Kat looked over her shoulder into the darkness of the room. “Oh God, they’re getting in.”
Jake hammered the glass with the crowbar, and it shattered into the room. “Now, Kat! Give me your hands and jump up.” Her head and shoulder fit through with ease, but as her torso came through she screamed in pain.
“Stop! The glass is cutting me.” I heard the desk slide against the floor again. The open doorway bathed the room in a dull light, and I saw first the hands, then arms, and heads of Kat’s husband and daughters as they made easy work of the blocking desk. We gave another hard tug on Kat. She screamed in pain as the jagged glass of the window dug into her skin. I could see the blood starting to pool on the window sill as the glass dug deeper with every pull. “We can’t stop! There’s no other way.”
Tears stung my eyes and threatened to spill over when I realized we were fighting a losing battle. Lilly, the smallest of her family, had made it through the opening of the door and was making her way across the room. Our ongoing attempts to free Kat were gutting her like a fish. I raised the gun and took aim at Lilly. Kat, realizing what I was about to do, batted the gun from my hand. Unable to come to terms with the knowledge that her daughter was gone and something else animated her corpse, she sealed her own fate with one final act of protecting her child.
Kat looked at me and she saw her fate in my eyes. “Help me. Please, Emma, help me. Don’t let me die like this.” That unspoken accusation was the last thing Kat said to me as her daughter bit into her foot, severing two of her toes at the same time. Jake was still pulling to no avail, and Kat’s screams of pain cut through the very fiber of my being. I began pulling at Kat’s shirt and torso wildly as I watched her daughter, now joined by her sister and father, gorge on her flesh.
Kat’s body convulsed as she lost consciousness and Jake pulled me away. “Em, it’s too late. There’s nothing we can do for her now. She’s gone.” Her head was dangling out of the window, blood sliding down the wall like dripping paint.
I fell to my knees and cried for the loss of my friend. Minutes passed as I knelt there in despair. I could hear the wet slurping sound coming from Kat’s bottom half as they ate her. This would be my nightmare for the rest of my life, no doubt to be a short one. I stared at Kat’s lifeless body and remembered all the times we shared. Just twenty-four hours ago we were trading gossip at the salon, discussing our futures. A future she would never get to live. “I’m sorry, Kat. I will never forget you.” I rose to my feet and retrieved the gun. I felt the weight in my hand and knew that I couldn’t leave her like that.
I aimed the gun at her head and exhaled a long breath. I closed my eyes in silent prayer, and when I opened them again, I saw that Kat’s had also opened and were trained on me. Gone were those kind eyes of hers, now replaced with the opaque empty abyss of death. I said a mental goodbye and pulled the trigger before Jake could yell at me for firing a gun with a barrel full of mud.
Chapter 08
Dutch Oven
The gunshot acted like a beacon for all the dead in the immediate vicinity and they made their way to us. The nameless, hideous creatures had just one face: Kat’s. I became vaguely aware of Jake shaking me through my haze. I stared down at my hands and the gun I still held. My finger remained on the trigger and I trembled with the shock of my actions.
We got in the SUV, and Jake drove slowly away from Kat’s. His hands gripped the steering wheel like it was a white-knuckle ride. We rode in silence as Alicia lay dead to the world in the backseat. I pulled out my phone and was greeted with the ominous no service icon. Figures. As if I expected my touch to be magic, I tried calling my parents, then Jake’s parents, with no success. We drove slowly to avoid the obstacle course that now obstructed our path. In addition to the cars and staggering figures, the storm gifted us with branches and debris.
We turned down a side street and a flickering on the phone’s screen caught my attention. I examined the phone and discovered the data connection was active. We were picking up a wireless connection from one of the nearby houses. “Jake, stop. I’ve got a Wi-Fi signal.”
Jake eased the car to a stop and looked around the neighborhood. We spotted a few zombies, but they were close to the end of the street, and no immediate danger to us. The phone showed two bars. We reversed the car until we found a sweet spot and the signal strength jumped up to four bars. Gotta love smart phones. Even in the apocalypse, my iPhone came through for me. Once again, I tried to place calls to our families; once again my attempt failed. I decided to change tactics. “Siri, call The Fords.” I figured there was always the possibility that I could get through to my parents through Siri—my phone’s automated assistant. The whirlygig (my technical term since I had no idea what else to call it) turned and I held my breath in anticipation. The phone beeped and Siri responded, “Calling the Morgue.”
“Okay, that’s just sick, and wrong… it’s just plain wrong. Emma: zero. Siri: five-hundred thirty-eight. Snarky bitch wins again.” Of course, my curiosity won over and I let the call go through. The no service icon flashed on the screen again and the call failed. Siri and I had a love-hate relationship. She loved to screw with me, and I hated her. I brought the phone close to my face and pushed the button to talk.
“Siri, you’re going to hell for that.”
“If you insist, Emma.”
“Fuck off.”
“Did I do something wrong?”
“While I love me a good Siri bashing, do you think now is the best time?” Jake was still scanning our surroundings, ready to hit the gas at the first sign of danger. I could tell by the tone of his voice that he was annoyed.
I tried the phone’s browser, but I couldn’t get any sites to load. “So much for Wi-Fi. Now what?”
“Now, we need to figure out a safe place to hide for the night. I’m hungry, too. And that sky is making me nervous.” The sky had turned from a dull gray to nearly black. Lightning shot down intermittently, followed closely by loud claps of thunder that made me jump. Daphne began whining from the floor by my seat. Jake eyed me questioningly. “When was the last time she went to the bathroom?”
“Not since last night. Her highness refused to get her fur wet.” I looked down at my pooch, and she was making little circles on the floorboard. “I think I’ll be able to amend that answer in about thirty seconds, though. If we don’t want to deal with that mess in the car, then we’d better let her go. Now that you mention bathroom, I have to pee like nobody’s business. Do you think it’s safe to pop a squat here?”
Jake sighed. His shoulders sagged, and he looked drained of energy. “Define safe,” he said. “I’m not sure anywhere is safe anymore, but I don’t see anything close. So I guess this is as safe as it gets. Just don’t wander away from the car and make it fast.”
I took one more look around, seeing nothing, and opened the door. Daphne shot out of the car like a cannonball and ran to the closest patch of grass. If a dog could express relief, her face was definitely saying it. I dug in the center console for some napkins and uttered a well-deserved thank you to the Dunkin Donut’s drive thru attendant for always packing more than I needed into my donut bag.
I got out and noticed Daphne was finished with her little dance and was refueling out of a puddle. I gave one more cursory glance around and dropped my jeans to the ground. My cheeks grew red from embarrassment when I thought of all the nearby residents seeing my bare ass as I hovered over the asphalt. Then I realized there probably weren’t any left alive to see me. Finishing quickly, I scooped a wet Daphne into my arms and moved back toward the car. Jake had relieved himself in half the time it took me and waited behind the wheel for us to finish.