbone.
He looks at the woman, and her dark eyes stare back at him. “Last chance,” she whispers. “Give me the keys for the car, or I’ll cut your throat.”
“It’s … it’s already in the car …”
“Mom!” the boy is suddenly right behind him. “Hurry up! There’re more dead ones coming this way!”
“It’s okay, Dennis!” the woman calls back at him. “Do it now!”
Henrik has time to turn his head and see the boy raise something up in the air, blotting out the sun for a brief moment—there’s a scream—then that something connects with the back of Henrik’s head.
THIRTEEN
Nasira stretches her neck, but can’t really tell what’s going on in the ditch from here. Henrik is by the front window, bent over, but his back is turned, and she can’t see what he’s doing.
Ever since he jumped down there about thirty seconds ago, the boy has been edging slowly closer, while simultaneously keeping an eye on the approaching group of undead—who is still far away, but closing the distance. And now the boy bends down and picks up something from the grass.
Nasira lets go of Ali and unbuckles her seat belt.
“No!” Ali exclaims in Arabic, clasping her arm. “What are you doing?”
“I don’t trust that boy,” she tells him. “I think he’s a liar. I need to warn Henrik.”
Ali glances towards the undead, then lets go of her very reluctantly.
“I’ll be right back,” Nasira tells him and gets out into the baking heat. “Lock the door.”
She hears the lock snap as soon as she closes the car door. She looks towards the boy, shielding her eyes with her hand, and she sees him step down into the ditch right behind Henrik, who’s still looking in through the window, but now Nasira can see the woman, who’s apparently holding him in a firm grip by the shirt. The vicious expression on the woman’s immediately tells Nasira her suspicion was right.
Then, the boy lifts the thing he just picked up, and Nasira sees it’s a thick branch. She screams out a split-second before the boy swings the club and connects with Henrik’s head. The sound is dull and heavy, and Henrik collapses without a sound, disappearing from sight.
Nasira just stands there, in the middle of the road, for a full three seconds, unsure what to do.
The woman acts a lot more resolutely, getting out of the car, grabbing the boy—who’s staring down at Henrik in stunned amazement, like he can’t fathom what he just did—and pulls him up onto the road with her.
The sight of the blade in the woman’s hand is what finally calls Nasira back. Ali sees it too, because he shouts to her from inside the car.
The woman steers right for Nasira, knife in hand, her dark eyes fixating her, and it’s all she can do to not run away. Instead, she turns and grabs the door, pulling it, but it doesn’t open.
“Unlock it, Ali!” she shouts. “Hurry up!”
Ali scrambles for the lock, but Nasira catches the reflection of the woman in the window and realizes it’s too late. She jumps to the side and creates a few paces of distance between her and the woman and the boy.
They stop by the car. The woman grabs the door and tries to open it, but luckily, Ali didn’t unlock it. The boy looks like someone who’s about to cry, his big eyes darting from the woman to the oncoming dead. The woman, however, stares menacingly in at Ali.
“Unlock the door, boy.”
“Don’t do it, Ali!”
The woman rounds on her, squinting. “Tell him to open the door.”
Nasira shakes her head, looking from Ali’s face inside the car to the place in the ditch where Henrik is lying, probably with an open headwound, then to the undead, now close enough to make out their features.
“Your friend will be the first one eaten, unless you help him,” the woman says. “And we’ll just smash a window and get into the car anyway. But if you get the boy to open the door, no one else needs to get hurt.”
Nasira hesitates a moment longer. The situation is a stand-off with no good outcome for them, unless she does as the woman asks. So she looks at Ali and calls out in Arabic: “Come out here, Ali! Come to me! It’s okay!”
Ali shakes his head, his eyes terrified.
“Yes, you need to come out here! There’s not much time! Trust me!”
Ali climbs to the door on the other side of the car, unlocks it and climbs out. He’s barely out before the other boy has jumped in and slammed the door behind him.
“Come on, Mom!” he calls out, gesturing wildly. “Come in here! The dead people are closing in, they are!”
The woman seems incredibly unfazed by the approaching threat. She takes a couple of seconds to look at Ali, as he runs to Nasira.
“I’d get your friend to safety if you want him to live,” she says, nodding towards the ditch.
“Wait!” Nasira says as the woman is about to get in behind the wheel. “Take us with you! Just away from here. You can drop us off again anywhere. Just please don’t leave us like this!”
The woman shakes her head once, not even considering the plea, and simply says: “There’s no time.”
Nasira curses the woman in Arabic. She can’t help it, the fear and the anger simply get the better of her.
The woman looks back at her, revealing her white teeth in a sneer. “You try praying to your false desert god; I’m sure he’ll help you.”
Then she gets in behind the wheel of Henrik’s car, starts up the engine and drives off, swerving to avoid the undead, who have now crossed out into the road and have picked up speed. One of them—a young girl around Nasira’s age—is faster than the others and has gained a fair lead.
Ali squeezes Nasira’s hand hard, tugging at her. “Come on, we have to run!”
“No!” she says, pulling him back. “We can’t leave Henrik. Come with me!”
She runs to the ditch and jumps down. Henrik is lying on his side, moaning and moving about, blinking and trying to open his eyes. “Oh, my head,” he groans. “What happened?”
She feels a rush of gratitude and thanks God that Henrik doesn’t seem too badly hurt, just dazed, and she grabs him by the shoulders. “We need to get inside the car! They’re coming!”
Those last words seem to get through to him, and he fights his way to his hands and knees. Nasira guides him in through the open car, shoving him across the gear shift. Then she turns and says in Arabic: “Now you, Ali! … Ali?”
Ali isn’t there.
He’s still up by the road, glaring at the undead. The front runner girl is only a few yards away, reaching out her arm and clawing at the air with her painted fingernails.
“Ali!”
Nasira jumps back up on the road, grabs her brother and yanks him out of the way a split-second before the dead girl can sink her nails into his face. She drags him down to the car and halfway hurls him in through the door. Without looking back—but sensing the dead girl right behind her—Nasira throws herself into the car, reaches back and slams the door. But the window is still open, and there’s no handle, as it can only be rolled up electronically.
The dead girl walks straight at the car, tripping as she steps into the ditch, and slams her head against the car door with a loud clap. She doesn’t seem fazed at all, though, and Nasira can hear her scramble to get back up right away.
The girl’s fa
ll wins Nasira the five seconds she needs to see the key still in the ignition, reach out, turn it to switch the ignition on, then hit the button for the window.
At first, there’s only a scraping sound, and for a terrible moment, Nasira is certain the window won’t close, that she’s made a horrible mistake, that they will all be trapped in the car while the dead girl squeezes in through the opening.
Then, the glass appears. It moves unevenly, but it still works its way up slowly.
“Come on, come on, come on,” Nasira chants in Arabic.
Ali shouts something from the backseat, Henrik moans incoherently from the passenger side, but Nasira hears none of it, she only stares at the window rising painfully slow.
When it’s halfway up, the face of the dead girl pops up, the milky white eyes fixing on Nasira, and she catches her breath as time seems to stop for a long moment.
The girl reaches up one hand, eagerly groping at the glass, then reaching it higher, and, just before the window closes, her hand slips inside. Nasira grabs it and tries to push it back out, but the window pins the girl’s wrist to the ceiling, stopping it from coming in farther, and Nasira pulls her own hand away, holding down the button, pressing it with all her strength. The window grinds with a strained noise, working hard to push its way up farther. Then, with a snap, it stops. Nasira presses the button a few more times, but the window doesn’t react; it’s jammed.
The zombie girl doesn’t seem concerned at all about her wrist being pinned; she just gets to her feet and tries to shove her way in, using both her free hand, and, when that doesn’t prove fruitful, her face. She moans hungrily, her pink tongue lapping at the air, as though she can taste Nasira from there, her teeth gnawing at the edge of the window, causing the glass to give off an alarming creaking sound.
“She’ll get in!” Ali’s shrill voice finally cuts through to Nasira. “Do something, Nasira! Make her stop!”
She turns to Henrik, who’s leaning against the opposite door, rubbing the back of his head.
“Goddamnit,” he groans. “That piece of shit … he struck me with something …”
“Yes, and they took the car,” Nasira says, leaning closer to Henrik and away from the girl working away at the window. She notices a movement and sees two of the other undead, who have finally caught up. They wobble down into the ditch and immediately bump up against the car, trying to get in.
Dead Meat (Book 4): Dead Meat [Day 4] Page 8
