“I guess so. But that’s not very positive.”
“Who said anything about being positive?”
“Look!” said Dan, pointing out the window. He was sitting in the front seat now.
Up ahead, there were a couple people in the middle of the dirt road. Their clothes were tattered and one of them was so thin that Dan couldn’t believe she was still standing on her own two feet.
They staggered more than they walked, shuffling forward aimlessly.
“Now’s the time to make a joke about zombie movies,” said Rob.
Neither Olivia or Dan responded.
“Really? Nothing? That’s the best I’ve got tonight. Tough crowd.”
“Since when did you start treating this all like a standup comedy routine?”
“It happens sometimes when I get really tired. I didn’t see either of you offering to drive.”
“What are we going to do?” said Dan.
“You think there’s any chance that’s your friend Max? Because if it is, I don’t think he’s going to be much help to us.”
“No,” said Dan. “There’s no way.”
But inside, he wasn’t sure. Max had sounded so intelligent and competent over the radio. For the first time, a new possibility hit him. The possibility that Max and his friends were alive, that Dan had found them, but that they themselves were in terrible shape, just barely hanging on, and about to starve to death.
“Well,” said Rob. “I’ve got one idea. These people don’t look like much of a threat. But get ready for a fight, even so.”
Dan already had his handgun in hand.
Rob honked the horn. It was an ancient horn, but it still worked.
The people in the road turned back vaguely to look.
Rob kept driving. He was driving slowly at this point, mostly because of the bumps in the road.
The strangers in the road finally parted, standing to the side, and staring blankly at the car as it drove past.
“Let’s hope there aren’t a lot of people like that around,” said Rob. “They can be a big problem.”
“They don’t seem like much of a threat,” said Olivia.
“You wouldn’t think so, yeah. But I’ve seen them go nuts. It doesn’t take much. Sometimes a gunshot. Sometimes something else.”
“Like what?”
“A glimpse of food. A glimpse of a better life.”
“What do you mean by they go nuts?”
“There’s no better way to say it. They go insane. They’ve already lost everything that makes them human. Or maybe they’re just becoming more human than ever. Most animalistic. There’s no way to know. Anyway, this isn’t the time for a philosophical discussion like that…”
They continued driving slowly down the road.
“Do you hear that?” said Olivia.
“Yeah, sounds like gunshots,” said Dan.
“I don’t hear them,” said Rob. A moment later he said, “Oh, yeah.”
They were getting more frequent. And they were getting louder the farther along the road they went.
“What should we do?” said Olivia, sounding nervous. “Do you think we should turn around?”
“I think it’s too late for that,” said Rob, glancing into the rearview mirror. “Take a look behind us.”
There were dozens of people on the road behind them. Dan turned around fully to get a better look. He couldn’t see their eyes very clearly, but he could see the expressions on their faces. And they showed him nothing but rage and anger. Nothing but violence.
“Can’t you just drive through them?” said Olivia, sounding more frantic with each word she spoke.
“No,” said Rob, shaking his head. “We’ll never get through all of them.”
“What are we going to do, then?” Olivia’s voice had gotten high with worry.
Dan’s heart was pounding and his hands felt shaky as he watched the mob behind them. Slowly, they were advancing, closing the gap between themselves and the slow-moving car.
“We’ve got to keep going forward.”
“What if there are more of them?”
“Let’s hope there’s someone at this camp that can help us.”
25
Max had a man in his sights. He didn’t hesitate. There wasn’t any time.
He pulled the trigger. The rifle kicked.
The man fell.
A good clean shot. Right to the heart.
But they were still coming. Seemingly from all sides.
“There are too many of them,” shouted John.
“Shut up and keep shooting,” shouted Cynthia right back at him.
Time seemed to have slowed down. Every second seemed to stretch into an eternity.
The landscape seemed to have changed along with the distortion in time. The colors of the trees and the ground, of the tent and the van, they all seemed more vibrant than ever.
Max knew it was just the adrenaline. The thrill of the fight, in a sense.
His body was doing everything it could to keep him alive.
The sounds of the guns seemed continuous. It had dulled to a roar that seemed just like part of the background, as if it had always been there.
John had abandoned his rifle for one of the guns he and Cynthia had brought along. Some kind of AK-47 knockoff. Even cheaper and cruder than the original, but it seemed to do the job.
John’s face was contorted in intensity and rage. His mouth had formed into a snarl.
John looked completely different than he had as a kid. Or even as an adult, before the EMP. He’d been clean-cut. He’d had good clothes.
Now, his beard was getting long and his hair was unruly. There was dirt and grime on his face. He’d grown gaunter. Leaner. And more muscular.
He looked like a different man altogether.
Cynthia was sorting through the guns and ammunition, handing out weapons to everyone in the group.
The initial split of the group, with some of them going in one direction, and others in another, had lasted all of ten minutes. They’d quickly had to fall back into a small group, huddled around the van.
Not many of the mob members seemed to have guns. But that didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous.
Max’s group was mowing them down now, shooting them at a distance.
But with each passing minute, the mob, which was coming from all sides, was getting closer. Individuals were starting to break through the invisible line that separated them from the group.
A wild-looking man was rushing at them. He was sprinting right towards Max.
He was ten feet away.
Now five.
Max could see his face and eyes clearly. He could see the rage and the contempt, and the savageness that had broken through to the surface, that had taken him over completely.
A gunshot rang out. One that Max heard clearly, distinct from the others.
A spot of blood appeared on the wild man’s forehead. He seemed to remain upright for far too long before collapsing, almost right at Max’s feet.
“They’re getting closer!” someone shouted.
A group of two or three people had broken through the line of carnage.
They leaped over the bodies of their fallen comrades, if you could call them that. They sprinted towards Max’s group.
Max tossed his rifle aside and Cynthia handed him something else. He barely looked at it.
It was a semi-automatic. He opened fire, pulling the trigger in rapid succession. He hit one of them, a woman with long hair that streamed behind her. But the shot didn’t take her down. She kept running, her face a mixture of pain and anger.
“Behind you!” shouted Georgia.
Max spun around.
A dozen or so had broken through.
Everyone was shooting. Even Sadie, who was fighting with determination, not breaking into panic.
Mandy was at Max’s side. Close. Her elbow knocked into him occasionally. Her hair had come undone. Her forehead was beaded with sweat. But she’d never looked more beautiful.