by Holly Hook
Men got out. Some of them were holding baseball bats. One really big guy tapped the bat on the ground as he talked to a man who was a head taller than him and way too skinny as if he had used too many drugs. I counted eight of them. There were eight of us left. We were even in number, but none of us had brought guns with us thanks to the sudden dust storm. One of them left the truck door open. The inside was lit up.
I closed the curtains, praying that none of them had seen me.
They were Davids.
Dangerous.
And our antique was still parked by the overhang.
Muffled shouts came from the men as I backpedaled from the door. Then I got some sense, ran over, and locked it. Some good that would do if they wanted to break it down. There weren't any spare keys in the lobby, were there? There wasn't anyone left in the lobby, right?
I didn't know and that was the most terrifying part. Tony was strong but not strong enough to deal with eight sadistic guys who would kill us or worse when they found us. I thought about the things they would do if they found Alana or Gina or me or any of the other girls. What Tony and Jerome guys would be forced to watch.
All it would take would be someone's door unlocked.
And it looked like these guys planned to check this place out.
I almost let go of my bladder. This was David taken to a new level. Maybe we would get lucky and the guys would go hit a bar instead. It was night and the deadly sun was setting. Please, let it be the bar. Every town had one.
I crept back to the window as the shouts died down and parted the curtains just a tiny bit. I had always yelled at those people in horror movies who were hiding not to peek out and let themselves be seen, even a little, but not knowing was always the worst. You had to keep some control over the situation.
The men were walking towards the motel. They vanished under the overhang, which was almost right below my window. A door opened and slammed shut. I thought about the man's body in the lobby, the one we had moved outside, and the old truck that still sat out there, shiny and new. These men might want it. It was worth money. They would leave us here in this town, with nothing but the empty expressway spreading out in both directions forever.
Loud shouts echoed from below. Faint crashes followed. I closed the curtains all the way and retreated back into the darkness. They would assume a locked door had a body or two behind it. That's what I would think. If everyone stayed quiet, these men might leave once they realized there was nothing here worth looting and definitely no beer.
But the uncertainty crept up again and I walked towards the door.
I opened it, just a crack. The cool night air washed over my face, air that seemed to stay the same temperature no matter what now. The bloody sunset had almost faded, leaving us in total darkness. On the other side of the railing, the pickups still huddled like they were making plans. One had even been left idling. Who needed to guard their trucks against the dead?
"Laney."
Gina. She peeked her head out of the door next to me, her eyes wide and horrified. My eyes had adjusted to the near-dark enough for me to see her.
"Hide," I told her.
She shook her head. "Come over here."
The men shouted again. One whistled and said something about the old truck.
"Somebody's here," another man said. I thought it was Skinny.
"Well, this is ours now," another said. "Can you imagine what a collector is going to want for this?"
"Arizona's great for old cars," Skinny said. "The bodies should dry out in no time. Until then, there's plenty of beer."
"Wish we could find some women," the other man said, only he used a much worse word in place of women. They must be right under the overhang, where the truck was still parked. Gina and I remained still, too scared to make noise.
"There could be some here. People are flooding in trying to grab what they can," Skinny said. "It doesn't hurt to check. What do you say?"
Gina waved me over and for some reason, I obeyed. I left my door open--shutting it would cause noise--and crept over to her room. We piled inside and she shut the door as quietly as she could, sliding the chain over it.
"We can't stay," I said.
"I know," Gina whispered.
Alana appeared at our side. She and Gina had been sharing the same room. Alana was almost hyperventilating. Her breaths came in shallow, panicked gasps. Christina and Jasmine hung back near the bathroom. A single candle flickered on the night stand and a bunch of playing cards were spread out on the bed. They must have wanted to let me sleep. They hadn't invited me to their game.
I didn't have time to feel hurt. "Where are the others?"
"Tony and Mina have a room downstairs," Alana said. She was struggling to slow her breathing down. "Jerome crashed down there, too. I guess the guys wanted the bottom floor."
"Blow out the candle," I ordered.
Christina did. Total darkness fell on the room. It might be too late. The curtains were closed, but the men could have seen a candle flickering, right?
We had to leave.
Those trucks were unguarded. The one still had keys in the ignition. Our antique truck wouldn't outrun these ones. They could keep that.
"I think they left the keys in their trucks," I said. "They don't expect the dead to go out and steal them."
"Are you crazy?" Alana asked me.
"If we all steal their trucks, we'll be good," I said. "Those guys aren't going to follow us fast enough to catch up."
"I hope you're right," Gina said. "What about the others?"
I thought of Tony and Jerome and Mina, still downstairs and probably hiding. I heard a crashing sound from below. The men were looting the lobby. Then something shattered and an F-bomb sounded. They might have broken the disgusting fish tank.
And then, the sound of pounding followed, from both down and outside. They were knocking on doors now.
"Who's in here?" Skinny roared. "We know someone's here. Who else moved the body? We just want your stuff. Come out!"
Gina cursed. There were no jokes now.
"They're downstairs," Alana said.
The pounding followed. I imagined Skinny trying to kick a door in. He swore and gave up.
Or so I thought.
And then a gunshot exploded.
And after that, a squeak.
Skinny had shot the lock off.
I cringed and waited for screams, or more gunshots, or whatever would happen when Skinny and the gang found people in these rooms. But he gagged instead and swore. He'd found one with a body.
"Maybe we should just leave," another man shouted. "We're wasting our time. Hollywood's going to be empty of its riches before we even get there. Come on, man."
I closed my eyes. Yes, leave, I thought. If they found us it would be a fate worse than death.
"Someone's here. You know that," Skinny said. He shot another lock and kicked a door open. These walls were thin here. Too thin. "We're finding them. Could be other looters."
I shook my head. Christina let out a sob. Even though I had never liked her and she felt the same way about me, I wasn't going to watch them suffer. I hated seeing people be in pain more than anything.
The voices disappeared into a room below us, almost right below us. Then they moved away. They were checking out the other side of the motel. This was the farthest they would be from us.
"We're going," I said, bolting for the door.
"Laney!" Gina hissed.
But they followed. I was the leader again. I pushed open the door and bolted out before anyone could stop me.
The other girls followed. I could be getting us killed, but trying was better than waiting here for the worst to happen.
"Who's there?" Skinny yelled.
He was somewhere beyond the awning, on the other side of the motel. That gave us precious seconds. I bolted down the stairs, jumping over the railing once I was close enough to the bottom. I landed in a crouch on the sidewalk, next to an old ashtray full of
cigarette butts, one of them still smoking.
And Skinny stood at the end of the sidewalk, on the other side of the main entrance, gun in hand. He was the meanest-looking guy I had seen in my life, someone who had walked right out of a serial killer show. Even from here and in the semi-dark I could tell there was no mercy in his eyes. He was the king David here.
His shock is what saved my life. Gina landed next to me and Alana climbed down the metal stairs, panting.
All thought left me. I bolted for the closest truck, an old black Dodge, and yanked the driver side door open. I ducked down just before the shot rang out. The bullet screeched off the truck and sparks flew, but the glass stayed intact.
The keys were still in the ignition.
I turned them and the truck roared to life.
"Laney!" Alana shouted, climbing into the passenger seat. Men were yelling and cursing. Another shot fired and Alana ducked. Somewhere, Gina screamed and Christina yelled at her to get down. Another truck door opened and slammed.
I backed the truck up, praying I wouldn't run over anyone, and gunned it forward and around the others. Skinny jumped out of the way as I lurched onto the motel sidewalk. He fired again. My window turned into an angry spider web. Glass rained on onto my arm, falling onto the seat.
"The others!" Alana shouted.
"I know!" I yelled. Skinny couldn't have too many bullets left. But the other men - including a big guy with a baseball bat--charged us from the dark, letting out a war cry. He raised the bat.
And I gunned the truck forward.
The rest blurred. There was a large thud and a crack we impacted. The big man fell onto the hood, dropped the bat, and grappled at it.
And then he fell under.
I wanted to pretend that the thud that followed was us rolling over a potted plant, or us jumping over the curb, but I knew that it wasn't. My mind was too realistic. We lurched over the bump again as the back tires went over the man, and then I turned the truck out onto the smooth parking lot, barely dodging the old car of some dead person. Another man screamed and jumped out of the way. Out of the corner of my eye, through the broken spider web, Skinny pointed his pistol at us, but no shots fired. He was out of ammo.
"Go!" Alana yelled again.
I'd paused there for a second too long.
Alana's window shattered and she screamed. The blunt end of another baseball bat came through, hitting her chest.
And I lost it, let out my own war cry, and gunned it.
The man reaching in fell out and the smell of blood followed. Alana was crying. Was the blood the man's or hers?
Skinny stood in front of the truck, staring at the lump that was his friend.
He didn't make us lurch the way the big man had. But his eyes--in the moment before he went under the hood--they were huge. Terrified, like those animals and flowers I used to draw in that happy sketchbook turned morbid. I was those advancing storm clouds, the figure of death coming to claim them all. I hurt everyone I touched.
We rolled over Skinny. Thump. That was all there was to it, like he was nothing more than a speed bump. Alana let out a breath. She was a mess again. Gina screamed again from somewhere. She was lying on the ground ahead, holding her ankle. I couldn't see much. Christina and Jasmine were missing. No. They were standing against the motel itself as two more men advanced on them, bats ready. One of them had a shotgun.
The front of the truck hit a pillar holding up the second floor balcony and stopped.
My door ripped open.
I froze.
A third man stood on the other side, scowling with bat in hand. His eyes were bloodshot. His face, hard and stubbled. We might not live long enough to experience what they had in store for us. That was my only relief. Maybe death would come fast, faster than it had for everyone lying in this town. I wondered how much it would hurt.
"Reverse!" Alana yelled. "Reverse!"
I snapped out of it, grabbed the gear, and shifted right when the man grabbed my arm and called me something David must have many times.
I gunned it back over the new speed bump in the parking lot. The man kept a hold of my arm, squeezing painfully and cutting off the circulation as he ran along with the truck.
And I hit something with a loud crunch and stopped.
Another truck. I'd backed into it. The man seethed and began to climb in. We were in a world of zombies, except these ones were smarter and more dangerous and they could figure out doorknobs. The guy growled and raised his fist. I couldn't move. He was pinning me down and I wanted to scream with the pain, but I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction. Maybe the blow would knock me out.
A motor revved and another impact followed. Metal and bone crunched.
The truck moved back with a screech. The man screamed and the blow never came. We slid and Alana screamed again. She was babbling now. Going insane. At last, after an eternity, we stopped.
The smell of blood filled the air.
I opened my eyes. The pressure on my thighs was gone. The man slid out of the truck, eyes wide, grasping at the seat and finally, the step.
And then he fell and I saw.
His lower legs were crushed and bloody.
By the truck that sat three feet from us, headlights on and illuminating the horror.
"Mack," the man managed, reaching for someone to the side who wasn't there. "Help me." A puddle spread around the man, getting bigger and darker.
My heart about died. This was someone begging for help now instead of a monster who wanted to end my life.
"Laney! Alana!" Jerome climbed down from the truck that had rammed us and taken off the guy's legs. He'd just saved our lives. "Are you okay? I didn't want to hit you but I was scared of what this guy was going to do!"
"Jerome!" I yelled. "We have to go. Now! Where is everybody?" I hadn't even seen him come out. I was in shock. The world was just a bad dream and I'd wake up any second now.
No. This was reality. I had told myself I'd wake up many, many times and it never happened.
He looked around. "Tony!" he yelled. "Mina! Pick her up and then we're going. Leave the antique here. We can take three trucks."
The other men had run. That much registered. Jerome wouldn't be standing there like that if they hadn't.
I had probably killed two people.
I was going to throw up.
It wasn't my fault.
"Laney," Alana said. "We're still alive, right?"
"Yes," I told her. "We're still here. Get out. We need another truck. This one's damaged." I went into autopilot, that safe place where feelings couldn't get to me until later. Right now I was just going to do. I'd be sick later. That would be waiting for me once the adrenaline wore off.
We got out. Gina was lying on the ground and trying to get up. She seethed and grabbed her ankle, but she was tough. I ran up to her, heart pounding. Mina was already there. So was Tony. They took her arms.
"They shot her in the foot," Tony explained. His face was like a statue, the way the doctors always were when they talked about Mom and how bad she was getting, or how far the cancer had spread. "We need to get her to a doctor. It's not the worst thing in the world, but it might get infected."
"Ouch," Gina managed. She smiled at me as she balanced between the two of them. "This is going to make for a great story."
I eyed her shoe. There was blood. Lots and lots of blood. Her shoe was soaked in it.
"Get her into the back of a truck," I ordered. The blood wasn't even bothering me anymore. I'd seen worse than blood, and not just after the apocalypse. "We don't know when the surviving guys will get back."
"Mack," the legless man on the ground whimpered.
I couldn't stand it anymore. I wished we had something to put him out of his misery. Skinny's pistol still lay next to him, but I knew it was empty. Useless. Otherwise I would have been dead already.
And Skinny himself...
He was groaning. Moving his arms like he was trying to swim through the pavement, a
nd groaning. His legs were still. He was paralyzed.
At least, I thought.
"Don't look at that," Jerome said. His face filled my vision as he put himself between me and that. "Let's help Gina. Christina and Jasmine already got the green truck over there. Look," he said, pointing. It was true. They had started the green truck and the headlights were on. I hadn't even noticed. All we'd leave was the damaged Dodge and the one I'd backed into, a gray Silverado.
Gina staggered over to the green truck and Tony and Mina helped her on. "We'll ride in the back with her," Tony said. "You and Alana and Jerome take two other trucks."
"We need to move before morning," I said. We had to move. I couldn't stay here a second longer. The cold wrapped around me and the wind kicked up. I wasn't sure what we were going to do in another dust storm. All I could do was pray there wasn't going to be one, period.
But I couldn't even do that.
Nothing was certain anymore.
Least of all, me.
Chapter Ten
We stopped at the town's grocery store, broke through the glass doors with the baseball bat the guy with the crushed legs had dropped, and shined the flashlight through the store. We needed food. Water. Most of wall, we needed something to give Gina to dull the pain and stop the bleeding.
I left her with Tony and Mina in the back of a truck as the rest of us grabbed plastic bags and entered. I did one more check of the parking lot to make sure those men hadn't returned. To be safe, we had slashed the tires on the remaining two trucks in the parking lot with Jasmine's knife. It wouldn't stop them completely, since they could drive on the rims, but it would slow them down. We had to move quickly.
There were plenty of other guns those guys could find.
The store reeked so much I gagged again once we crossed the threshold. And it wasn’t just death, either—it was spoiling meat and dairy. The air inside was hot and stale. The flashlight landed on rows and rows of fully stocked food, bottles of water, and meds in the pharmacy section.
“Aspirin,” I said. “And ace wraps. I’ll go to the pharmacy.” I rushed over to that section, which smelled the least horrible. It took me a minute to pile the things we needed into the supply bag. I also got my wits and threw some rubbing alcohol in there, too.