Amanita screamed, Seth yelled something unintelligible, Nicole began crying. Connor fought the wheel of the car and tried to accelerate through the dense mob of flesh-eaters but their collective bodies created a wall.
Amanita didn’t know what was more infuriating, the thought that the hissers might flip the car over and yank them out of broken windows like they’d done to the blonde woman, or the way Seth was repeatedly yelling something in her ear. By the fifteenth time, she was able to make out the words: “Second Gear! Second Gear!”
Amanita had no idea what it meant but Seth was adamant as shit that Connor shift the SUV to second, so she espoused the cry. “Second gear, Connor! Second fucking gear!”
Finally, Connor grabbed the gear shift and yanked it down one notch, slammed on the gas. The SUV jerked forward with a burst of energy, appeared to suck bodies under the front grill as it rolled over everything in its path, bounced violently up and down over the creatures as if it were off-roading over moguls. All four passengers were flung about, stabilized only by their seat belts. A kitchen knife whipped by Amanita’s face and pinged off the window beside her before flying off in another direction. The SUV then sideswiped two parked cars, tearing the side mirrors off, and made it five hundred yards down the road before the engine suddenly sputtered out and died.
“What the fuck!” Amanita yelled. “Keep going. They’re coming!”
Connor jiggled the key. “It’s not me. It’s dead. Something happened to the engine.”
“What do we do?” Nicole asked. She was visibly shaking. The meat cleaver in her hand vibrated so badly Amanita thought the girl might accidentally fling it across the interior.
“We’ve got to check the engine. Anyone know anything about engines? Seth?”
“Don’t look at me,” Seth said. “I only knew about second gear from that racing game. You can upgrade the engine if you win races but you don’t ever have to fix it.”
Amanita turned and looked out the back window. The hissers were sprinting down the road toward them. They had maybe a thirty second lead. “Well whatever you do do it fast because they’re coming!”
Before anyone could respond Connor reached under the dash and popped the hood. Then he was out the door and running around to the front of the SUV.
“Where’s he going?” Seth yelled. “He doesn’t know anything about engines.”
“Fuck it,” Amanita said, grabbing a carving knife and leaping out as well. She met Connor around the front as he was lifting up the hood. He cursed himself for not grabbing the flashlight. The sound of hundreds of stomping feet and rasping breaths grew louder and louder.
Thankfully the small light underneath the hood lit up the smoking engine. Strips of flesh, like stringy cheese, were bubbling on the hot engine block. The cables were spattered with red ooze. A collection of human hair was wound tightly around the fan blades. The hair was still attached to half of a woman’s face.
Connor gagged but managed to keep his food down. “I know shit about cars but that looks like a problem.”
Amanita turned away. “I’m gonna be sick.”
Shoes running on asphalt began to rebound off the houses on either side of them. The pack was almost at the SUV.
Connor reached in and grabbed the head, tried to yank it out. “The hair. I need a—”
“Here.” Amanita thrust the knife in his hand. “Hurry.”
He reached his hand down to the fan and started hacking at the tangled hair. It cut away in long clumps, wrapping itself around the knife. “I need to use both hands. Yank on the head as I do this,” he said.
“Are you crazy?”
“Do you want to die? Do it.”
She reached her hands into the engine and let her fingers touch the warm half-moon face. She didn’t know if it was warm from the engine or because the undead body had still been circulating blood. Either way the skin felt waxy and tough, the texture of someone who spent too long in a tanning bed.
There was something so incredibly wrong with what she was doing. This was a human head. It was a living person just hours ago. Now, its one eye stared back at her malevolently, as if blaming her for this.
Connor hacked away another strip of hair. The head jerked but was still tangled.
“More. Get that big clump there.”
Connor sawed with the knife, eagerly, sweating, his arm moving as fast as he could make it go. Up and down, up and down, up and down. Amanita thought of a porn video she saw online recently. A stupid thing to be thinking at a time like this. I really am going nuts, aren’t I? Get your head straight, Am. Yank this face out.
Connor zipped through one last ribbon of hair. The mangled half-face pulled free, sat in Amanita’s hands running blood all over her feet. The exposed white skull felt like coral against her hand. A chunk of gray brain fell to the road in a wet slop. She shrieked and dropped the head, kicked it away. It rolled a few feet and came to rest still giving her the stink eye.
“Connor!” It was Nicole, her voice muffled from inside the SUV.
“Let’s get outta here.” Connor slammed the hood down. Through the windshield Nicole and Seth were waving frantically for them to get back in the car. Connor sprinted to the driver’s door. A step behind, Amanita ran to the SUV’s back door but stopped short, as she felt her bladder let loose. A lunging wall of wild, spitting undead maniacs were passing the back bumper. A pair of bloody arms swung for her head as if to hug her. She only briefly saw the yellow-eyed man whose tongue dangled through a hole under his chin before she dropped straight to the ground, rolled under the vehicle.
Stampeding feet raced around the SUV, flashing by her eyes, cutting out almost every last bit of moonlight. She could hear her three friends screaming bloody murder inside the SUV, see the car start rocking above her. Heard the engine knock, fail to turn over. She anticipated arms to come probing underneath, reaching for her, but the hissers had forgotten her and were now preoccupied with the meals visible through the windows.
“Don’t leave don’t leave don’t leave,” she whispered, staring up through the SUV’s undercarriage, her lips trembling. “Pleasepleaseplease.”
She heard the engine turn over and catch, and suddenly felt like the butt of a cruel joke. Oh man, she almost wanted to laugh. This is some funny shit, Am, the way you finally bite the dust. You’re friends are gonna drive off and leave you in the middle of the road! Do they even realize you’re not in the backseat?
Above her, the exhaust pipes and muddy undercarriage shimmied in time with the engine. There were a couple of handholds above her that she might be able to grab onto if she were a stuntwoman, but this wasn’t the movies, she couldn’t ride under here like she was Indiana Jones or something. She’d fall and end up as a road pancake.
This was like that “Hobson’s Choice” column she always read in Cosmo: marry the starving artist or the asshole jock? Scream for help and expose yourself to the gum-smacking lunatics around the car, or try to run out between all those stomping feet, bolt for the nearest house and hope the doors are unlocked.
She chose the former. It just felt quicker. “Heeeeeelp!”
Immediately two faces snapped down to her right, upside down, arms reaching in for her. A mottled, graying claw gripped her jeans at the thigh and yanked her an inch toward the edge of the SUV. She gripped a small rod above her, tried to hold on, screamed until she felt her throat go dry. With barely enough room to move she pried at the fingers. The hand kept dragging her.
Saturday, 11:12
“Connor, where’s Am?” Nicole looked in the backseat. “She’s out there!”
Connor locked the doors just as the faces slammed into the windows. The pack seemed even larger now than it had before. Maybe it was just the close proximity. They all seemed to move as one entity, like an ocean of yellow and gray tentacles and teeth and popped eyeballs and striated muscle and blood. His heart was threatening to rip out of his chest. He put the keys in the ignition and turned it. It sputtered once, died.
/> “Am! Am!” Nicole was turned around in the seat now, looking out the back window at the friendly faces plastered there. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know! She didn’t get in,” Seth said. “She’s still out there.”
Connor turned the key again. He realized Amanita wasn’t in the car, too, but what could he do about it? If she didn’t make it in she was definitely dead by now. And if she hadn’t been torn to ribbons she’d be changed in another few seconds. “C’mon, do it. Start.” This time the engine turned over. “Thank you.”
“What about Am?” Nicole had her hand on the wheel, keeping him from turning it. “Are you just gonna leave? Oh my God what do we—”
There came a plea for help from somewhere around them. Distant but somehow close. The voice was unmistakable, it was Amanita. But where the hell…? Then Connor had it. Smart girl. Smarter than she wanted people to think anyway. Now be even smarter, he prayed, and stop screaming before they hear you.
“She’s alive. I hear her.”
“Me too,” Seth said.
“Here, Nicole, take the wheel and drive when I when get out.”
“Get out?! Are you crazy?”
“Just do it.”
“I can’t drive!”
“Neither could I until two hours ago. It’s not hard, step on this, turn with this, put this in the D position. Just don’t go anywhere until I’m gone and you’re alone. Got me? Got me?”
“Yes. Shit, Connor what are you doing?” She scooted over into the driver’s seat as Connor climbed into the back. A hisser lay across the hood and tried to bite her through the windshield, his teeth scraping down the glass.
“Where are you going?” Seth asked. His whole body was shaking in fear.
“She’s under the car. I’m gonna run for—”
“What?” Seth was shaking his head no. “What do you mean under the car? What do you mean run?”
“No time. Seriously. Just meet me at the police station. Now beep the horn and hold it. Now!”
Nicole beeped the horn, the hissers backed up for a fraction of a second, confused, and then continued beating on the side of the vehicle. Connor hit the power button on the sunroof, the whirring noise masked by the horn. As soon as he could squeeze through he climbed up onto the roof. All around the car a crowd of angry yellow-eyed monsters looked up at him. The ring of creatures was four and five deep. I can’t make it, he thought. It’s too far.
Then die trying. What do you care anymore, anyway?
He took a step and launched off the roof, leapt over the heads of the hissers, landed and rolled on the grass of the nearest house. The wound on his shin screamed in protest. He rolled up onto his feet and took off running down the street.
I can beat these guys. I can beat these guys.
Her leg was exposed, she saw blood-stained teeth leaning in for a bite. She kicked and yanked and kicked and yanked. Whacked her shin into the monster’s nose, and then got her leg back under the SUV. Her screams were so loud she could not tell the difference between the vehicle’s incessant horn and her own shrill voice.
Amanita slashed her nails at the faces creeping in after her and convulsed at the sight of an eyeball opening with a razor thin slice.
Then the faces whipped out of sight. The crazed flesh-eaters stood up, remained bow-legged for a half a second, and then took off running down the street. It made no sense but she didn’t care. She rolled her head and looked out from under the SUV. All the feet were charging away as well.
Tears cascaded down her cheeks, ran into the corners of her mouth. Her chest continued to rise and fall in panic and she had to fight to catch her breath.
Finally, the horn stopped. Only the sound of her wheezing remained audible over the gentle purr of the SUV’s engine.
“Am! Hurry up! Get out!”
It was Nicole, her voice clear as if she were leaning out of the window.
“Nicole? Are they gone?”
“Yes. Hurry up and get in the car.”
She squirmed out from under the car and stood up. Nicole was indeed leaning out of the driver’s side window. “You okay?”
Hell no I’m not okay, she wanted to yell. Instead she glanced down at her legs and ran her hands around her jeans. They were torn and the shin of her right leg was exposed but the bastards had not broken her skin at all. “I’m fine.”
The back door opened and Seth was there, moving across to his seat. “Then get in. We have to get to the police station.”
Amanita climbed in and shut the door. Something felt wrong about the empty space in the front seat, about Nicole being in the driver’s seat. Hadn’t she seen Connor get inside? Was he hurt? Did he die?
“Where’s Connor?”
“Somewhere out there,” Seth said, looking out the window.
“Okay, this might be rough.” Nicole stepped on the gas. The car jumped forward and everyone flew off their seats. “First time, guys. Sorry.” This time she applied gentle pressure and the SUV moved forward gracefully.
“You smell like piss,” Seth said.
Amanita looked down at the wet spot on her lap and began to cry.
Saturday, 11:15
This was worse than doing sprints at soccer practice. There was no reprieve at the end of the field. This was constant exertion for one’s life, legs pumping so fast they burned. Stitches ran up Connor’s sides as he cut right at the end of the block, tore across someone’s unkempt front lawn and found himself on an unfamiliar street. The adrenaline coursing through his body was tapering off, making it hard to breathe. He was hell and gone from the police station.
Keep going. Just run until you fall down and die.
He didn’t look behind him because he already knew what chased him, he could hear it echoing in the air, could smell it washing over him like a tsunami.
He reached the end of this block, took another right, calculating how he might get to the police station by the way the crow flies. He needed to head north west, stay off the roads.
Over the fences and through the yards, to grandmother’s house we go.
He spotted a group of twenty-somethings in the street up ahead, hovering around a car. One of them held a beer. They stood like statues watching him advance. Did they see the massive crowd of flesh-eaters behind him? They must have, it was their in their eyes, in the way one of them had his beer can halfway to his mouth, just hovering there. They were bigger than Connor, stronger, could maybe help him. No, somehow they had not met Castor’s newest problem yet.
But they sure as hell would in ten more seconds.
He yelled for help anyway, told them to start the car, let him in, but his voice was gone. His mouth dedicated itself to the sole task of sucking in gulping breaths as he fought through the cramps in his sides.
A hisser lunged at him. He didn’t see the man attack, merely saw the body go flying by his left side as he cut up a driveway. The body rolled into a bush and got tangled inside it. The others ran up the driveway after him, some bouncing off the side of the house. Somewhere behind him he heard a challenge, then a scream. He could see the bloody beer can rolling in the street in his mind’s eye.
We’re all gonna die. They won’t stop. We need guns.
There was a swing set in the back yard, but in the dark he almost didn’t see it until it was too late. He leapt over the swing, saw the black outline of the five-foot wooden fence ahead of him, its pointed slats like teeth jutting up from the earth. He judged the crossbeams, knew by the time he stopped to step on the lower one they’d get him. He could practically feel their fingertips on his shoulders.
This is it. The end. Please let it be quick.
Instead of going for the cross beam he leapt for the top and wrapped his hands around the points. The wood cut into his hands, but he paid it no mind. He let his momentum carry him up, pushed up to the top. Behind him he heard the massive collision with the swing set. Chains rattled, a metal slide groaned. He got one leg over the top, turned himself around, caught sight
of the pile up in the backyard. Thirty to forty upset flesh-eaters, hissing and flailing and twisting to get up on their feet the way cats do when placed on their backs. It was a reprieve, maybe enough to get far enough ahead to hide, but he knew he couldn’t stop and find out.
He hit the ground in the next yard and ran. Behind him, he heard the fence shaking as his hunters did their best to scale it.
Saturday, 11:21
“Turn here.” Seth read the street sign as they drove by it. “I think it said Junger. Anyone know Junger?”
“Yeah,” Nicole answered. “We’re near Swanson’s Liquors.”
She knew it because Amanita knew it, had talked about standing out front and asking some of the men in town to buy them wine. Nicole had argued they’d get reported and go to jail. Amanita had told her not to worry, that guys like young girls. Put on a wife beater and don’t wear a bra underneath. Guys will do anything for you. Hell, the cops in this two-bit town will buy for us.
In the end Nicole had talked Amanita out of such an idiotic plan. Partly because she didn’t want a run in with the police marring her record and screwing up her chances of getting into a good college, and partly because she was too afraid to show her body. There were things she was not willing to expose to people.
She rubbed her thigh absentmindedly as she straightened the SUV out.
“Swanson’s is on the north side of Farmers.” Amanita climbed up into the front seat. “If we’re near Farmers we’re actually close by the police station.”
On the radio, the news reporter confirmed that a plane had indeed crashed in Castor but that no reports had yet been filed and no authorities had issued a statement yet. The press may as well have been playing twenty questions for all they seemed to know.
Hissers Page 12
