“Who said you’re going anywhere?” said Rogers.
Lemans shook himself free from Rogers’s grasp. “Who said you are?”
Halverson heard the passengers grumbling.
“Who decides who gets to go in the car?” piped up one passenger from the back.
“It’s obvious we can’t all fit into this car,” said Rogers. “We need more cars.”
“Says who?” demanded Lemans.
“Says me. We need about four people to take this car and search the other parking garages for at least three more cars.”
“How do we know those four people won’t just take off and leave the rest of us behind?” said Lemans.
Halverson saw a zombie sticking its head above the stairs as it trudged up the stairwell behind the passengers.
“Whatever we do we need to do it now,” said Halverson.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
“So who gets the car?” said Lemans.
“For sure, Tom,” said Halverson. “He needs to be there to start the cars.”
“We don’t have time to debate this,” said Rogers. “Those things are coming up the stairs.”
Tom claimed the driver’s seat.
“I don’t accept your authority,” Lemans told Rogers and crossed his arms.
“Let’s keep moving toward the next garage while we hash this out,” said Rogers.
Lemans acted swiftly. It caught everyone by surprise. He grabbed Tom’s arm and tried to haul Tom out of the car.
“Hey,” said Tom. “What are you trying to do?”
Tom gripped the steering wheel, trying to keep his place inside the car.
Halverson delivered a jab to Lemans’s kidney. Lemans groaned in pain and released his hold on Tom.
“Bastard,” said Lemans, holding his aching back. “Backstabber!”
Tom drove the car a little ways ahead of the passengers toward the next garage. The passengers followed him.
Halverson twigged a young female ghoul with her brown hair piled on top of her head come shuffling toward the passengers. The creature wore glasses with grey plastic frames. Its prunelike rucked face was screwed up in misery. The creature was holding its temple like it had a migraine, partially obscuring its face.
Halverson wanted to tell the creature it had worse than a migraine.
Accompanying the creature was a three hundred–plus pound Chinese male ghoul with a glabrous, round head. This creature wore wraparound sunglasses and a white T-shirt. Olive green tattoos adorned the creature’s squat neck. The creature lumbered toward Halverson.
Halverson shot the migraine ghoul first. Just looking at the creature was giving him a headache.
The ghoul’s skull exploded. Only the ugly face, which Halverson could now see clearly since she had dropped her hand from it, remained more or less intact. It was intact and being eaten by writhing maggots. Pieces of the rest of her head strewed the cement floor. She would not have to worry about migraines any longer.
The Chinese ghoul watched his fellow ghoul in puzzlement like he could not understand why it had crumpled to the ground.
Halverson had a clear view of the Chinese ghoul’s temple. One shot was all Halverson needed. The ghoul was dead before it hit the ground.
While Halverson was finishing off the ghouls, Lemans slipped into the Taurus with Tom.
Halverson picked up on Lemans’s legs disappearing into the car.
“I couldn’t stop him,” Rogers told Halverson.
“To hell with him,” said Halverson.
“How about you going with them to make sure he doesn’t try anything funny?”
Halverson nodded.
“And I’ll send Ray and Rosie,” said Rogers.
“Aren’t you coming?”
“Somebody needs to take care of the passengers.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Halverson caught sight of Lemans’s girlfriend Valerie ducking into the backseat of the Taurus.
“Everyone’s gonna be in that car if we don’t leave now,” said Halverson.
Halverson, Ray, and Rosie jogged over to the car. They piled inside.
Tom drove off.
Through the open car window Halverson heard Rogers admonish the passengers to pick up the pace as more ghouls appeared at the stairwell.
Tom drove to the adjacent garage. “If anyone sees any old cars, give out a yell.”
Halverson could see several cars parked at the end of this garage. He could not tell their vintage from this distance with the smog eddying in the air and obscuring his vision.
He told Tom.
“Already got ’em,” said Tom.
He drove toward them.
Halverson spotted a rusted, beat-up VW van that looked like a relic from the seventies.
Tom stopped the Taurus, got out, and tried his luck with the VW van. He smashed open the driver’s side window with the butt of his submachine gun, opened the door, and pulled out Rogers’s pocketknife with the screwdriver attachment. He inserted the screwdriver into the ignition. He twisted the screwdriver. The van started.
“Who wants this one?” asked Tom, stepping out of the van.
“I wouldn’t set foot in that thing if you paid me,” said Lemans.
“I’ll take it,” said Ray. “It’ll fit a lot of people.”
He climbed inside the van.
Tom clambered back into the Taurus and drove toward a red ’98 Mustang GT. Ray drove after him.
“That’s more like it,” said Lemans, clapping eyes on the Mustang.
He climbed out of the Taurus with Valerie. They made toward the Mustang. He looked inside. His eyes widened as he saw the key in the ignition. He tried the door. It gave.
“It’s been waiting for me,” he said with a beaming smile.
Halverson didn’t like the looks of it. Why would the owner leave the key inside the ignition? he wondered. Halverson climbed out of the Taurus. He approached the Mustang.
“No way,” said Lemans, seeing him. “This baby’s mine.” Lemans slid into the front seat. “Come on, Valerie.”
Valerie claimed the bucket seat beside him.
It was at that moment that Halverson twigged movement in the Mustang’s backseat.
“Wait a second,” Halverson told Lemans.
“I already told you, this one’s mine. Find yourself another car.”
Halverson watched somebody sit up in the backseat. Halverson raised his MP7.
“So now you’re gonna shoot me?” said Lemans, outraged.
“There’s somebody in there with you.”
“Do you think I’m gonna fall for that old trick? I run out of the car and you take my place in the driver’s seat. In a pig’s eye.”
Halverson could not tell who was sitting in the backseat. It might have been a ghoul, but then again maybe it was a person. Dust and grime coated the Mustang’s windows, obscuring Halverson’s vision. Whoever it was back there wasn’t moving very quickly.
“Somebody’s in there with you!” called Tom.
Lemans shook his head. “You too, huh? I guess everybody wants this car.”
“You’re an idiot. Why do you think the key was in the ignition?”
“Because the driver was in a hurry to get out. Maybe one of those things was attacking him. How should I know?”
“The driver’s still in there.”
Lemans scoffed. “Nice try.”
“Is it one of those things in there?” Tom asked Halverson.
“I don’t know,” said Halverson. “I can’t make it out through the dirty window.”
Valerie screamed.
Halverson started. Blood sprayed the inside of the driver’s side back window. More blood sprayed the rear window. Halverson could not see inside the car to see what was happening.
He saw Valerie scramble out of the passenger side of the car. Tears streaming down her twisted face, she ran around the back of the Mustang. She was clutching her left arm. Blood was gushing out of the end of her arm, where her left hand u
sed to be.
“Jesus!” gasped Tom.
“Stanch the wound,” Halverson told Tom. He turned to Lemans. “Get out of there, Lemans!”
Lemans didn’t need to be told twice. He bolted out of the front seat. He stumbled into the garage.
Halverson dashed to the Mustang’s rear window. He fired a burst into the glass. The MP7’s armor-piercing rounds shattered the glass. He could now make out the ghoul sitting in the backseat chomping on Valerie’s hand like it was a drumstick.
Disgusted at the sight, Halverson atomized the creature’s head with a three-round burst from his MP7.
He grabbed the creature’s arm and hiked the creature through the broken rear window, out onto the trunk, then onto the cement floor of the garage.
Halverson turned around to see Tom applying his belt as a tourniquet to stanch the bleeding in Valerie’s maimed arm.
Halverson stared at Valerie for a moment.
“I don’t want to die,” whimpered Valerie. “I know everyone thinks I’m a coldhearted bitch, but I’m really not.”
Halverson nodded.
“It’s true I met my ex-husband as a call girl,” she went on. “You have to be cold to make it in that profession. It’s not a job for the fainthearted. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings like everyone else.”
Halverson was debating whether or not to shoot her. He knew she would turn into a ghoul just as Reverend Jim had.
“Don’t even think about it,” said Tom, as if reading Halverson’s mind.
“She’s infected.”
“But we don’t know for sure she’ll turn into one of those things.”
“Remember Reverend Jim.”
“OK, he turned, but maybe she won’t. Maybe some people have a natural immunity to this plague, whatever it is.”
“Nobody does.”
“That’s why I flew to Los Angeles,” said Valerie. “I was leaving my ex-husband.” She looked at Halverson, pleading with her blue eyes.
Halverson had no desire to kill her. It wasn’t like he had a choice.
From everything he had gleaned at the Agency about the plague, he knew there were no exceptions to the infection. A zombie bite was a hundred percent fatal. If a zombie bit you, you turned into a zombie. The only question was, how long would it take for the transformation to take place? Did you have to die before you turned into a ghoul or could you turn into one before dying? The answer to that question was unclear.
“You can’t be absolutely certain she’ll turn into one of those things,” said Tom. “As long as she’s alive, there’s always a chance for her.”
“I’m not one of those things,” said Valerie, terrified. “What are you talking about? Do I look like one of those things?”
Halverson watched her. She looked like she was about to pass out from loss of blood.
He leveled his MP7 at her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Tom bolted toward Halverson and shoved the MP7’s silenced barrel away from Valerie.
“As long as there’s any hope at all that she might live, we have to keep her alive,” said Tom.
“There isn’t any hope,” said Halverson.
“How can you know that? Nobody can know that. You’re setting yourself up as judge, jury, and executioner.”
“If she turns into one of them, she jeopardizes all of our lives.”
“That’s my point.” The tendons in Tom’s neck stretched taut as he became worked up. “She isn’t one of them now.”
“She will be. It’s only a matter of time.”
“Anything is possible. She might beat this thing. She could be the one exception. We shouldn’t kill her unless she actually turns into one of those things.”
“We can’t risk letting her live. She endangers us.”
“If you kill her before she’s a zombie, it’s flat-out murder!”
“Why are you talking about me like I’m not even here?” said Valerie. “Like I’m a side of meat. That’s how the men I dated used to talk about me before I got married, like I was a side of meat they were passing around.”
“We can’t kill her just because she might turn into one of those things,” Tom told Halverson.
“You see,” said Valerie. “You’re proving my point. You’re paying no attention to what I’m saying. You act like I don’t even exist. And you wonder why I’m so coldhearted. If I let you men get to me, I’d be a basket case in no time. So you call me an ice queen. But I’m just doing what I have to do to survive—”
“Do you mind?” Tom butted in. “Would you stop prattling away? I’m trying to save your life.”
Valerie took umbrage with his remark. She stared at him incredulously.
“Granted, she might turn into one of those things,” Tom told Halverson. “For that matter, we all might turn into one of them, but that doesn’t mean we will.”
“We don’t have time to get involved in a philosophical debate over this,” said Halverson.
“We have all the time in the world when somebody’s life is at stake.”
“No, we don’t. The longer we stand here yakking, the sooner those things will round the corner and swarm over us.”
“We’re not talking about them. We’re talking about Valerie.”
Halverson said nothing. His submachine gun hung pointed downward in his hand.
Seeing that Halverson wasn’t raising his weapon Tom heaved a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”
Halverson said nothing. He stood still.
“You know what’s really eating me?” Tom went on.
Halverson shook his head.
“What if you don’t have to die or be bitten by a zombie to contract this disease?”
“Then how could you get it?”asked Ray, walking up to them.
“It could be an airborne pathogen that’s spreading this stuff. Maybe you could turn into a zombie just by breathing air that’s contaminated with this plague. We may all have the plague already or are in the process of getting it just from breathing.”
“If that’s true,” said Ray with a wry smile, “Halverson will have to start killing all of us right now.”
“Very funny,” said Halverson. “And I’ll start with you.”
Ray gave Halverson a look.
“You’re scaring me,” Tom told Halverson.
“You’re the one who said we’ve all got this plague,” said Halverson.
At that moment, a pear-shaped middle-aged female waddled into view pushing a pink baby carriage that had large wheels with most of their spokes broken. Halverson could only imagine where the creature had pushed that carriage. The creature wore spectacles with brown plastic frames that were sliding down its moldering, obscene face. She had a tiny, hooked nose that gave her face the appearance of an owl’s.
Even when she had been alive she must have been shortchanged in the looks department, Halverson could see. Now that she had been transformed into a ghoul, she was hands down hideous.
Halverson peered into the baby carriage. Even the creature’s baby was one of those things. It was standing upright in its carriage as if directing traffic. Due to decomposition, the baby had a face that was black and yellow and wrinkled like a turtle’s neck.
Halverson felt like throwing up at the sight of the baby ghoul. Instead, he shot the creature in its tender, bald head. The baby’s head popped apart. It was somewhat like a balloon blowing up, except that brain matter burst out.
Then Halverson gunned down the baby ghoul’s hideous mother.
“We’ve got three cars, all told,” said Halverson. “Let’s peel off and head back to Burt.”
“Maybe we should get one more,” said Tom. “That Mustang’ll hold only four at the most. And the two in the backseat will have to be midgets.”
Halverson considered Valerie. Her back was propped against a square cement column. Her face hung down on her chest. She was muttering incoherently.
“Valerie’s lost a lot of blood,” he said. “We can’t hang around her
e any longer.”
“Let me try that Chrysler over there.”
Halverson watched Tom jog toward a silver Chrysler parked in a corner slot in the garage. The Chrysler was in sore need of a paint job, especially on its roof, it was plain to see.
“We’re leaving whether you’re coming with us or not,” said Halverson.
Tom was preparing to break open the driver’s side window of the Chrysler with the butt of his MP7. He waved Halverson off.
“If you can’t get that thing started, you’re gonna be left behind,” said Halverson.
Tom waved him off. “I’ll be right behind you.”
Halverson and the others piled into the van, the Taurus, and the Mustang GT. Ray helped Valerie into the van. Halverson got into the Taurus. Lemans commandeered the Mustang.
They all zoomed back to Rogers.
From the driver’s seat Halverson watched Tom in the Taurus’s side-view mirror as Tom jammed his MP7 through the Chrysler’s rolled-up window. The fractured glass rained down onto the driver’s seat and outside the driver’s side door onto the asphalt.
As he gunned the Taurus’s engine toward Rogers, Halverson pricked up his ears when he heard gunfire erupt in Rogers’s direction.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Halverson drove the Taurus at speed around the corner into the adjacent parking lot that harbored Rogers and the rest of the passengers. The Taurus’s tires screamed in protest as the car careened around the bend and into the next parking lot.
It didn’t take long for Halverson to assess the situation.
Zombies were attacking Rogers and his band with a pincers movement. Twenty-odd zombies were swarming on Rogers’s right flank while fifteen or so of the creatures were shuffling toward him on his left.
Halverson didn’t waste time trying to figure out what to do. He sped the Taurus toward the score of zombies on Rogers’s right flank. As he approached them, he floored the accelerator.
“Are you crazy?” said Rosie. “You’re not gonna be able to stop in time.”
“Who said anything about stopping?” said Halverson. “Buckle your seat belts.”
Rosie’s seat belt was already buckled. Just in case, she braced her arms against the glove compartment in anticipation of their impact.
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