He turned to face the road and saw he’d reached Front Street. He turned left at the corner and found himself on the broken avenue. Two more blocks and he’d hit 50. Then he could punch the gas and rocket his way back into Holly’s arms.
But first he needed to shake the monster. He couldn’t risk the damn thing getting into the cab again. He scanned the street ahead, looking for anything he could use. The zombies had left the area, though they might still be hot on his tail. He spotted the wreck that lay snarled in the middle of the street, and he decided it was his best chance. Goosing the accelerator, he steered to the left, trying his best to get his aim just right.
A growl from behind told him the zombie had almost entered the cab again. He could smell the stink of its flesh, but the stench only added to the electric fire of his own terror. He didn’t want the thing anywhere near him. Its very existence horrified him, and he just wanted it to go away.
He gave the giant a final glance. Its white eyes gleamed in the middle of its dark, mottled face.
“Fuck you.”
He slammed the truck’s right side into the blackened wreckage. The booming sound of the crash gave way to the scraping of steel against steel. He turned as the monster hit the wrecked cars and disappeared from the cab, its good arm tearing off at the shoulder and hanging by its rotten fingers for a second before flopping out of the cab and onto the pavement.
Blake peered through the shattered rear window and watched the giant roll across the blacktop, skin and muscle sloughing off against the street. He laughed, a triumphant, almost hysterical sound that filled the cab. As he watched the zombie flail to a halt before an approaching pack of other corpses, he thought he’d never been so happy in his entire existence.
“Got you, asshole! I fucking got you!” Howling, he punched his fist against the ceiling. He’d made it! He watched the zombies fade into the smoke of the burning town, and he decided it was just what they deserved. Maybe Rundberg would swallow them whole.
He returned his eyes to the road and screamed. The pickup jumped the curb hard enough to crack his teeth together. He saw the tree coming and tried to steer away, but he was too close and driving too fast.
The Ford stopped instantly, but Blake did no such thing. He flew through the shattered windshield. His broken leg cracked against the dash and sent a bolt of agony up his spine. Something struck his chest and robbed him of his air, and then he saw grass give way to concrete beneath him as he sailed over a lawn and above a driveway. He saw the pavement rushing to meet him.
I love you, Holly.
And then nothing.
TWENTY-SEVEN
He gasped in surprise when his eyes opened. A miracle. It had to be. No other explanation made a lick of sense. Only the dumbest luck could have spared him otherwise. He should be nothing but a bloody smear on somebody’s driveway.
“Thank God,” he whispered. “Thank you so much.” He took a deep breath, and the air had never tasted sweeter. Even the choking scent of burning timber smelled wonderful to him. It all meant he had a chance to see Holly again.
He needed to get moving. He doubted the zombies had forgotten about him. They’d be here any moment.
But he felt so comfortable. He didn’t even feel any pain.
“Too fucking bad,” he said. “Get up and get moving.”
He said it, and he tried to do it. His body refused to cooperate, though. He sent commands to his arms and legs, his hands, feet, fingers, and toes, but not a single one of them would obey. Nothing would move, nothing at all.
“No. This isn’t… no!”
He tried to raise his head so he could inspect his injuries, but he couldn’t do anything but stare up at the sky. Panic electrified his brain, scrambling his thoughts. He knew why he didn’t feel any pain, though. The truth reached through the terror and showed itself to him.
“No!”
His vision clouded, and he blinked. A tear slipped down his face. He wondered if it was the last thing he’d ever feel. As he realized he’d never be able to wrap his arms around Holly again, he choked on a sob. He couldn’t even move the damn things. How could he ever hold her?
“Please move.” His voice quivered as the tears continued. “Oh, please just move for me.”
But his limbs refused.
The first zombie stepped into view, a male with strands of greasy black hair hanging past its shoulders. It looked down at him, something like curiosity in its eyes. Another appeared, this one a woman. It growled and dropped to its knees on his left side.
“Please, God. I’m sorry. Whatever I did, I’m sorry. Just let me move. Let me get out of here so I can see Holly. Please.”
God didn’t answer. Blake heard something tear, and when the woman entered his vision again she was chewing on something wet and red. Blood dribbled from her lips and onto her chin like chicken grease.
Blake screamed. The sound filled his head. He thought it might have burned his throat, but he couldn’t tell. He stopped long enough to draw another breath, and then he screamed again, a cry full of anguish and horror. Lights exploded in his eyes, and by the time they cleared the dead things had surrounded him. Some looked down at him, waiting. Most darted forward with feral movements. They dragged him back and forth across the pavement as they tore pieces from his body.
He felt nothing as they killed him one bite at a time. Terror filled his world, and it was much worse than pain. He wanted it to stop. He cried and begged and made promises, anything if the terrible horror would just disappear.
Slowly, it did.
EPILOGUE
“There!”
“You sure? That’s not the truck they left in.”
“No, I’m not sure. It looks like a fresh wreck, though.”
“You can spot a fresh wreck?”
“Just keep the engine running, okay? We’ll check it and move on.”
“Whatever.”
Holly gave Marissa a glare. Her friend had been one of only two volunteers she’d found, but the woman’s constant questions already had her on edge. A few more and she just might pop her one. She’d already caught herself curling her hand into a fist more than once.
Marissa pulled the station wagon to a stop by the curb. The rest of Millwood had decided they couldn’t take the remaining pickup. With one missing, it had become too important. Holly had fought for it, but in the end she knew she’d have traveled to Rundberg on a pogo stick if it meant finding Blake.
Silence hung over Front Street like a mold-spotted shroud. Holly stepped out of the passenger seat slowly, the shotgun gripped tight in her hands. Her father had given her the Remington for Christmas six years earlier, and she’d kept it in perfect working order in the time since, cleaning and oiling it after every use. She knew it would serve her well if needed.
She pressed a finger to her lips as Marissa and Collin climbed out of the wagon. Collin had a revolver on his hip, and he kept his hand on the butt, establishing command presence like an old cop. She wanted to tell him how ridiculous he looked, but she remained quiet. She’d rather listen for approaching footsteps.
Stepping across the pavement quickly, she kept her eyes locked on the giant Ford. It looked like it might’ve been a great vehicle before somebody tried to take it for a poorly navigated joyride. Even colliding with a tree had barely dented in the truck’s cow catcher. Somebody had destroyed the windows. She took another step toward the truck and noticed the missing door on the passenger side, all the dents and scrapes on the cab.
“Shit,” Marissa whispered.
“Let’s hurry it up,” she told the others. She swept the Remington’s barrel over the area, her finger hovering just over the trigger. A ribbon of anxiousness tickled the base of her spine as the others moved past her.
Collin paused at her side. “Looks like all that smoke was from here.”
“We knew it was.” Most of Millwood’s population had figured it out a full forty-eight hours earlier, when the first columns of black smoke had appeared on
the horizon. Holly turned her eyes to the end of the street, where most of the town lay in piles of cinders and ash, drifts of smoke floating lazily from the ruins. She saw no movement, and they hadn’t encountered any zombies on the roads leading to Rundberg. Maybe the things had burned up in the fire.
She knew better than to take it on faith. “Keep your eyes open,” she said.
Marissa nodded. She approached the truck cautiously, Collin at her side. Holly watched them close to within ten yards of the vehicle before turning her eyes to the surrounding homes.
Had they entered town this way? It was probably the easiest route, branching right off 50 the way it did. She wondered if the town had been this quiet when Blake and the rest reached the city limits. Maybe it had been teeming with zombies from the beginning, but maybe they’d reached the grocery without much of a fight. She knew that was wishful thinking. If it had been such an easy task, they would have made it back to Millwood. Of course, they could have taken a different route back to town, broken down along the way. They’d have to check the surrounding roads before heading back. She wouldn’t leave Blake stranded if she could help it. She loved him far too much for that.
“Holly.”
She turned and answered Marissa with a look. The woman stood in the truck’s bed, waving her over.
“Yeah?” She kept the Remington’s stock in the pit of her shoulder as she approached.
“We got two of them,” Collin said. His face had gone slack. He looked a little sick. Or maybe it was sadness. Both seemed abundant these days.
She felt her heart accelerate. She jogged the last few steps. “Which ones?”
“Motts and one of the others. I think it’s Eric.”
She peered into the bed. Two bodies lay in a jumble of limbs. A white sheet she guessed might have been covering them at some point had twisted with their forms. Jeremy was easy to spot. His face remained intact, though it was badly bruised. Most of the back of his head was missing, though. She couldn’t say for sure, but it looked self-inflicted. It was definitely a gunshot wound. She found herself hoping it was a suicide. The only other explanation was too terrible to consider.
A look at the other corpse told her it was in fact Eric. Most of his head was gone, obliterated, but she remembered the clothes he’d been wearing when they left. She saw the bites on his throat, his arms. They told her why his head didn’t exist anymore.
“Hell.” She thought the word summed things up nicely. Several boxes had broken open, sending a collection of cans and plastic bags scattered throughout the bed. At least they’d reached Tandy’s before everything went to hell. If she could find any silver lining, that was it.
She felt eyes on her, looked up to find Marissa giving her a question with a cocked eyebrow.
“Pack up the food,” she told them. “Do it fast, and get as much of it as you can. I’ll keep looking out.”
“Okay.”
“What about them?” Collin asked as his finger waggled back and forth from one body to the other.
“If we’ve got the room and the time. We see a threat, and we’re gone.”
“Right.”
“Now move. Fast.” She stepped away from the pickup and into the middle of the street. A scan of the area revealed no movement. That tickle at the base of her spine persisted, though. She couldn’t relax until they pulled back into Millwood, and she doubted she’d feel much better then. The world didn’t allow it anymore.
She paced back and forth, looking everywhere at once. Marissa and Collin loaded cans into boxes, making more noise than was safe. She listened past the noise and searched for footsteps, hisses, anything that might mean zombies. No dead cannibal would get the drop on her. She’d prove she was capable of doing what she’d set out to do.
She took another step and froze. A patch of blue caught her eye. Something about the faded shade reminded her of Blake, of that denim jacket she’d told him looked lame.
“Collin,” she said.
“Yeah? He froze halfway between the truck and the wagon, a box that looked close to splitting cradled in his arms.
“Get that in the wagon and then cover me. Hurry.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
He double-timed it to the wagon and opened the back door with one hand. He sat the box in the back, and in the next moment he drew the pistol.
“Thanks,” she said. She took off at a jog for the patch of blue. After a dozen steps she grew certain. There was no mistaking the jacket or the body wearing it. She’d found Blake.
Her heart sank, but she fought the urge to drop the Remington and run to his side. She couldn’t afford to lower her guard.
She heard Blake hiss as she came within a dozen feet of him. Blood covered him, staining most of his jacket and all of his pants. She saw the bites that marked his flesh, the hollowed cavity that had been his belly. He’d died violently, and that knowledge tore her up inside.
Holly slowed to a walk as the first tears filled her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. She kept a distance, because the noises Blake made told her he’d come back as one of them. It wasn’t fair. She raised the shotgun and peered down the length of its barrel, walking in a wide circle until she could see her lover’s face.
He never moved, never even tilted his head to see her. Something had paralyzed him. She didn’t know if it had been the zombies or the truck’s collision with the tree, and she knew it didn’t matter. The result had been the same. She watched as his eyes searched her out. His irises had already begun to fade, but she could see the hunger in them. She could hear the anger rasping past the lips that had curled away from his teeth.
“Blake,” she said, her voice cracking.
His jaw opened and snapped shut, teeth clacking. She didn’t jump, gave no reaction at all.
“You okay?” Collin called from the wagon.
“I will be,” she replied. Blinking more tears from her eyes, she looked at the man she loved. She remembered the times before the plague, when they’d been happy and careless and had thought they’d be married sooner rather than later, when they didn’t have to worry about scavenging for food or outrunning the corpses that wanted them for their own sustenance. She remembered his eyes, his smile, his lips and touch. Finally, she recalled the way he loved her, sometimes tender and sometimes rough and urgent.
But Blake was gone now. This thing that looked like him had taken his place.
“I love you,” she said. “I wish you’d made it back to me. I know you tried.” She aimed the Remington at his temple and pulled the trigger.
The blast echoed through the sky, and then the world fell silent again.
the author
Nate Southard is the writer of Red Sky, Just Like Hell, Broken Skin, He Stepped Through, and the graphic novels Drive and A Trip to Rundberg. His short stories have appeared in such venues as Cemetery Dance, Thuglit, and numerous anthologies. Nate lives in Austin with his girlfriend and a quartet of lazy pets. He is currently hard at work on his next novel. Nate’s a friendly kinda guy, and he welcomes communication with readers. You can learn more at natesouthard.com.
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