Her leg throbbed worse than before, and the skin felt wet under the bandages. She wasn’t looking forward to the long hike down the incline. Looking at the truck, she got an idea. “Was there anybody in the truck?”
“I didn’t really look, but I didn’t see anybody.”
“Come on,” she said. “I know an easy way to get down there.”
The Toyota still had the keys in the ignition, not that they were any use. Like most survivors, in the days after the solar storms she’d tried to crank plenty of cars, only to find them all dead. The pick-up’s bed contained baskets of rotten peaches, and yellow jackets buzzed around the fruit.
“It’s a straight drive,” she said. “On old models like this, you usually don’t have power steering or brakes. All we have to do is get it rolling, and we can coast down the hill.”
“At least it’s pointed in the right direction.” Stephen didn’t sound convinced. “Can you steer around all those cars?”
“Easy. Look how spread out they are.”
“Okay, then. Let me move my bread crumb.” He plucked the ripped comic page from the Toyota’s windshield and ran it over to an SUV.
Rachel had already checked the handbrake—the truck’s driver might have abandoned the car when it lost power, heading down to the exit on foot and intending to return. Except the driver would have taken the keys under those circumstances. He’d probably mutated into a Zaphead and gone on an interstate killing spree.
“Okay, load up,” she said, tossing her backpack in the cab.
Stephen opened the passenger door and put his backpack on the floor. He climbed in the seat and looked over at her. “Well?” he said with impatience.
“These trucks don’t roll themselves. We have to push.”
“Oh.” He jumped out, ran to the back of the truck, and leaned against the tailgate. The shock absorbers squeaked as he pushed.
“Not yet,” she said. “I have to take it out of gear.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Okay,” she said, after moving the gear shift to neutral. “Once it starts rolling, run and get in before it gains momentum. One, two, three!”
The truck was heavier than she’d imagined, and a fresh wetness leaked down her shin from the bite wound. She reached in to put one hand on the wheel as she leaned her shoulder into the door jamb. The truck’s tires barely budged, and she dug in her heels and pushed harder, ignoring the pain flaring in her leg. The truck gained momentum and now gravity was working for them.
She glanced back to see Stephen standing there as the truck pulled away. “Hurry! Get in.”
“Uh…Rachel?”
“What?”
He pointed down the road. Fifty yards in front of them, five figures formed an uneven line across the double lanes of the highway. The truck was picking up speed, Rachel limping alongside of it, hanging on to the driver’s-side door. “Come on, Stephen! Your comics are in here.”
That broke the spell, and Stephen raced to catch up to the truck. He yanked open his door and tumbled inside, one shoe still dragging on the asphalt. Rachel launched herself behind the steering wheel and the truck hurtled forward. She was surprised by its speed, and she worked the wheel to veer between two cars, narrowly missing the front fender of a little Nissan sedan.
The figures didn’t dodge or even really respond to the approaching truck. But Rachel already suspected they were Zapheads, and she silently berated herself for getting complacent and not paying attention to their surroundings.
“Who are they?” Stephen said.
“Guess,” she said. She tapped the brakes just to test them, and the tires grabbed at the road. She didn’t want to lose any momentum, though, so she let the truck accelerate as she cut around stalled van. The Zapheads were now thirty yards ahead, and they appeared to finally realize a hunk of rolling steel was headed their way—two men, two women, and a boy about Stephen’s age, dressed in ragged clothes.
“They’re not getting out of the way,” Stephen said, leaning forward and gripping the cracked vinyl dashboard.
Rachel instinctively pushed down on the horn, forgetting that the vehicle’s power system was fried. “Put on your seatbelt and lock the door,” she said, and Stephen complied without protest.
Instead of fleeing, the Zapheads actually headed up the road toward them.
Rachel considered driving onto the inside shoulder in an attempt to avoid them, but the grass median sloped inward to a central drainage ditch. If she lost control, the truck might roll over. And now she saw more Zapheads across the median, in the outbound lanes. The motion of the truck must have aroused them from whatever it was that Zapheads did during the day when they weren’t murdering survivors.
She had no time to pick an angle, but she couldn’t bear striking the boy. Even if he was a mutant, his condition wasn’t his fault. He was innocent.
“You’re going to hit them,” Stephen said.
She could almost hear God’s laughter in the whining of the tires. The speedometer didn’t work, but Rachel estimated they were going about thirty-five miles an hour. The Zapheads’ mouths opened as they ran toward the truck, but their voices were inaudible inside the cab.
“Hang on,” Rachel said, whipping the wheel at the last second. The right fender clipped one of the women and she tumbled onto the engine hood with a metallic dink. One of the unkempt men stared directly at Rachel, almost daring her with his golden-spotted eyes, and then the bumper and grille chewed him up and he went under the wheels. The truck bounced as it rolled over him like a fleshy speed bump.
Rachel glanced sideways at the boy’s face, just inches from the glass as she passed. The side mirror nearly slapped him across the cheek but he barely seemed to notice. When the truck rolled by, the remaining Zapheads, including the boy, took off after it. Rachel twisted the rearview mirror to confirm her hunch that the Zapheads in the opposite lanes were after them, too.
She didn’t have a gun, and with her injured leg she wouldn’t be able to run from them. The gap was widening but soon the truck would hit level ground and the next upward incline.
Stephen had turned in his seat, standing on his knees and looking through the back window. “They’re coming.”
“I know,” she said. “Got any ideas?”
“There was this really cool movie where Jackie Chan drove a car through the front of a department store.”
“Jackie Chan was a stunt man,” she said. “I’m not.”
“Well, he might be a Zaphead now. And you’re not.”
“Good point.”
She avoided the brake and let the truck max out its momentum as she took the exit. The gas station was on the left, across the intersection. She guided the truck in a straight line so it hopped up on a concrete divider, plowed through a stop sign, and rolled into the gas station’s parking lot.
“They’re coming after us,” Stephen said.
Rachel glanced in the side mirror. Dozens of Zapheads poured from the woods, staggering like refugees from a war zone. Their clothes hung around them in loose, dirty tatters. Some of them were naked, their skin as pale as grubworms in the morning light.
Some of the younger ones broke into a jog. One dark-skinned male carried a length of pipe, held aloft like a Persian general leading a charge against the Spartans. Shirtless, his muscles gleamed with sweat as his bare feet slapped the pavement. Others mimicked his enthusiasm and began jogging after the truck, some of them carrying hand weapons or tools.
“Look out!” Stephen shouted.
Rachel looked forward just in time to see the pumps looming ten feet ahead. She yanked the wheel to the right but it was too late. The left front tire struck the raised concrete island, then the truck sheared against them, popping two of the pumps loose from the ground and opening a sluggish geyser of gasoline. One of the hoses jerked free and twisted in the air like an agitated rattlesnake, spitting petroleum venom.