Authors: Megan Berry
“We ain’t waitin’,” Silas says as he aims his gun and quietly takes down the three zombies in our path– no fuss, no muss. He steps out into the street and jogs across the road, going to the sidewalk so that he can keep to the shadows of the fences.
I follow, close on his heels, my heart hammering like crazy in my ear. We both freeze when we see movement through the back window.
“They’re in there,” I mutter, and Silas nods grimly.
“Something is.”
“What are you going to do?” I ask, making Silas smile, though it isn’t a nice smile. It’s a ‘we’re getting even’ kind of smile.
He doesn’t answer me as we creep along until we reach the back of the truck. I can’t believe they haven’t spotted us and made a run for it yet.
Silas charges up to driver’s side window and points his gun at the driver. I don’t have a clear view inside the truck, but I do see the surprise on Silas’ face as he takes a giant step back.
I cautiously move closer and see a zombified Jamie snarling and snapping at the window. I jump a little when another zombie smacks her head against the back window, trying to get to us. It’s the woman who offered to dry our clothes for us. I struggle with mixed emotions. They were living breathing people who I met yesterday, and now they are zombies. On the other hand, the assholes did steal our truck and left us stranded!
Silas doesn’t even consult me before he yanks opens the driver’s door and jumps back. I quickly follow. Jamie, the zombie, falls out of the truck on his face. I wince when I hear his teeth hit the pavement. “You could’ve given me a little warning,” I mutter. Silas ignores my complaint, waiting in silence for the zombie to get up and start staggering towards us. He waits until he’s closed an alarming distance before shooting zombie Jamie in the head.
I get to see why he waited so long, first hand, as gore shoots out the back of Jamie’s head. Silas shot him point blank, and it made one hell of a mess. I’m guessing he didn’t want any of the brain splatter to go back inside the truck. I stare down at the guy who’d saved our lives yesterday and feel a knot form in my stomach. His skin hasn’t had time to take on the truly rotten look that most zombies quickly develop, he must have turned recently. There is a huge bite out of his cheek and his bottom lip is torn off and completely missing. I look away, being bitten in the face would be a terrible way to go.
Silas doesn’t even bother to look down as he steps over his kill and repeats the process, this time opening the back door. The female zombie falls out of the truck just as gracefully as Jamie did, but she doesn’t get back up. She is in much worse shape than Jamie. I feel sick as I watch her use her only remaining arm to pull herself towards us, her teeth bared and snapping.
Silas takes pity on her, or maybe he just doesn’t want to wait around all day until she finally gets close enough. He walks up and sticks his knife through the base of her skull. She stills instantly, and it’s a mercy. She is covered in ragged bites, and her left arm is completely missing—she wasn’t just bitten, she was torn apart.
My stomach heaves as Silas reaches into the backseat, pulls out a half-eaten arm, and tosses it down beside its previous owner, the flesh smacking noisily on the pavement.
I stare into the backseat and wrinkle my nose up at all the blood and chunks of gore that litter every surface. “Silas…” I start to say, but he’s already shaking his head.
“Forget it, Blondie, we’re taking it.” Silas feels the need to tell me and I let out an annoyed huff as I walk around to the passenger side. It’s not much better in the front. Red blood splatter mixes with dark zombie juices, making me cringe as I gingerly lower myself down on the seat. It’s one thing to be gore covered in the middle of a fight for your life, but for me to purposely climb inside this truck uses up a whole new level of self-control that I never even knew I had.
Silas gets in, not even glancing at the gore, and starts checking all the gauges to make sure everything is working right. It’s a good idea; it would suck to be in the middle of a bunch of zombies and have the truck crap out. The gas tank is full, so Silas puts our petri dish on wheels into drive and we slowly circle back towards the house that had all the zombies so interested.
“What’s the plan?” I ask, and Silas looks away from the road long enough to give me an assessing look.
“You’re not gonna like it,” he says, making my stomach clench, but I shake my head.
“If it saves Ryan, I don’t care if you want me to ride naked on a horse into the middle of those zombies,” I say with a grin, causing Silas to look at me sharply.
“Is that an option?” he asks, causing me to reach over and playfully punch him in the arm.
“Okay, be serious,” I tell him, and the smile slips from his lips.
“I want you in the back of the truck making a bunch of noise so they chase us,” he says baldly, and my mouth drops open.
“Outside?” I ask for clarification, and he nods. I take a deep breath. “Okay,” I say, and I’m a little offended by how surprised he looks at my willingness to cooperate.
“The back window opens, you should be able to climb in and out through there.” I stare behind me at the blood-smeared window. “Okay,” I echo, my voice quieter this time, reflecting my doubt. “Should I go now?” I ask, and Silas nods.
“It can’t hurt to get into position. Just make sure you stay low enough that you don’t get thrown out of the truck, but high enough that they can see you.” I nod my head. “Oh, and, Blondie…” he says, making me look back at him. “Make sure you make a lot of noise—we want their attention.”
I try to memorize his advice as I climb over the bloody seats, making a face when my hand lands in a wet spot. I cringe again when my knees land in several pints of fresh blood, and I know that this must be where the Jamie zombie ate his friend. I try to slide the window open, but my hand slips because of the wet, sticky blood. I wipe my hands on my pants and try again. This time I manage to get a little traction and it slides open, letting in a much needed breath of fresh air.
The window isn’t very big, but I squeeze through once I take off my backpack and toss it out the window ahead of me. I feel like a calf being birthed as I slide out the window and land on my belly in the bed of the truck.
A surge of excitement goes through me when I see that our bags are in the back of the pickup box. The group must have moved them out of the cab to make room, and no doubt wanted to keep them around to scavenge through our supplies.
The wind whips my ponytail into a frenzy, and I dig through my bag, pulling out the noisy Glock. I quickly load a couple spare magazines and leave them next to my knee.
Silas slows down, turns the corner, and then quickly flips a U-turn, making me grab onto the side to keep steady. I open my mouth to berate him but suddenly find myself facing an enormous crowd of zombies. They are still facing the house, moaning and clawing at the vinyl, but when Silas lays loudly on the horn, every eye turns in our direction.
The zombies let out a collective hungry moan and begin moving towards us like a slow wave. “Make some noise!” Silas yells from the front seat as he honks the horn again. Each blast of the horn makes my body shake with fear. To say you’ll come out here and be the bait and to actually be out here with nothing between you and the dead are two
very
different things.
I look up at the house and see movement in one of the small side windows—Ryan—it gives me a bit of purpose, and I brace myself for the craziest thing I’ve ever done.
“Hey!” I yell, waving my arms in the air. It works. The zombies lock their gaze on me and put a little extra hustle in their step. I wait, watching as they get closer and closer, and still Silas doesn’t move the truck.
“Silas!” I yell back through the window. “What’s going on?” Terrible what-ifs flash through my head, like what-if the truck suddenly breaks down?
“Hold tight, Blondie, we have to let them get a little closer or the ones at the back won’t move,” Silas calls back.
I stare out at the herd, watching as they get closer, twenty feet, and then fifteen…
A snarl pulls my attention away from the main group, and I realize with a sickening jolt that a lone zombie has managed to walk right up to the side of the truck without my notice. He bumps his chest angrily against the metal and growls. I sidestep to make sure he can’t reach me with his frantic clawing, and raise the Glock.
I aim carefully at his head and punch a new hole in it for him. At this distance, I would have been pretty ashamed of myself if I’d missed. He goes down hard, and I do a quick three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn to make sure I’m not going to get anymore smelly surprises. There are a couple zombies up ahead on the road, but they are still pretty far away, and I really hope Silas will take care of them for me.
I turn back, raise the Glock, and start firing wildly into the crowd. The zombies are only a couple feet away from the tailgate now. I let myself give in to my terror and let out a ragged war cry that turns into a girly shriek.
“Silas!” I scream, ready to turn my Glock towards the driver’s seat if he doesn’t get going. The truck finally starts moving, but he drives so slow that we are only keeping a couple feet ahead of the pack. I go and stand at the front of the box so I can lean against the cab for support. I take the time to aim more carefully and take down a couple more zombies. I don’t want to use up all my bullets, just in case I need them.
Like the damn thing could read my mind and wanted to prove me wrong, a zombie comes snarling and snapping from the left. I act on instinct, raising my pistol to his ragged, ugly face and keep squeezing the trigger.
“Come and get me!” I scream, letting my rage at the situation come unleashed for a minute.
Like why is it so hard for me to reach the cabin and find out if my best friend is still alive?
I dry fire and have to stop my carrying on so I can reload. The zombie I shot is a pile of gory pulp on the sidewalk. I look up and my breath freezes in my lungs. Silas and I are zombie pied pipers; the street behind us is lined with the dead. They moan and groan, following our slow moving parade like it’s their only mission in life. Silas turns a corner and stops abruptly, making me pitch wildly in the box before falling flat on my face.
“Hold on!” he yells through the open window, a little too late since I’m already on my face! I feel him slam the truck into reverse and open my mouth to scream at him not to go backwards. That’s where the biters are, but it’s too late.
I feel the wet slap of bodies bouncing off the tail gate. “Silas!” I scream at him, but he doesn’t answer. I dare a peek over the top of the box and then squeeze my eyes shut again. I don’t want to see this.
“Sorry, J, when I took that corner there was another big group of those bastards up ahead, I didn’t want to risk getting surrounded,” Silas yells out the window as he cranks the wheel like a mad man.
The truck slams into drive, and Silas pins it. I finally risk opening my eyes and come face to face with a zombie. He’s managed to hook his arms over the tailgate, and it doesn’t look like he’s into letting go of his meal on wheels. I stand up and immediately lurch forward when Silas hits the gas. I stumble right up to the zombie, cursing Silas, and have to use my hands to brace against the zombie’s shoulders to keep from falling off the end of the truck. The zombie gives a hopeful moan and let’s go of the tailgate to try and grab at me.
I manage to step back quickly, using the momentum from pushing off of his shoulder to avoid his reaching grasp, and he falls backwards onto the ground.
Thank God these things are so stupid, or the human race wouldn’t stand a chance.
I raise the gun and think about shooting Silas, but decide against it, at least for now, since he’s the one driving the truck. I fire into the crowd instead, but I don’t take down nearly as many as I’d like. I’m still a novice at shooting, and the swaying of the truck as we drive doesn’t improve my aim any.
Sweat trickles down my shirt collar—it feels like we’ve been at this all day—so it’s extra disheartening when I look up and see that we’ve managed to draw the zombies only one short block.
“This is taking all day,” I complain to Silas as I pause my shooting, my arms are getting tired and my shoulders are aching. Silas fires a shot out the driver’s side window and, for a minute, I think he didn’t hear me.
“I know what you mean!” he yells back at last, and I frown at him. I doubt very much that he knows how it feels to be back here playing the carrot on a string for a bunch of zombies.
“How much farther?” I ask, being careful to keep the whine from my voice. I want to be a whiner, but it won’t help the situation, and Silas is the type to judge me, not give sympathy.
Silas is silent for a moment while he thinks about it. “I’d say another two blocks or so, it will give the stragglers at the back a chance to catch up.” He stops for a minute to shoot at an especially ugly zombie that is staggering out from between two houses. “When I say get in, don’t waste any time, get through the window, then we’ll gun it back to the house and hope Ryan is smart enough to have gotten the hell out of dodge when the zombies left.”
My heart pounds in my chest, and even though I’m not especially religious, I send up a quick prayer.
We roll slowly through the street, just fast enough to stay ahead of the crowd. Whenever the zombies start losing interest or begin to branch off, Silas slams on the brakes and I yell like a crazy person and wave my arms to draw their attention back our way.
I turn my back on my stinky fan club, thankful the wind is blowing in my favor, and take a look over the top of the cab to see what we’re dealing with ahead. There are a few zombies stumbling towards us from that direction, but the road is mostly clear. I stare at the intersection we are closing in on and grin. I’m pretty sure this is the block that Silas will turn the truck around.
I see movement out of my peripheral vision and spin, gun ready. I’ve gotten used to the dead heads behind us, but the zombies that stagger up to the sides of the truck from somewhere else still terrify me. One scratch and I’d be joining them in all their undead bliss.
My finger twitches on the trigger as I lock onto the moving shape and squeeze.
I let out a hoarse cry and jerk my hand to throw off the bullet’s trajectory—too late—I realize belatedly that the figure standing on the front porch just walked out of the house with a backpack strapped to his back.
Ryan looks just as shocked as I feel. He dives off the porch when the bullet blasts into the concrete right beside his head.
“Silas, stop the truck!” I scream, feeling weak at the knees with relief that I didn’t just kill the guy I’m starting to have feelings for. Silas slams on the brakes, and I have to hold onto the fuel tank to keep from getting thrown out. “Run!” I scream at Ryan as he gets to his feet and catches his first glimpse at the macabre crowd behind us.
My breath catches, and it’s like everything slows down all of a sudden. Ryan starts running just as the first wave of zombies on the road have almost reached him. We accidentally lured these things right to Ryan! I feel like an idiot, even though there is no way we could have known. Silas puts the truck in park and gets out.
Shots start to ring out as Silas lays down some heavy cover fire and zombies only a couple feet behind Ryan start to fall. My hands tremble, but I don’t dare fire my gun this close to Ryan. It’s bad enough that I already shot at him once.
“Keep them off my back, Blondie,” Silas yells at me, and I struggle to peel my attention off Ryan. I look out over the cab of the truck and see a couple of the stragglers closing in on Silas. I kneel on the fuel tank and lean over the cab of the truck, using the roof as an arm rest as I line up the closest threat and squeeze the trigger. My slug hits him in the shoulder and he stumbles back. I cuss under my breath, what is up with all the accidental shoulder shots? I line him up again, and thankfully, this time I manage to put him down for good.
I line up the next one, remembering to breath, and squeeze the trigger. I hit him right in the neck, most likely his spinal cord because his neck suddenly droops down to rest on his shoulder. I wince as I watch him start to walk in circles, unable to get his bearings.
I feel a thump as something lands in the back of the truck with me. I spin, gun up just in case it’s a zombie. Ryan grabs the barrel of the gun, and twists it quickly away from his chest.
“You almost shot me!” he exclaims, wrapping me in a great big bear hug as the zombies that were hot on his trail bump up against the tail gate. I hear Silas’ door slam, and I pull away from Ryan and throw myself down on my butt.
“Hold on,” I warn Ryan just as Silas throws the truck in gear and pins it. Ryan stumbles backwards, but I grab his shirt and pull him with all my strength, towards me. He lands on top of me, making the air vacate my lungs—and not in a romantic way.
“Sorry,” he mumbles in my ear as he rolls off me and sits up. “That guy’s a maniac,” he says, rubbing his elbow where he hit it on the hard metal of the truck box.
“You have no idea,” I say and let out a giggle. Nothing about this crazy situation is funny, but I’m so relieved that Ryan is back.
Silas goes pedal to the metal and puts some distance between us and the zombies before slamming to a stop, making both Ryan and I protest loudly from the back.
“Get in here!” Silas yells, and I stare at the window for a second before ignoring it and jumping to the ground. Ryan follows me and I throw myself into the backseat, making sure to keep my eyes from examining the upholstery too closely.
Ryan isn’t half as lucky and openly stares at it. “What in the hell happened back here?” he asks before continuing without giving us a chance to answer. “How did you get the truck back anyway?”
“Found it,” Silas grunts from the front seat, shrugging.
Ryan sends him an annoyed glance and then looks at me for his answers. I respond by punching him as hard as I can, right in the arm.
“Ow!” Ryan yells, holding his arm. I catch Silas grinning in the rear-view mirror and send him a warning look. “What was that for?” Ryan makes the mistake of asking.
“Are you serious?” I yell at him, and then after thinking about it, I punch him again.
“Okay, that actually hurt,” Ryan complains, and I will admit that it feels good to cause him a bit of pain after everything he put us through.
“I can’t believe you left without me!” I yell, and Ryan at least has the good grace to look sheepish. I catch him throwing an accusatory look at Silas, and shake my head.
“Don’t you dare blame him. You shouldn’t have lied to me in the first place. How would you feel if I did the same thing to you?” I ask and watch his face fall. He probably didn’t think of it like that. I know for a fact that if I ever pulled a stunt like he did, he’d be royally pissed.
“I’m sorry,” Ryan says, and I can tell by his face that he really means it, but I’m not ready to let him off the hook so easily.
“Do you even know what I went through?” I demand, and Ryan nods.
“Worry,” Ryan replies. He’s so sure, he has the right answer, so I shake my head. I was worried, but I’m going to completely terrorize him before I admit it.
“Actually… the mall was overrun by zombies while you were gone. Silas and I had to fight them off. Ryder turned into a zombie and tried to eat me up on the roof. I got zombie guts in my ear, Ryan, IN MY EAR!” I’m shouting by the time I reach the part about my ear.
Ryan opens his mouth “I’m so sor—,” he starts to speak, but I shake my head and hold up my finger.
“Oh, I am
not
done.” I say ominously, and I watch in satisfaction as he actually breaks out in a sweat. “I go off on a rescue mission with this…” I point at Silas for emphasis, “lunatic! I end up riding in the back of a truck because I’m the zombie bait, and we have a zombie parade down Main Street trying to lure the zombies away from a house that you’re not even in! You’re lucky I didn’t shoot you for real!” I pause to take a deep breath, and then the thought hits me. If Ryan is here with us, who’s in the house that we lured the zombies away from.
I glance up at Silas and see that he’s suddenly thinking the same thing. He cranks the wheel and speeds back towards the house.
Ryan tries to hold my hand, but I pull it out of his grasp.