After steeling himself for what was to come, he opened the door, threw his rifle in the passenger seat, and climbed in. The door he pulled closed as slowly as possible, just short of slamming it shut and engaging the lock. First, he had to check for the key…
…it wasn’t there.
“Dammit,” he muttered.
Directly in front of him, about thirty feet, one of the zombies adopted a pose Dill was familiar with. It meant, something’s not right over there.
He was about to grab the rifle and reopen the door for his final death-sprint, when he felt something cold touch his neck.
“Are you one of them?”
It was a voice he didn’t recognize, and it was too high for an adult. He thought maybe it belonged to a kid. The gun barrel against his neck didn’t much care who was holding the other end, though.
“I can talk, and I can drive, so no I ain’t.”
“No telling, maybe they learned how to do those things.”
“Well they didn’t. Or if they did, I’m not one of ‘em anyway. Do you have the keys? ‘Cuz they’re coming, and if you don’t you may as well pull the trigger and then use that on yourself because they’re gonna do worse.”
“I want you to take me to a friend in this, can you do that?”
“I can drive you to Nebraska if you wanna go, but I need the keys.”
“Not Nebraska, just up the road. I want to make sure she’s okay.”
“Sure, fine.”
The kid—it was definitely a kid—held the keys out next to Dill’s face. He snatched them out of the air, slammed the door closed, and started the engine.
This got everyone’s attention.
He raised the windows and flipped on the headlights.
“You better put that gun down and belt yourself in, son, this is gonna be real unpleasant.”
He snuck a peek in the mirror at his hijacker.
“You’re the kid from the farmhouse on the other side of the fence,” Dill said. “What are you even doing here?”
“I sneak on the base all the time,” he said.
“You picked about the worst time to try tonight, didn’t you?”
“Are you gonna drive?”
“Sure am.”
Dill found a gear and stomped on the gas pedal.
The gate leading to the street was straight ahead through a guarded checkpoint with a lowered yellow crossbar, and an unknown number of zombies. The guards were gone and the bar was made of wood, but the people jumping in the way were going to slow them down. Fortunately, a military Humvee was essentially designed to drive over people.
“Tell me again what you’re doing here?” Dill asked.
“I heard the gunshots,” the kid said. “I was worried she might be here.”
“Who’s that?”
“My friend Annie. I saw her here before.”
“Oh sure,” Dill said. He aimed straight for a drill sergeant named Keith and tried not to feel guilty about enjoying the experience of running him over. Then he heard the sound the man made as his body went under the wheels and decided there was nothing about this to enjoy at all.
“Do you know her?”
“My buddy Sam does,” Dill said. “I met her once. She’s a real sweetheart.”
The boy tensed up. “I want to make sure she’s all right is all.”
“Don’t worry, she wasn’t at the base. I’d’a known. She’s probably fine. I bet your parents are worried though, huh?”
“My parents are zombies. I think the whole town is.”
“Right. Well my friend Sam was on duty at the ship. That’s where I was headed.”
And maybe to figure out how to stop the zombies at the source, he thought.
“You promised,” the kid said.
“Yeah, we’ll check on your girlfriend first, just tell me where we’re going. Then we’ll go check on my friend. Okay?”
“Okay. But she isn’t my girlfriend.”
OONA STOPPED the camper long enough to let Annie on, but almost refused to let Ed aboard.
“Uh-uh, nope, that son of a bitch knew this was gonna happen, he can join the zombies.”
“Oona, be serious,” Annie said.
“I’m serious, kiddo.”
“Why would I keep something like this to myself?” he asked.
“Don’t know. You’re the one working for the government; this is probably all one big-ass experiment. I should shoot you is what I should do.”
“Oona, technically I work for the government. Let him on,” Annie said. They were both at the edge of the door, so the handgun the angry lesbian in the driver’s seat was pointing at Ed was also pointed at Annie.
There was stomping on the roof.
“Oona, you let him board!” Laura said through the ceiling.
Oona sighed, looked up, and put the gun away.
“You’re lucky she’s nicer than me. Get in.”
Sam slid down the ladder from above as Oona put the camper in gear and the screaming vehicle got underway.
“Annie!” he said. “You’re okay!”
They hugged. She felt her face go flush and hoped the fact that she was blushing wasn’t too terribly obvious.
“Looks like you hitched with the right crew,” she said as he released her. “How’d this happen?”
“Really long story. How did you end up here?”
“That’s also a long story.”
“Where are you heading?” Ed asked.
“We already tried the south bridge, sir,” Sam said.
Annie almost giggled when she heard him refer to Edgar Somerville as sir.
Laura climbed down the ladder behind Sam.
“So now what?” Ed asked.
“Well, the bridge was all choked up with cars, so we figured we’d head along here and maybe see what the zombies were looking for at the same time.”
“Looking for?”
“They were all headed this way. Can’t figure it out though. They’re just milling about along here.”
“Oh my goodness, look at you,” Laura said, speaking to Ed. “Hey, sit down, let’s take a look at that eye.”
“I’m fine,” he said.
“You’re not fine. What happened to you guys?”
“He was protecting me,” Annie said. “I’m who they’re looking for.”
Sam laughed. “They’re going after anyone the think’s a threat, we’ve been seeing it all night.” To Ed, he said, “I think if you hadn’t fought back, they may have just left you alone and gone on looking.”
“No, Sam, I mean it. I’m who they’re looking for. That’s why they’re wandering around right now. It’s because I’m nearby.”
Sam looked at Ed, who was wincing because Laura was applying an antibiotic to an open cut on his arm. Ed gave him a little half-nod.
“Seriously?” Sam asked. “But why?”
There was a stomp on the ceiling.
“Crap, what was that?” Annie asked. “Is someone else here, or…”
“They can’t get on the roof, that’s just Dobbs,” Laura said.
“Dobbs made it? That’s great, what about…” but Annie didn’t finish the sentence. Based on Laura’s expression, she didn’t need to.
“Pretty sure we’re the only ones who got out,” Oona said. “Everyone else is either one of them or… well, or one of them the other way. Coming up on the bridge, we could use some shooters.”