A low moan rose from the zombie horde, the sound instantly triggering Megan’s fight or flight instincts. She glanced around and saw more of the creatures thrashing their way toward them. Fighting was out of the question.
“Jack?” she whimpered, her fear getting the best of her.
Jack worked the gearshift, going from park to neutral to drive and then back to park again. He sucked in a breath. “Here goes.”
With a lightning fast twist of the wrist, he turned the key. The starter motor let out a feeble shriek of protest, and the engine caught.
“Drive! Drive! Drive!” Megan screamed.
Jack threw the truck into drive and nailed the gas. The tires spun, sending up a rooster-tail of dirt and shredded plants. The zombies were almost upon them.
Jack stared at Megan, paralyzed, helplessness filling his eyes.
Megan leaned forward and grabbed the four-wheel-drive lever. She yanked it into position. The transmission thunked. “Go!”
Jack put the accelerator to the floor again, and the wheels bit into the loose desert soil. The vehicle squirted free just as the first zombie raked its diseased talons across the hood.
Nine
Interstate Nineteen
Thirty Miles south of Tucson
The terrible condition of Arivaca road came as an unwelcome surprise to Ryan. Three years of harsh Arizona weather, as well as a complete lack of maintenance, had transformed the once buttery-smooth asphalt into an obstacle course of shifting sands and desert scrub. Storm waters raging through clogged arroyos had carved channels through the blacktop in countless places, forcing him to frequently detour into the nearby desert in search of solid ground. Each time, he had been sure they would become stuck; yet miraculously, they made it through unscathed.
Paige closed her eyes and curled into a ball at the far edge of her seat. Ryan tried to engage her, to comfort her, but each attempt was met with failure as she rebuffed him and drew in tighter on herself. He didn’t know what to do, but he knew he had to do something fast before she got worse. In the rear of the truck, he had stashed a cache of Paige’s anti-anxiety medications, but getting to them would require stopping, and there was no way he was going to do that until he was sure they were well ahead of the zombie horde. He banged the steering wheel in frustration and once again cursed himself for not being better prepared.
Glancing into the rearview mirror, Ryan saw Luke had his nose in a book.
“Whatcha reading?” he asked over his shoulder.
Luke didn’t answer right away.
“Hey, buddy,” Ryan said, waggling his fingers to get his son’s attention. “Whatcha reading?” He heard the sound of the book snapping closed.
“Nothing special.”
“Really?” Ryan asked. “It’s gotta be something good to hold your attention like that.”
Luke held up the book so Ryan could see it in the rearview mirror. Ryan thought he recognized it as one Paige had been reading a few months before the zombies came. Maybe even the last book she had ever purchased. “Isn’t that one of your mom’s?”
“Uh huh.”
“It must be good,” Ryan said, trying to keep the conversation going. He remembered being fourteen, how adults had seemed like aliens at that age. He couldn’t imagine how much worse it was for Luke, given what he had been through.
Luke slid forward on his seat so his head was between his parents’ seats. “It’s really good. It’s not what I expected.”
Ryan cocked his head. “How so?”
“I don’t know. It’s kind of depressing, but kind of hopeful at the same time. It’s about how this girl in the future is trying to stay alive after her country has fallen apart…”
Ryan listened with one ear as Luke described the plot of the story, his voice growing more animated as he took Ryan on a journey through the not-so-imaginary world contained within the pages. The other half of Ryan’s attention was on the road ahead. They were approaching the intersection with Interstate 19, and soon he would turn north, toward Tucson, and eventually Interstate 10, which would take them east, away from their pursuers. He suspected I-19 would be in better shape, and I-10 even more so. He hoped so, at least.
But first he had to deal with Tucson. The notion of going anywhere near the dead city filled Ryan with dread, so much so that he was going to try to stay as far south of the city as possible. If the way was clear, he would drop off the freeway at the Sahuarita exit, and then join up again with I-10 on the east side of town, cutting a wide path around the potential chokehold of the urban corridor. If the exit was blocked, he was prepared to improvise, to a point. His fuel supply would only get them so far, and becoming lost or stuck on the back roads was a very real concern.
They reached the I-19 intersection a few minutes later, and Ryan was relieved to find the road in decent condition, at least better than Arivaca Road. He increased his pressure on the gas pedal as he merged onto the freeway, nudging their speed up to fifty miles per hour.
Paige awoke a few minutes later. “Where are we?” she mumbled through a yawn.
“Nineteen North,” Ryan said. “But not for long. We’re getting off at Sahuarita.”
“Sahuarita? Why there?” Paige asked, suddenly alert.
Ryan kept his eyes on the road. “I want to stay as far south from the city as possible. It’s too risky.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea? What about the roads?”
Ryan gritted his teeth and tried to bite back his frustration at her sudden criticism of his plans. “We’ll be okay.”
Paige scrubbed at her eyes and turned to face Luke. “How are you doing back there?”
“Fine,” Luke said. “Bored.”
Ryan chuckled to himself. Only a teenager could be bored in their situation.
For the next hour, they passed the time with small bits of conversation about the outside world, dancing around the big decisions looming on the horizon. Ryan found the Sahuarita exit unobstructed, and left I-19 behind. He knew he wasn’t the only one worried about their future, but he wanted to maintain the feeling of normalcy, however fleeting, for as long as possible. His plan was simple: get as far away from Tucson as possible before stopping for the night, preferably somewhere remote with no threat of the undead. He wanted to reach Willcox, maybe farther, but with the slow going on Arivaca road, he feared Benson would be his limit before exhaustion set in. Unfortunately, Paige wouldn’t drive the big SUV, and even if she would, Ryan wasn’t sure he trusted her behind the wheel. He kicked himself for not having taught Luke how to drive. If he had, then they could have pushed further before stopping, maybe even into southern New Mexico. He would rectify that problem soon. It was time for Luke to grow up and take on more responsibility.
The back roads were clear, and the miles fell away faster than he expected. Before he knew it, they were at the sign for the junction with I-10. Ryan put his foot on the brake, slowing the truck to a stop in the center of the road. The engine ticked as he leaned over the wheel to inspect their surroundings.
“Well,” he said. “Here we are.”
“What are you waiting for?” Luke asked.
Paige gave him an expectant look.
“Nothing,” Ryan said, and pressed down on the gas. “Nothing at all.”
He crept up the ramp and stopped again at the top. The freeway was clear in both directions. He closed his eyes and, for a second, imagined he could hear the ghosts of tractor-trailers roaring by, the throaty growl of open-piped motorcycles piloted by weekend desperadoes, the sounds of a world that lived only in his memories. He checked his rearview mirror and blinked in disbelief. A pickup truck was behind them, about a quarter mile back and closing.
“Oh, shit.” Ryan reached for his gun.
Ten
Interstate Ten
Tucson City Limits
A deathly pall of silence enveloped the truck as Megan and the men raced away from the hordes swarming into Green Valley. Steve’s final words played in a continuous lo
op in her mind, the raw terror in his voice a bloody mental hangnail she couldn’t resist picking. Every few minutes, she tried to raise him on the radio, to raise anyone who would answer, but each call was met with the same response: dead air. Deep down, she knew it was hopeless, that they had lost the Canyon and everyone inside of it. Yet she persisted. Someone must be alive, she told herself. They have to be. Giving up was not an option, not until she saw it with her own eyes would she allow herself to accept it was all over.
She squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to cry.
It didn’t work.
***
Megan’s fingernails sank into the warm cracked plastic of the dashboard as she pulled herself forward and tried to peer through the ruined windshield. “Slow down, Jack. There’s something going on up there.”
“What do you—“
“Just do it!” she said.
“What’s happening?” Archie asked from the back seat.
Megan pointed at a truck parked a few hundred yards ahead, at the intersection with I-10. “The brake lights on that truck just flashed.”
“Really?” Archie scooted forward so his head was almost even with her own. “Are you sure?”
“Uh huh. They blinked twice.”
Jack brought their pickup to a rattling stop twenty yards short of the bumper of the other vehicle, a dusty Chevrolet Suburban. The motor rattled and wheezed before settling down to a rough idle.
The seconds ticked by as they watched and waited for signs of life. Megan tried to count heads through the rear window of the other vehicle, but couldn’t see through the tint. She checked the position of the sun and cursed. They didn’t have time for this. They were so close to Scorpion Canyon she could almost taste it.
“Well…” Jack said after a minute. “What next?”
Megan inspected their surroundings, searching for signs of the undead that had been everywhere only a few miles back. She didn’t see any. “I guess we get out. See who it is.”
She heard the telltale ripping sound of Velcro from behind her as Archie unfastened the safety strap on his holster.
“Easy there,” she said, turning to face him. “I don’t want to do anything rash. These people are probably in the same situation as us.”
Archie held up his HK 9mm pistol and met her stare. “My thoughts exactly. Desperate.”
Megan conceded his point. However, since the occupants of the other vehicle hadn’t come out with guns blazing, she figured the chances of problems were growing slimmer with each passing second. She didn’t want to do anything to change that.
“I’m going to check it out,” she announced, her fingers closing around the door latch.
Jack gripped her shoulder. “Wait. I’ll go.”
“No,” Megan said, gently prying his fingers from her arm. “I’ll be okay. Trust me on this.” Jack opened his mouth to protest, but Megan cut him off with a stern shake of her head.
She opened the door and climbed out. The first thing she noticed was the sound, or the lack of it. Aside from the wheezy rumble of the engine, the day was absolutely still, without even a trace of wind. She couldn’t hear the Suburban at all.
She made her way around the front end of the pickup, making sure to keep her hands in plain sight. She caught Jack’s eye and gave him a tight smile. He responded with a frown. The truck, she noted as she passed, was in terrible shape, worse than she had imagined. Both headlights and the radiator grille were gone. The hood was wrinkled and twisted beyond any hope of repair. Bits of flesh, hair, and spiny cactus were packed tightly into the seams of the tortured sheet metal. She shuddered in disgust at the thought of scraping out the mess.
With a purposeful stride, she halved the distance between the truck and the Suburban. She stopped and stole a glance over her shoulder. She could barely make out Jack’s face through the gore-encrusted windshield.
The driver-side door of the Suburban popped open with a groan, and a man climbed out onto the running boards, then hopped to the ground. Megan’s eyes went straight to the compact black pistol wedged in his waistband. She thought of her own gun, which she had left behind in the truck, and wondered if she had made the wrong decision. Too late now, she decided. She forced a congenial smile onto her face.
The man approached slowly, his gaze alternating between her and the truck. His hands, thankfully, remained far away from his gun. Somewhere in his mid-forties, with thinning hair and a slight paunch, he appeared well fed and relatively clean, a far cry from most of the refugees Megan had met since the uprising. He stopped short a few feet from her.
Megan put her fingers to the brim of her cowboy hat and tipped it at him. “Hey there.” Her heart galloped in her chest. This was the part of meeting strangers she dreaded the most, the point at which things could, and often did, go drastically wrong in the blink of an eye. She sensed Jack’s eyes boring into her back of her head and tried to put him out of her mind, to focus on the moment.
The man nodded and gave her a curious stare.
Megan asked, “Which way are you headed?”
The man hooked his thumbs through his belt loops and hitched up his pants. “East.”
“Hmm.” Megan glanced in that direction. “There’s not a lot out there these days.”
The man laughed under his breath. “It doesn’t matter. It’s better than what’s behind us.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, toward the city of Tucson.
Megan felt the muscles in her neck tense as she recalled the horrors of the morning.
The man extended his hand and grinned. “I’m Ryan Franklin.”
Megan took his hand and gave it a firm shake. His palm was as dry as sandpaper. “Megan Pritchard. Where are you coming from?”
His gaze flicked to the west. “Arivaca.”
“Where’s that?”
“Down south. Near the border.”
Megan saw movement at the driver’s door of the Suburban. A teenaged boy with shaggy dark hair and thick glasses stuck out his head and waved at her. She locked eyes with him and smiled. The boy disappeared abruptly as a woman began shouting.
“Your family?” she asked, doing her best to suppress an amused grin.
Ryan looked at the Suburban with a pained expression. “Uh huh. And you? Where are you headed?”
Megan pointed to the northwest. “Over there.”
Ryan’s expression fell into a concerned frown. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”
Megan crossed her arms over her chest. “We’re not going far. Only to Scorpion Canyon.”
Ryan arched an eyebrow. “Really? Is that home?”
Megan shrugged. “Since this whole thing started.”
Ryan cursed. “I wish I had known…”
“What do you mean?”
He waved his hand dismissively. “Nothing. It doesn’t matter now.”
Sensing there was a story behind the wave, Megan asked, “So what brings you out here?”
Ryan coughed into his hand and cleared his throat. He began to speak, slow at first, but picking up speed as Megan fed him small signals of encouragement. The story poured forth from him, as if it was something he had to hear out loud in order to convince himself it was real. It was a story of a safe and predictable life in a bunker beneath the desert floor, with freeze-dried food, endless electric power from an industrial-grade solar array, showers, clean clothes, and most of the conveniences of the old world. He told her of a swarm bigger than any she had ever heard of, and about how he and his neighbor had tried, but failed to divert it from their compound. With each word Ryan spoke, Megan realized she shared a kinship with him, an inextricable connection with this man she had never met.
She listened with rapt attention, her thoughts churning as she tried to coordinate the timeline of the events in Ryan’s story with what had happened in Scorpion Canyon and Green Valley.
When he was done, Ryan turned her question around, asking her why she was on the road.
Megan told him of their quest for f
resh water, of how only that morning they had finally found a reliable supply on the south side of the valley. Then she told him about the attack on Scorpion Canyon.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I can’t imagine…”
Megan started to respond, but the words got caught in her throat. She averted her eyes, looking instead at the pickup where Archie and Jack waited. She sniffled and cleared her throat.
“It’s okay,” Ryan said. “You don’t have to talk about it. Not if you don’t want.”
Megan gave a slight nod. “Thanks. I think I’m going to go get my people now. I’m sure they’re wondering what we’re talking about out here.”
Ryan looked at his own vehicle. “That’s a good idea. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Waving at the pickup, Megan motioned for Jack and Archie to join her.
A few minutes later, it was as if both groups had known each other for years. Luke, Ryan’s son, seemed remarkably normal to Megan, considering he had spent the bulk of his teenage years locked in an underground bunker. The boy’s excitement at meeting new people was infectious, lifting the mood of everyone around him. Everyone except his mother, it seemed. Paige Franklin was a different story altogether, barely saying a word beyond hello and shying away from all of Megan’s efforts to engage her in conversation.
All the while, thoughts of the tragedy in Scorpion Canyon scratched at the back of her mind. Finally, unable to resist the temptation any longer, Megan excused herself and made her way back to the truck to try the radio again.
“Are you okay?”
She looked up, startled. It was Ryan. Unbeknownst to her, he had followed her.
“I was going to give the radio another try. It’s been about an hour.”
Ryan leaned against the back of the truck, taking care to avoid touching the areas tainted by infected flesh and blood. His hand went to his chin and he gave it a thoughtful scratch. “You know, don’t you, that this isn’t any ordinary swarm? This is something different, something new.”
Elements of the Undead - Omnibus Edition (Books One - Three) Page 24