“Brock!” Paul said, checking the rearview mirror for Dan.
Brock’s gun ran out of bullets. He turned to see Cora safely inside the car and tossed her a warm smile just before three men violently jerked him to the driveway. Cora screamed and tried to get out of the car but Wendy held her back and locked the other door as Paul sprang from the car and raced around the front. Brock clubbed the bastards in the head with the butt of his gun. Paul took careful aim, not sure which stiff to shoot first, afraid of hitting Brock in the process. Heartbeat hammering, Paul squeezed the trigger. A man in Army fatigues snapped backwards and stopped moving, causing one of his buddies to stumble off into the fog with Brock’s left arm. Brock howled in pain, his gun clicking dryly as he kept pulling the trigger. Paul whirled around just in time to shoot some lady in the forehead before turning back to the man tearing into Brock’s neck. Cora’s screams made him lightheaded. He stepped closer, sweat stinging his eyes, and shot the man in the side of the head. Kicking the lifeless bag of bones off of Brock, Paul shrank at the sight of the cowboy’s upturned eyes and the blood spurting from the bite marks in his neck and shoulder.
“Brooooock!” Cora wailed from inside the car, fighting Wendy to get out.
More of the smelly bastards floated from the shifting fog. Paul swore under his breath and slid across the car’s hood. Climbing behind the wheel, he yanked the door shut just before a shredded postal worker grabbed his arm. He locked the door and twisted around in the seat. “Where’s Dan?” he yelled over Cora’s relentless shrieks.
“I don’t know,” Wendy yelled, struggling to keep Cora inside the vehicle.
Fists pounded against the windows, threatening to break the tempered glass. Paul searched the back of the driveway through wide eyes, praying his best friend since high school would shoot from the fog like a bat out of hell at any second. The front of the car dipped, drawing Paul’s harrowed attention. His features twisted into an incredulous ball when he found himself face to face with an obese woman in flannel pajamas perched on Shelly’s hood like a silverback gorilla. The middle-aged woman looked fresh, like she’d just turned. She screamed so loud Paul had to cover his ears.
“There he is!” Wendy cried.
He turned to see Dan finally coming down the driveway, heart nearly jumping out of his chest with joy. “Come on, Dan! Hurry!”
But Dan was in no hurry.
Paul’s jaw fell open.
Wendy stared out the back window, bear hugging Cora. “What’s he doing?”
Paul shifted into reverse and lit Dan up with white lights. Paul’s heart stopped on a dime. His veins turned to ice. The gorilla on the hood drove a meaty fist into the front windshield, spider-webbing the glass but Paul didn’t notice. He was too busy watching Dan hobble closer.
“No,” Paul said dully.
Wendy screamed.
Dan ran into the rear bumper and reached for them, quietly begging them to wait up, his face a bloody mess. The past flickered through Paul’s mind: Iowa Cubs games with Dan at Principal Park, sunny rounds of golf, camping trips, games of Madden on the couch.
“Dan!” Wendy shrieked, letting go of Cora, who quickly unlocked her backdoor and opened it.
Paul shifted into drive just as the woman on the hood smashed her fist through the windshield. He threw an arm up to block the bloody hand from pulling him through the jagged hole while Wendy snagged the back of Cora’s robe with her fingertips and pulled her back inside the car. Pajamas clawed at Paul’s face, her yellow nails missing his nose by less than an inch. He turned his head to the side and moved the seat all the way back, giving him just enough room to take one last look at his best friend he wished he hadn’t taken. Dan stared at him through his only eye, jaw hanging by a sinewy thread. “Fuck!” Paul screamed, turning around and putting a bullet through Pajamas’ hand and punching the accelerator. The woman rolled off the hood as he flew down the driveway. Peering through the hole in the windshield, he avoided the shambling screamers as much as possible, fearful of stalling the car. If they lost it here, they’d never outrun the fat ones. He glanced in the rearview mirror to see Pajamas join Dan and Brock in their newfound quest for flesh and blood. In a pulse of thought, Paul wondered if some basic instinct would cause Dan and Brock to stick together. Or would they wander off on their separate paths to go it alone?
“Look out!” Wendy screamed.
Paul jerked the wheel to the left and Shelly1 obeyed, barely clipping a UPS driver in torn brown clothing. “Goddamn! How many UPS drivers are out there?”
“Paul!” Cora bawled in the backseat. “Please stop the car!”
It sounded like she was yelling underwater as he white-knuckled the wheel and braced for impact when a tall man with long hair darted from the fog. Paul didn’t swerve and hit him head-on instead, sending the man crashing through the cattle fence. The tires squealed as Paul swerved around a group of rotting corpses at the end of the driveway.
Cora punched him in the back of the head, her diamond ring splitting his scalp. “We have to go back!”
Paul slid the car sideways into the road out front, sending Cora crashing against Wendy and gravel pelting the zombies crawling out of the ditch. Speeding off into the night, Paul looked back to see the undead funneling through the hole in the fence. He turned back to the road, forcing himself to breathe, and buried the gas pedal to drown out Cora’s incessant cries.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
DAY SIXTEEN
Paul popped his eyes open and stared at Shelly’s dimpled ceiling, the quiet buzzing in his ears like a swarm of bees. His heart sank as his throbbing mind slowly put the pieces together. Dan and Brock were dead. Paul sat up and rubbed the back of head, wincing in pain. Twisting in the front seat, he squinted through the morning gray to see Wendy stretched across the back seat and sound asleep. A heavy sigh slipped through his chapped lips, the windows fogged over from their heavy breathing. Somehow, they were still alive. His heart jumped into his throat. He turned and looked at Wendy again.
Cora was gone.
His eyes went to Cora’s unlocked door. It was barely shut, just enough to turn off the dome light. Grimacing, he hopped out into a rugged dirt field and stumbled. The fog was gone but the panic wasn’t. Spinning in frantic rotations, he cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled her name, the echo carrying on the wind. A crow squawked back. He whirled in the soil and screamed her name again. Standing frozen, Paul held his racing breath, hands balling into fists. Jesus!
Wendy popped out from the backseat, bright eyed and bushy tailed with dried blood on her face and clothes. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know,” he said, surveying the rural landscape while grasping at shallow gulps of crisp morning air.
“How long has she been gone?”
“I don’t know; I just woke up.”
“Well, where did she go?” Wendy cried, casing the countryside with him.
“I - don’t - know!” He stopped doing circles, the motion making him woozy. “Fuck!” he said, kicking the soil.
The wind tugged at Wendy’s long hair, like it was trying to show her something off to the northeast. “She can’t just be gone! We would’ve heard her get out of the car!”
“Stop walking.”
Wendy watched him scan the dirt field around the car. “What’re you doing?”
“Looking for footprints.”
The ground was moist on top with dew but hard and clumpy beneath, difficult to read. His own prints left faint marks and he had at least sixty pounds on Cora. He tried recalling the shoes she’d been wearing and drew a blank filled with a thousand other gruesome images. Paul swore and kicked the dirt again, Wendy looking to him with that terrified look in her eyes that pissed him off even more. It was too much pressure. He didn’t have all of the answers. In fact, he didn’t have any. Releasing a defeated breath, Paul linked his fingers behind his head and stared off into the distance. From here you would never know Hell had thrown back its charred gates. Even under turbulent skies,
it was beautiful and serene, the smell of the ocean playing peek-a-boo on a light breeze.
Brow knitting together, his feet uncontrollably followed his eyes to the trunk. He popped it, triggering a sliver of hope to pump an extra beat into his broken heart. The food, water, and duffel bag they’d packed the day before was another break. “Sonofabitch,” he whispered, not sure if he was happy or sad. The basic weapons would only prolong the inevitable and the M4 was back in Brock’s Suburban. Paul sighed. They could’ve used it with just the two of them now.
“Thank God,” Wendy said, unzipping the bag and grabbing a box of ammo. “If we would’ve waited until this morning to load the car…” Dolefully, she shook her head and filled a clip, teardrops streaking her filthy cheeks. “We have to find her.”
Paul’s gaze drifted back the way they came, wondering if Dan and Brock were still hobbling after them. Paul had no idea how far they drove last night, or in which direction. He just remembered driving to the sound of sobbing in the backseat and God knows where they were now, let alone where Cora might be. Taking the duffel bag and some water from the trunk, he got back inside the car and angrily slammed his door shut. Meanwhile, Wendy mulled over their limited options with her hands on her hips before hopping into the passenger seat and locking all of the doors. She took a long drink of water and passed it to Paul, who finished the bottle with greedy chugs. His mind shuffled like a detective.
When did you last see Cora?
Before I fell asleep last night.
What was she wearing?
A shiny red robe.
Which direction did she go?
No idea.
Where would she want to go?
Home.
Paul started the car and reversed their path, or something close to it. With pockets of fog masking their surroundings last night, he wasn’t entirely sure which direction to go. After a handful of miles, he began driving a poorly thought out grid pattern, getting lost twice before finding his way back to the highway. He banged his fist against the steering wheel and swore, making Wendy flinch. They combed the area for several miles, the wind bustling through the serrated hole in the front windshield.
Nothing.
The gas light came on, ripping at his insides because this is when it would happen.
On a gas run.
Just the two of them.
He pulled over and turned the Chevelle off. Outside of a barking dog in the distance, it was noiseless. The kind of quiet you never want to hear again. Goose bumps rippled across his flesh as he pictured Cora wandering around out there by herself – cold and unarmed. Paul dropped his face into his hands. “Fucking shit,” he grumbled under his breath. When he realized he hadn’t thought about Sophia in a while now, his anger flowered. These damn things not only wanted to eat them, but they wouldn’t let them rest long enough to mourn and that is all he wanted to do. The thought of siphoning gas with just Wendy made him laugh.
Her eyes narrowed. “What’s so funny?”
He shook his head, afraid to tell her they were finished. Afraid to tell her this was the end. Paul wasn’t even sure he could get out of the car again. Every muscle in his body screamed with the slightest movement while a dull thud rotated behind his eyes. “We need gas.”
Her eyes darted to the dash. “Do we even have a siphon?”
Paul nodded, surveying the open land around them. “We made sure both cars did,” he replied, the word we driving a knife through his windpipe.
Wendy put her hair back into a ponytail and straightened her bloody v-neck t-shirt. “Well, this oughtta be good.” Staring straight ahead like she was watching something play out against the broken window – something ghastly – she spoke in a weak voice. “How long until we’re next?”
“I’m going to start heading south again.”
Her eyes snapped over to him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, she’s gone.” Paul looked around. “I’m not even sure where we are.”
“You just want to give up?”
“Cora is the one who gave up, Wendy. I’m still here.”
Wendy vehemently shook her head. “No.”
“She could be anywhere!”
“We’ll keep looking then!”
“We’ve already looked everywhere!” He sighed and lowered his voice. “Look, we don’t even know where we’re at. She could be hours ahead of us, or behind us.”
Or dead.
His eyes scoured the flattened landscape around them. What else could they do? Even if they were able to find Cora, he was certain she would only do something stupid like this again and the next time they would all die. After all, she left the car door unlocked and in this world that was the equivalent to leaving your door unlocked in East St. Louis in the old world. Without Brock, she was a loose cannon and Paul knew the feeling.
He started the car and turned to Wendy, who refused to meet his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
Chapter Forty
Paul siphoned gas from a beige Escalade parked in front of a convenience store while Wendy covered him from behind. The bigger vehicles had larger tanks and, usually, more gas. If the car doors were unlocked, he would’ve searched for a set of hidden spare keys. Thanks to Pajamas, it was difficult to see out Shelly’s shattered front windshield and chilly as hell in the morning air. In the end, he decided not to risk the noise from breaking out a window and bled the tank dry instead. What were the odd the keys were inside a luxury SUV like this? Not good. No, they would find a new car somewhere else, probably a dealership with a box of keys in the office and their choice of colors parked outside in the lot.
They didn’t speak while the last of the gas gurgled into Shelly1 from the five gallon can. Paul stared at the shuddered gas station and caught a whiff of the old world going on around him. He could see the cars coming and going, people filling their tanks and tires, nozzles automatically clicking off. It would never be like that again, people going about their business without a care in the world. After emptying the can, Paul screwed the caps back on it and the car.
“What could do this?”
He tossed the can and siphon back into the trunk, following Wendy’s gaze to a pair of bloody handprints on the station’s windows – Jesus Kills smeared in blood just below. A number of answers rifled through Paul’s head: Bioterrorism, North Korea, witchcraft, or maybe the world’s anger had turned from hateful online comments into something tangible.
Something deadly.
Paul slammed the trunk shut and got back in the car. At any rate, what could anyone have done to prevent it? Protest? March in the streets and flip over some cars? He grunted, leading the black Chevelle down a winding two-lane highway under a sad sky. Like that shit ever did anything before but fan the flames. The wind howled through the windshield, ruffling his hair, and if it started to rain they’d have to pull over. The closer they got to the ocean, the more it hit home. Everyone was dead. Everyone. Wendy nonchalantly dabbed at an eye, fighting back more tears. She looked older in the daylight. Time was different in this world. Two weeks equaled two years. He opened his mouth to tell her they would be okay, that they could do this on their own, but returned his attention to the road instead, too tired to even lie.
She sensed his distress and took his hand in hers. “We’ll be okay.”
He replied with a shallow nod and slowed down at a pack of abandoned vehicles blocking the road. Coming to a complete stop, Paul surveyed the best way to go around when a man in a trucker hat emerged from the red cab of an eighteen-wheeler up ahead.
“Look, there’s someone!” Wendy announced, sitting up straighter.
Paul watched the man climb down from the cab.
“He looks normal,” Wendy said in a hopeful tone, eager to restock the ones they’d lost. The whole power in numbers thing. “Maybe he needs help.”
But the closer the man came, the more Paul realized they were the ones who needed the help. The man stumbled and lost his cap but didn’t bother picking it up.
&
nbsp; “Go,” she said coldly.
Paul studied the steep ditches bordering the road on both sides. It looked like a good way to roll the car so he squeezed between a blue Prius and another car instead, scraping the side of the Prius as the man limped closer. The Chevelle wedged itself between the cars, coming to a jerky halt. The man reached for them, nearly to Wendy’s door.
“Go, Paul!”
He gunned it and knocked the Prius out of the way with a long metallic screech, accelerating into the open road ahead. In the rearview mirror, he watched the man stumble after them. Palm trees and signs for different beaches rushed by in a dizzying blur, everything strange, everything foreign. Even Wendy seemed strange and foreign. Hell, he barely knew her, yet here they were. The last two people on Earth.
“Do you still believe in God?” she asked.
The day’s gray light cast an eerie glow across her drawn face. He turned back to the road without answering.
She frowned. “I mean, how could you? After everything that’s happened?”
He drummed his fingers against the wheel and shifted in the seat, butt going numb.
She folded her arms across her chest. “I’m probably already dead and this is my version of Hell.”
He looked over to her. “You’re not dead. Not yet anyway.”
“Oh, that’s reassuring.”
The road droned beneath them, issuing a soothing vibration throughout the classic ride. Paul took a Jimmy Buffett CD from the glove box – the only CD in the car – and debated putting it in the updated Pioneer deck before throwing the disc out the window instead.
“Hey!” Wendy shouted.
He tried the radio again and nothing. Not even static. When he hit the seek button the digital numbers flipped by without stopping. It was impossible to tell what even used to be a radio station. The dead air gave him the chills. Wendy watched the digits spin, hoping they would snag on something but they just kept rolling, lost in a sea of nothingness. She turned to face him, her ponytail blowing in the wind. “I don’t want to end up like one of those things.”
A Little More Dead Page 21