He kicked his legs back into a sprint and instantly regretted it. He stubbed his toe and stumbled the rest of the way over to the bodies. He didn’t hesitate at all with the corpses. He rolled the men over and clawed at their pockets. From the three men he came away with two sets of keys and a lighter. He ran to the nearest car—a brown Chevy compact car with New Hampshire plates—and fumbled through the keys. The key with the bow tie fit the door and popped up the lock. He jumped in and cranked the engine as he pulled the seat lever and rocked it forward. The engine caught and he pulled the shift lever into reverse.
The car looked clean but stunk of cigarette smoke. Robby spun the wheel and backed around. He heard a thump from the rear when he backed over one of the smokers’ legs. He shifted to drive and pulled around the cement-block wall.
He stood on the brakes, screeching to a halt—the liquid flowed down the hill between the two parking lots and turned the corner to follow Robby back to the smoking area. He stopped less than ten feet from its edge. Robby clutched the gear shift and chunked it to neutral and then reverse. The Chevy’s engine wound up like a toy as Robby backed up down the alley next to the mall.
The lot extended back behind the building. He turned the wheel just a touch and slowed to a stop. Behind the mall he saw a long access road and loading docks dotting the back wall of the mall. He paused to see what the liquid would do. Now that he saw an escape route, he wanted to see how smart it was.
The trail of liquid approached the smokers and pooled around them. A fresh branch continued over to where the Chevy had been parked. He watched the corpses dissolve into the puddle—they went quick, without much of a swell of fluid—but the liquid didn’t follow the tire tracks of the Chevy. It swelled and ebbed where he had run, but couldn’t track him in the vehicle.
He wanted to leave while his luck still held. Before he hit the gas again he pulled the seat belt over and buckled himself in. With the rearview mirror adjusted so he could keep an eye out for the liquid, he drove carefully down the access road. It felt good to get his bare foot off the pavement. The foot still felt numb, but at least it wasn’t on cold pavement anymore.
At the far end of the mall, the access road looped around the building and back out to the main parking lot. He slowed and crept the car out slowly back to the main lot. The other end of the lot was so far away that Robby couldn’t even see the flowing liquid pursuing him. He found an exit down to the main road on his side of the lot so he steered for it.
Down at the parking lot exit, Robby paused for several seconds and scanned the road in both directions. He couldn’t see anything of his old truck back to the west, and he didn’t see any sign of wet pavement in either direction. He headed east, towards the highway.
He drove slowly, nervously looking for any signs of damp asphalt. His spirits lifted when he saw the entrance ramp to the highway. He was anxious to start moving south again, regardless of how much his new vehicle smelled of smoke, or how bad his foot was starting to hurt. He rolled down the window and spat a mouthful of salty blood out the window. He probed his swollen tongue against his teeth, wincing at the puncture.
The southbound entrance was first. It swept to the right and gave Robby a long acceleration lane uphill to the level of the highway. Long shadows from the streetlights stretched across the road. He stopped at the first one. He knew it must be a shadow, but the dark pavement could have been wet in that shadow. He crossed it at a crawl, ready to jump out of the Chevy at the first sign of trouble. Nothing happened.
He accelerated again and drove through the second shadow, although he still braced himself when his tires crossed the dark patch of asphalt. The highway here was mostly clear. This part of the road had soft, grassy shoulders and the few deceased cars had veered off the travel lane when their drivers expired.
ROBBY SAW THE wet trail across the highway from quite a distance. He’d been watching for it. On the other side of the center divider, it looked like the trail blocked the northbound lane as well. Robby put the car in park and left it running. He made a quick stop at the trunk of the Chevy, where he retrieved the jack handle from underneath the spare tire. Then he limped over to a gray Volvo, run aground on an embankment on the right side of the road.
The exploded-eye corpse behind the wheel of the Volvo was a man—Robby guessed he was about his father’s age, which meant about forty-something. The guy looked short. He wore wire-rimmed glasses with little circular lenses, which were now covered from the inside with eye-goo and blood.
Robby stood on his right foot. On his left foot, only his toes touched the cold grass.
“What size do you wear?” Robby asked the corpse through the Volvo’s window. His lacerated tongue felt thick in his mouth, but it also felt good to move it around. “I’m about a nine. Does that sound right?”
Robby swung the jack handle and smashed the glass next to the corpse’s face. He raked out the remnants of the window with the end of the bar and then leaned his head through the window so he could figure out the lock. The door wasn’t even locked. Robby laughed and tugged at the handle. The Volvo emitted a low “bong, bong, bong,” to let Robby know he was opening the door with the ignition engaged.
Robby tried not to step on any of the auto glass with his bare foot as he knelt next to the car to untie the corpse’s shoes. The guy wore ankle-high hiking shoes. Robby approved. He pulled the left one off the man’s foot and held it bottom-to-bottom with the sole of his foot. It looked a little big, but better than nothing. He thought for a second and then took the sock as well before he moved on to the next foot.
“I think these might fit,” he said to the corpse. “Thanks.”
Robby stuffed the socks down into the shoes and slung them over his shoulder to head back to the running Chevy.
“You know what?” he asked, turning. “I’ve got one more question for you.”
Robby smiled—he liked the way his voice sounded on the quiet highway.
“This will just take a second,” he said as he approached the Volvo again, dropped his new shoes and jack handle on the roof, and reached past the steering wheel. “If you’ve got enough battery to sound that bell, maybe you’ve got…”
Robby tried to turn the key off, but it wouldn’t turn past a certain point. He wrinkled his brow and thought through his limited knowledge of cars and driving.
“What’s wrong with this thing?” he muttered under his breath.
He heard his father’s voice in his head—“Gotta be in Park, Robby. Key won’t turn unless it’s in Park.”
“Ah,” Robby said. “Pardon me, sir.”
Robby leaned in farther and tried to move the gear shift lever towards the dash. It went as far as neutral and then stopped.
“What now?” Robby asked.
He heard his father’s voice again—“Foot on the brake. Think, bub.”
“No shit,” Robby said to the corpse. He felt like he was playing Twister with the gray Volvo and the barefoot corpse.
“Left foot, brake,” he said. He slid his bare foot alongside the corpse’s feet and depressed the brake. Then the gear shift slid easily up to Park. With that accomplished, Robby turned the key off and then back on. When he pressed it into starting position the Volvo’s engine fired to life. The gas gauge climbed slowly until it reached three quarters of a tank and then it leveled.