A moment later, the Mazda braked hard, jumped a curb, and sped across the parking lot, passing almost in front of Mills and Talaski. Mills caught a glimpse of a frantic attractive blonde behind the wheel, and then the Acura followed, hard on her bumper.
Mills said, “Trish?”
37. Trish
When her car careened around the corner like a rocket, Trish was hoping for an empty road.
What she got were hundreds of zombies coming her way, apparently attracted by the gunshots and the engine noise. She tapped the brakes and cut the wheel hard to the left, and at thirty miles an hour, just missed a clump of ten or so shambling down the middle of the road. Before she could straighten out, the car clipped a mailbox and took her driver’s side mirror right off.
Trish kept her foot on the gas pedal, pressing it against the floor. She straightened out the wheel, weaving in and out through a growing crowd until she saw the marina appear on her right. She took the next curve and saw Anton’s wheelchair still lying in the road. No sign of him, though.
Thank God. She didn’t want to remember him like that. People were all over the road. She could feel panic overtaking her as she was forced to slow down. She still hit several of the dead things in the process, but did not damage the car.
The thumps horrified her even so, and she was forced to run over several of them, feeling the car jounce over their bodies. The survivor in her refused to cave in. Her whole life had prepared her to endure horrible things.
She spotted their original escape vehicle, the delivery van, and burned rubber, braking enough to make the turn toward it and the road that led back to 54th Avenue South. A small part of her gloried in how well the car was handling. It sure beat the hell out of her old Mercury Cougar with a failing transmission.
The car broke past the last wandering groups, and she happened to glance in her rearview mirror. A car was back there. It had to be the old man. The next few minutes were a steadily escalating nightmare as she turned left down one street, then right, and finally right onto 54th Avenue South heading west. There was an enormous overpass she would have to merge onto if she planned to continue in that direction, which led to the beach and the Don Cesar Hotel, or alternatively, Tierra Verde Island and Fort Desoto.
It was too bad it wasn’t a real army fort. It had been a fort, but long ago. Now it was a historical park with a beautiful beach. No soldiers to protect her there.
None of that mattered anyway. The road before her was completely blocked by a massive pileup of cars. The morning sun glinted off twisted metal and broken glass where cars, going both directions on a one-way entranceway, had collided and jammed solid. Dead people were once again walking around.
She braked hard and turned the car into a tight spin. The only good thing was that she might have lost the old man. It was bad thinking about him trapping her here. For the moment, the way back was clear.
With no real purpose, or direction, she floored the gas pedal and took off like a shot back the way she came. The intersection of 54th Avenue and Thirty-Fourth Street was only two blocks away when she passed the old man in the car idling at a stop sign, as if waiting for her. There was no time to react. If he planned to ram her car with his, it was going to happen. She glanced briefly at her speedometer, saw the needle hovering at seventy miles an hour, braced herself for impact, and—was surprised when she passed him unscathed. Trish hit the brakes again, pumping them, so she could make a left onto Thirty-Fourth.
The old man followed her.
She saw the awful wrecks littering the road on either side. A scene from Hell described it pretty well. She slowed again, not knowing why, and turned back into the Publix Shopping Center where they were left stranded. She couldn’t avoid the three zombies standing in the entryway and ran them over.
A fire truck was parked in front of the Publix, and it looked like the same one that firefighter had been driving. In fact, there were two guys standing near it, one wearing a firefighter’s outfit, and the other a cop. Could it be? she wondered. She floored the gas, heart beating rapidly, trying hard not to hope.
She didn’t have time to stop to be sure. Maybe Mills, if it was him, would follow. Stranger things had happened lately. Either way, on the chance it wasn’t him, she had to get away.
She drove over a curb and across a median, into a nearby parking lot. Her car went airborne briefly, slammed the ground with a jolt that caused her to hit her head on the ceiling, and then landed with her foot pressing the gas pedal to the floor.
She kept control and prayed that it was Mills back there.
You saw me, and are coming to rescue me. That thought consumed her.
38. Jacobs
The motorcycle’s engine turned over and rumbled quietly. “Never rode in one of these before,” Kyle remarked while easing himself into the motorcycle’s sidecar.
“No?”
“Not even on a motorcycle. Just got my driver’s license a few months ago.”
Jacobs gave the kid a second look. He was big, and there was intelligence in his eyes, but he really was just a big kid. “Should I let you drive, then?”
Kyle grinned. “No that’s okay, sir. Riding along works for me.”
“Okay, then. Well remember, we’re looking for survivors, and for someplace we can hold up.”
“Got it.”
Jacobs throttled up and eased forward until they hit twenty-five miles per hour. The engine was in great shape, and the tires were good. He figured they’d have no trouble escaping or evading. People were walking around, but none of them still living. Some houses were little more than ruins.
Jacobs slowed to a near stop at the intersection of Twenty-Second Avenue and Sixteenth. A sign across the street said that this was the Woodlawn neighborhood. Nothing held his interest. There was a business on three of the four corners of the intersection, and lots of houses nearby— all with lots of windows.
“Nothing coming to mind, kid?”
“Not much around here except houses. That what you’re looking for?” Kyle asked him.
“Ideally, I’d like something with a solid wall or fence. Something sturdy. A place with security shutters would work.”
“Better keep looking then, sir. One of the mansions over in Woodlawn to the right there could work.”
Jacobs saw movement at the corner of his eye, to the left. A middle-aged white guy with gray skin wearing a red t-shirt, black shorts with a stripe down the leg, and grungy sneakers was approaching them across the intersection. He was probably fleshy and well-fed once. Didn’t look that way now.
“I never liked most people before,” Kyle remarked. “I like them even less now.”
“So cynical already?” Jacobs asked, but wasn’t really surprised.
Kyle shrugged. “Some of them don’t even look much different. How long until they all just rot away, do you think?”
Jacobs gave the still coasting motorcycle a little gas, and they pulled away from the zombie. “Hard to say, kid. In this heat, a few weeks for most of them? I don’t know.”
“Take a right at the next light. I have an idea where we’re going.”
“Sure thing,” Jacobs answered.
They were in the midst of a residential neighborhood. Lots of old houses from the fifties, occasional apartment buildings, more death and destruction. There was no sign whatsoever of living people. Some blocks literally looked like a scene from a World War II war zone.
Martin Luther King Street was coming up.
“Jackpot,” Jacobs said.
“What do you mean?” Kyle asked, but then fell silent. Directly across from them was a supermarket, and slightly north of that was a house that resembled a small Alamo with a six foot white stucco wall that looked like it went all the way around the property.
It may not have been such a good idea, but it was all he had.
“Good job, Kyle,” Jacobs said. “I didn’t think we’d find anything this good.”
“Thank you, sir. I’ve seen this house a
lot over the years, and just wanted to make sure it’s safe before getting our hopes up.”
Jacobs knew this would work on a temporary basis. To survive they wouldn’t be able to stay in the city, but this would do until they left. “This is the best I could hope for, son. Let’s go scout the premises.”
“Really?” Kyle asked. “Are we just gonna walk up there?”
“Yes we are. We need to know what we are facing.”
39. Julie
Julie didn’t like the way the two pilots were looking at her when she walked up to them.
The taller one, Duncan, sounded sincere when he asked, “How can we help you, ma’am?” but he looked irritated.
“My son needs to use the bathroom. Is there one around here?”
“Sure is. Just go right through that door, and it’s in the back to the left.”
The door was still hanging open, but it was almost pitch black in there. The building was an immense hangar. One of the massive aircraft doors further down was open too. There was plenty of light down there, but not on this end.
“Could one of you escort us?”
“You’ll be fine,” Duncan said. “We checked it out just a couple minutes ago. Here, take my flashlight.”
Julie blushed and accepted the flashlight. No one had openly patronized her in quite some time. She hesitated a moment longer, debating her options, then George settled it for her.
“I have to go, Mommy.”
Julie held the man’s gaze a moment longer, then said, “Okay, sweetheart, let’s go.”
“Bitch.”
The word almost stopped her in her tracks but she forced herself to keep walking, fear coiling in her stomach. What if the pilots hated her? That thought was almost scarier than going into an immense darkened building without a gun.
“Did that man say a bad word, Mommy?”
She hated to lie to her son; she didn’t know what to say to comfort him either.
“He did, George, but don’t worry. Some people aren’t nice.”
“It’s really dark in here, Mommy.”
“Don’t worry, George, I’m with you,” she said, but didn’t convince herself with that one.
“Turn on the lights, Mommy!”
She flicked the switch on the flashlight. It was the big 6 volt type and even had a carry handle. “This is all the light we have, sweetheart.”
The light revealed a line of barrels with some sort of hazardous symbol on each one. Looked like a skull and crossbones. She wondered what they were, but didn’t stop to check it out. She wanted out of here.
There were warehouse racks full of all kinds of stuff on the back wall, none of it recognizable as anything that made sense to her. She panned the flashlight from right to left, and at last saw a door almost all the way over to the left. “I think I found the bathroom, George.”
Julie hurried them toward it and stopped with her hand on the pull handle. That was a bit of a clue as to what type of room lay beyond, but not a definitive one. There wasn’t a sign on the door. She forced herself into action, let go of George’s hand, and opened the door. She heard the drip of water echo off the walls. Felt for the light switch on the wall to the right, but all it did was click, of course. She played the flashlight around. The room stretched away to their right, with rows of lockers on either side, with benches in front of the lockers, and a door in the far wall to her right. The floor was concrete and had a pebbled surface, probably for traction. Some of the locker doors were open but nothing was in them.
The door wasn’t shut all the way.
In the next room there were two stalls to the left, sinks and mirrors on the wall to the right, some lockers and two shower stalls to the rear. There was a pile of towels, and a dirty flight suit on the floor near the showers.
Judging by the smell, Julie guessed that someone hadn’t flushed the toilet.
“Come on, honey,” she said, stepping inside. “Nothing to be afraid of.”
Julie pushed open the first stall door and looked inside before letting George go in. No one was in there, and the lid was up. It must be the other stall that wasn’t flushed.
“I gotta go, Mom!”
“Okay, honey. This one is okay,” she replied.
George stepped inside and unzipped all on his own.
40. Janicea
The sound of renewed gunfire and someone howling in grief spurred Janicea into action. Right or wrong, she took the kids with her. The thought that she should have stayed with them was foremost in her mind. She never wanted to leave them again. Both Daric and Beth clung to her waist, weeping anew when they caught sight of Bronte on his knees, cradling a bloody body that looked like Tracks in his arms.
Bronte never raised his head. If the body was Tracks’, he looked dead. So much blood… and he’d been chewed. Torn apart and chewed, to be exact.
Several bodies were scattered nearby. Janicea hoped he was dead before the dead people got to him.
She frowned, trying to remember what had happened when those women attacked them earlier. They probably had all reanimated, and Tracks was left alone.
Janicea wanted to run to Bronte, but stopped nearby, still holding the kids tight.
The wind blew, soft and steady, rustling through the fronds of nearby palm trees, and Bronte held Tracks tight to his chest.
After a time, Bronte said, “I have to bury my friend.”
None of them said anything. Janicea didn’t know what to say. She watched what she could see of Bronte’s downturned face. Tears ran down his cheeks and dripped onto his friend’s ravaged features. It was hard to see him this way. One of Tracks’ arms was gnawed to bone, leaving exposed sinew and fat visible.
“Will you all stay here with him while I check these houses for a shovel?” Bronte asked.
“We will,” Daric answered.
Janicea didn’t trust herself enough to speak. She felt a renewed surge of affection for the boy. It was clear that they were all in this together, and Daric and Beth were growing up quickly and adapting. One of the fears she had was that they couldn’t mature quickly enough to realize what the right decision would be.
Bronte set his massive friend’s body gently on the ground. He got up and walked up the driveway of the nearest house without looking back.
Both of the kids were crying. How could she console them? Worse yet, was wondering how much more they could endure.
“My dad was a bad man,” Beth said, voicing an apparently random thought.
Janicea didn’t know how to respond to that. She wondered too what the little white girl thought about being alone with black people. Beth appeared to be only upset about other things, like the death of friends, and the evil her dad did, for instance. Her innocence was inspiring.
“I saw my dad kill a man and a woman once. He didn’t know I was there,” Beth said. “Tracks died for us, didn’t he?”
Still unsure of what to say, Janicea settled for hugging Beth tight.
“Everyone is dying,” Daric declared. “How many more bad people can there be?”
“Everything will be alright,” Janicea whispered. “Bronte and I will keep you safe.”
Bronte was coming back from the side of the house with a shovel in his hands.
“Can we make him a tombstone?” Beth asked.
Bronte stopped nearby and started digging. He looked up at her, the shovel’s blade full of rich turned earth and grass. “We’ll make one for all our loved ones,” he answered. “Just have to wait till things calm down.”
“So we’ll never forget them, right?” Beth asked.
Bronte nodded, but his eyes were looking into Janicea’s when he answered, “Yes, so we will never forget.”
Janicea wondered whether he left them off on purpose. As in: We will never forget them. Or had his words addressed something else? There was no telling. When they were young, he couldn’t hide anything from her. She’d made a life out of hating, and not long ago, for different reasons, he’d been about to join her.
They stood there and watched him work, with only the sound of the shovel turning and shifting the earth, the wind in the palms, and the lonely, keening cry of a seagull to break the immense silence.
41. Keller
One of the cart’s wheels was off kilter and it kept pulling to the left.
“I’m surprised that we haven’t seen Talaski or Mills, yet,” Keller said as he and Amy made their way through the store.
The cart was nearly full, and they were headed back to the front of the store when they heard Talaski shout, “Matt, Amy, where are you?”
Amy kept the light focused to either side from left to right and back again and they started jogging.
“We’re coming,” Keller called out. Within moments they saw Talaski standing near the front door.
“Mills just took off with the truck!” Talaski told them. “He thinks he saw Trish in a car being chased by another car and went after her. We need to go out the back door with the cart. Hundreds of zombies are headed this way. Do you have water in there?”
“Yes, let’s go,” Keller answered. Trish was someone they knew; she had been with them at the police station. She was attractive, but with a hard edge beneath her soft, natural sexiness. Not someone to underestimate. How she arrived outside this grocery store would be a mystery to ferret out later, assuming they ever saw Mills again.
“I’ll take point,” Talaski said.
Keller and Amy nodded. The steering of the cart was off with all the weight in it. It was seriously beginning to annoy him, but there was nothing to do about that now. Talaski quickly led the way down an aisle with candy of all kinds on one side and ethnic foods on the other.
Long before they reached the back doors, a strong chemical reek reached their noses. Talaski coughed and slowed to a dead stop, Keller and Amy stopping behind him.
“Smells like bleach back here. Probably a spill. I’m not sure whether we can go back there.”
“We don’t want to get trapped back there,” Keller said. “A minute in there might make us sick…”
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