by Chris Lowry
Or tried to.
He turned to the side at the last second and took the kick across his thigh.
Then he clocked her with a backhand, hard enough to knock her out of the hands of the man holding her.
She rolled over on the ground and tried to get up, but the man with the beard pushed her down with his boot and held her there.
“This could have gone easy,” he spit blood into the earth next to her.
"Hey buttcheese," Emma heard the words but they didn't quite make sense.
She looked up through a sheet of her bangs that obscured one eye.
There was a man with a lacrosse stick who took a swing at the shoulder of the guy standing over her.
She heard the meaty thwack of it, the solid thud of polished oak slugger pounding into flesh. Not the crack of a leather ball bouncing off the stick, but a sicker sound.
And instead of the roar of a crowd cheering one headed into the net, there was a scream of pain and rage.
The man over her stumbled away, right arm dangling limp next to his side.
"You broke my arm, you son of a bitch."
A shadow drenched figure danced into her vision, the menacing stick swinging lower in an arc. Her captor dodged back.
Former captor now, she amended, and giggled as he hobbled away.
Grief, and anger and fear washed through her and she couldn't control the shivers as the others joined him, cowering away to disappear into the darkness.
Then the shadow kneeled in front of her.
"Are you okay?"
Emma brushed her mop of hair back from her eye and stared up at Steve.
Long hair slicked back under a ball cap, his almost permanent grin absent under a concerned scowl.
He held out his hand and helped her to her feet.
"Thanks," she stammered and didn't like it when he shrugged it off.
She meant it, damn it, and he was acting like it was nothing. Like saving her from what those men planned to do was nothing.
An everyday act of heroism and super-hero-ry, if that was even a word. She shook the cobwebs out of her head and tried to blink away the confusion.
The punch must have hurt her more than she realized.
"He got you good, didn't he?" Steve hissed in between his teeth as his tender fingers gently probed the sore spot on the side of her head.
"I need to get home," she muttered.
"Yeah, yeah, of course," said Steve.
He took her arm and put it through his left one, right hand free to keep swinging the bat if needed.
"We should keep moving."
He pulled her along in his wake, not really waiting for her to agree. For her to say yes and follow along. He just assumed she would, and she did. Holding on to the crook of his elbow as he led her across the park.
She wasn't out of it to notice it wasn't toward her house though.
"I live that way," she tugged.
"That's the way those guys ran," he said and steered her back on course. "They may be waiting."
She glanced back over her shoulder, and indeed, she saw shadows moving in the trees.
People hobbled toward them. Just a couple that she noticed, moving like the man Steve had injured. Like they were hurt too.
But it didn't look natural.
She shook her head again. The fog of confusion was still there. She blamed the carjacking, the mugging and the power outage. The crazy woman in the street attacking the man.
It was all a lot to take in, and her head hurt on top of it.
A pounding thrum exactly where the guy punched her. A pulsing in the skull, and after a second she realized it was in time to her heart beat.
"Hang on," she said and pulled her hand free. She put her palms on her knees, leaned over and threw up.
"Gross," Steve stepped back so he wouldn't get it on his shoes. "What did you eat."
She felt her cheeks color even as her stomach clenched again and she spewed bile and chunks onto the flowerbeds that separated the sidewalk from the grass.
She stood up and wiped the back of her hand across her mouth and prayed for a breath mint.
Steve swung a small pack around and fished out a bottle of water. He screwed off the top and held it out to her.
"I don't drink from plastic bottles," she grunted. "Bad for the environment. Bad for the body."
He shook it at her.
"I think you've got other things to worry about."
She thought about it for a second. He was right, she guessed. Besides, she wanted to get the taste out of her mouth.
Emma grabbed the proffered bottle and took a small sip. She swished it around and spit it into the grass, then took another big swallow.
"I can feel the microparticles in my system," she said. But she kept the bottle and drank again.
"You can start a petition when this is all over," said Steve as he glanced around. "If anyone gives a damn about bottles then."
"They should," she said as a moan sounded in the trees behind them.
He took her arm and led her across the street and up the sidewalk. She let him.
"There is a floating patch of garbage in the Pacific ocean the size of Texas," she said as they marched.
"I wish we were there now," Steve answered.
She noticed he kept the bat ready and felt the tension in his body as he walked next to her. Shoulders tight. Vein in his neck pulsing. His head was constantly moving, watching where they were going, watching behind them, and she realized he was scared.
Which scared her too.
They reached an intersection and he looked carefully before leading her across.
Two police cars formed a roadblock across the street behind orange and white striped sawhorses that stretched from sidewalk to sidewalk.
It’s abandoned, or perhaps the officers who remained were dead. A third car was crunched between the noses of the cruisers, as if it tried to ram a way through and stuck there.
The driver’s side door was still open. Steve peeked in.
“Empty,” he announced.
“Is that a good or bad thing?”
“I say no police is a good thing,” he glanced around. “Under normal circumstances.”
“Do these seem like normal circumstances?” she asked, her voice going shrill.
Steve shook his head.
“Anything but,” he said. “Come on, let’s keep moving.”
“I just want to go home,” she said. “Can’t you steal a car or something?”
Steve stopped and stared at her a moment.
“Is that what you think of me? That I’m the type of guy who knows how to steal a car?”
“Look,” she pointed at the cop cruiser. “The door is open. Just start it up.”
“I am not stealing a cop car. Do you know how much trouble we could get in?”
“I thought you were a badass, Steve,” she said. “You strut around school like you’re the class A king of crime. What am I supposed to think?”
Steve couldn’t meet her red-rimmed eyes and dropped his gaze to study the ground.
“We’re wasting time,” he said.
Emma glared at the dark streets around them. Lights flickered in homes in the distance, and the ever present wail of alarms carried through the silent night.
“Go,” she ordered. “I’ll follow.”
He took a few steps, then glanced over his shoulder to make sure she followed. After a brief hesitation, she did.
Steve led them along the brick wall of a building and peeked around a corner.
“Clear,” he said.
They moved onto the next street and made it halfway down the block before a group of seven shadows detached from the alleyway and began to move in on them.
“Who’s there?” Steve froze.
Emma grabbed him by the back of the jacket like a drowning person seizing a raft.
“Are they dead?”
CHAPTER
“Do we look fucking dead?” A curly haired boy flic
ked on a flashlight and shined it in his face.
“Bob!” Emma shrieked.
She ran to him, control lost for the moment and wrapped him in an enormous hug.
The hug was so strong, it spun them around so he was facing the six other boys with him.
They were dressed in Scout uniforms, armed with baseball bats and crowbars, which they held in lifeless hands as they stared in wonder at their leader in the embrace of a woman.
“I know!” Bob mouthed over her shoulder to them. “Told you!”
She let him go and pointed.
“It’s them.”
Bob turned around and noticed Steve.
“Yeah, him. Asshat.”
“We’re out of time, Knob.”
“Blow me pretty boy,” said Bob. “You don’t have your boys here to back you up.”
“I don’t need my boys to end you, Knob.”
“We’re going to help you,” said Bob as he shifted his gaze to Emma.
“I already have a bodyguard. He won’t leave me alone either.”
Bob watched Steve from the corner of his eye, as if he expected his nemesis to make a swipe for his underpants and yank them up over his shoulder blades at any moment.
“You can do better than him.”
“Shut up, Knob.”
“It’s Bob, you zygote. I think you can use my real name at the end of the world.”
“What did you call me?”
Emma moved between them, but only in passing as she kept walking away from them down the street.
They stared after her for a moment, then Steve pounced into motion to fall in step behind her.
Bob waved his scouts to join him a half second later so that they line of teens stretched behind her as they hurried down the street.
“Shouldn’t we focus on the zombies,” she muttered as she stalked along. “Instead of this asinine dick measuring. Besides, I’m not some old lady! I don’t need help crossing the street.”
She reached the intersection and almost stepped off the sidewalk.
Steve lunged forward, grabbed her by the back of the shirt and yanked her back just as a speeding car plowed through the spot where she would have stepped.
The racing metal hunk kept going, straight into a building with a resounding crunch. An explosion of glass and metal rained down on the asphalt around them.
Bob rushed forward and grabbed her by the hand.
“Are you okay?”
Emma brushed shattered glass out of her hair and off her shoulders.
“Yeah, yeah, I think so.”
Bob put her hand in the crook of his elbow.
“Here, let me help you.”
He took a step off the curb. Emma, still shaken, allowed herself to be dragged along with him.
“Hey, I should do that,” Steve called after them.
“Why?” Bob snapped.
“I’m the one who saved her life,” Steve hurried after them.
“I just want to get home,” said Emma as they made it across the intersection and huddled on the corner of the street.
In one direction they could see a fire flickering a few blocks away from another car set afire. The streetlights were gone in the other direction, a tunnel of darkness leading off into the distance.
“Which way?” Steve whispered, as if he was afraid of being overheard.
“There,” Bob pointed toward the conflagration.
“How do you know where I live?” Emma said.
“Stalker,” Steve whispered again.
“It’s a small town,” Bob answered, his voice rising in defense. “I know where lots of people live.”
“Lots of girls from school.”
“So?” Bob said.
“It’s weird, Knob. You’re weird.”
“Yeah, well, you’re stupid and I can act normal.”
“What?” Steve scoffed. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
“You don’t make sense,” Bob glared then faltered. “Hey, Emma?”
Steve glanced around and saw Emma sneaking up the road.
She was a half block away, moving while the boys argued. The rest of the scouts trailed after her, a silent line of creeping ducks in a row.
“Come on,” Steve said as he jogged after her.
CHAPTER
“Are you seeing this?” Bob breathed.
“We’ve got eyes, Knob,” Steve snapped.
“What happened?” Emma asked. “What’s going on?”
Two military troop transports blocked the road, nose to nose in a v pattern, or an arrow pointing back the way the group of kids had just came.
The windows were starred and cracked, all six tires on each truck flat.
“Are those bullet holes?” Steve pointed to the black dots against the green paint, like leopard spots on a chameleon.
“Shit,” Bob said.
“You can say that again.”
Bob took a breath to repeat it.
“Don’t,” Emma advised.
The group shuffled forward as one, staying close together.
“Shell casings,” Bob said as his feet kicked spent cartridges on the asphalt.
The streetlights around them flickered out, then back on again, casting the intersection in a weak glow.
“We’re losing power,” said Bob.
As if to answer him, more lights went out, plunging the world around them into darkness. Their intersection was an island in the darkness.
“Let’s just go,” said Emma.
She led them between the noses of the trucks at the point of the V and crept between the vehicles.
Bob glanced at the driver’s door as he passed and hopped up on the running board.
“Knob, get down,” Steve hissed.
The curly haired boy glared over his shoulder.
“I’m checking on what they left,” he hissed back.
A fog eyed soldier slammed his face into the closed window, teeth snapping as he growled.
“Oh shit,” Bob shrieked as he flinched and fell.
Steve half caught him before he landed on his head, and yanked him upright.
“Quiet,” Steve warned him. “They’re attracted to noise.”
But it was too late. They could hear the moans and shuffling walk of more coming toward them.
Long shadows flickered in firelight as they stretched across the street, bouncing toward the military checkpoint.
“Great job, Knob,” Steve said under his breath. “Come on.”
He grabbed Emma by the hand and yanked her into a run away from the intersection. Bob and the Scouts raced to keep up.
Steve led them in a straight line for two blocks, then spied a twenty four hour convenience store with bars on the windows, and a neon open sign flickering to the left of the entrance.
Steve tried the door and it opened.
“In here,” he said and pulled Emma after him.
Bob and the Scouts followed. They chased after Emma and Steve, who reached the back row of four aisles and ducked between the pork rinds and the beer cooler.
“Is this safe?” Emma tried to catch her breath.
“Hey! Get out!” Mr. Patel, the owner behind the counter screamed at them. “You kids, get out of my store!”
“Quiet,” Steve hissed. “Don’t you know what’s going on out there? Shut up.”
“Shut up!” Patel screamed. “Shut up! You are in my store. You shut up.”
“Please, be quiet,” Emma begged.
Mr. Patel marched from behind the counter and glared at them.
“You get out. Now.”
He marched to the front door and slammed it open.
“Get out, or I’m calling the police!”
A policeman grabbed the store owner by his shirt and took a bite out of his scalp.
