Quinn and I held our weapons in front and headed to the far end of the store. I told myself to take deep breaths and relax. We started with the farthest aisle, and while he peeked around the corner, I watched his back. Empty. We hurried to the next aisle. He peeked around the corner again. Empty. We were about to move forward when a glass jar shattered on the floor, followed by a low moan. I tensed, and I physically willed myself not to pee my pants. Quinn fired a shot into the aisle. A thumping sound echoed through the store, and I risked a glance around the corner. A zombie lay crumpled on the tile.
“This one is the only one I’ve seen so far, but there might be more. I don’t think his moan was loud enough to alert the others, but let’s do a quick sweep of the storage area.”
I followed him to the back, and we stepped through the swinging doors. The room was dark, and the smell of rotting food was overpowering. I gagged. Quinn grabbed some flashlights and batteries from the store. He handed one to me. By that point, adrenaline had kicked in and I felt pretty good. If any zombies wanted to mess with me, they were going to get a face full of lead. I clicked the light on, and we stepped into the room. I flashed the beam into a corner and illuminated three zombies. With three shots, I dispatched them before they knew I was there.
“Nice shooting,” Quinn whispered.
I couldn’t help but smile, and confidence washed over me. We finished our sweep without running into any more creatures.
“It’s clear,” he said. “I saw the cargo door in this corner over here.” He pointed to his right. “So if you want to bring the truck around, I’ll get it open.”
I nodded and headed outside. As I stepped into the sun, my gait had a little more snap to it and the knot in my stomach disappeared. Not only had Quinn given me a compliment, but I’d just killed three zombies with only three shots using a flashlight. That was pretty freaking good. I realized at that moment, I didn’t need to worry about the creatures, they needed to worry about me. I cautioned myself about being cocky, but I thought I deserved to bask in my awesomeness for a few minutes.
We filled the rest of the truck with the nonperishable food items we found in the store. It took us another couple hours, then we went to fill the tanker. Quinn led us to a station on the outskirts of town. The place was surrounded by a chain-link fence, so we didn’t have to worry about zombies.
While Kyle and Bill filled the truck, Quinn and I kept watch. The sun set as we finished loading the truck, and Quinn suggested we find a place to stay for the night. We drove to the center of town and parked in front of the jail. I glanced from the building to him.
“The jail? Why here?”
“It’s the safest place in town. Everything is divided into sections, so even if there are zombies in there, they’re trapped and can be taken down easily. Plus, there are beds and restroom facilities. Where else do you suggest we go?”
Quinn’s reasoning sounded logical, and I didn’t know any place, so I trusted his judgment. “How are we going to get in? Aren’t the doors locked?”
“Most of the locks are triggered by electricity. We hotwire the system, and the doors will pop right open.”
“How are you going to do that?”
He smiled. “We have our ways.”
The outside doors weren’t an issue, they were unlocked, so we headed to the second floor where the holding cells were located. We opened the stairway door onto the admittance desk, and Bill walked around to the backside. He pulled what looked like a car battery out of his bag. He popped open a panel on the underside of the desk before attaching the wires. With a flip of a switch, the doors buzzed and popped open. I looked at Quinn, unable to stop the grin from spreading across my lips. I was impressed. We cleared the area, then picked a cell.
The holding cells were a combination of the new and old. They had concrete walls with two bunk beds and a toilet and sink in the corner. The doors were black iron bars. There were no windows, and there were five cells on both sides of the hall.
“Now, the doors won’t lock when you close them,” Quinn explained. “So you’ll have to tie them closed with this.” He handed me a piece of wire.
“Isn’t someone going to stay awake and keep guard?”
“What for? Zombies are terrible at climbing stairs, and we’ve secured the area. Even if they get past the two doors and into this room, you’re protected in your cell. You can still shoot the zombies, but they can’t get you.”
All the confidence I’d felt earlier drained out of me. Visions of being trapped in a tiny room, alone, with zombies reaching for me flashed through my mind.
“What if a hundred of them show up? None of us have the ammo to stave off that kind of attack.”
Quinn shook his head. “There won’t be that many. They don’t even know we’re here. You’ll be fine.”
I took a deep breath and glanced at the doors we just came through. The zombies would have to come up to the second floor, make it through the door at the top of the stairs, then get through the two doors that had been wired shut. It was secure enough. It had to be.
“Would you feel better if I stayed with you?”
“No,” I answered quickly. Perhaps a bit too quickly because Quinn took a step back and held up his hands. “I’ll be fine.”
“Okay. I’m in the cell right next to you if you need anything.”
I entered the cell, closing the door behind me. I twisted the wire around the bars and made one last check of the hall. I climbed into bed, setting my gun on my chest. I stared at the door for a long time before eventually falling asleep.
CHAPTER 11
A soft thumping broke me from my dreamless sleep. I rolled over and placed the pillow over my head. For a brief second, I thought I was back home and Mom knocked on the door to wake me for school. Then I remembered where I was and sat straight up in bed. As the effects of sleep wore off, I realized the thumping was a pounding and it came from the stair doors. I rushed to the cell door, my gun in my hand, and untwisted the wire. My heart felt as if it beat in my ears, and I hoped I wouldn’t run into anything rotting in the hall. I glanced around the corner and noticed the guys, so I joined them.
“Started a few minutes ago,” Quinn said.
“How many are there?”
Bill shrugged. “Hard to say. Could be one, could be ten.”
“What are we going to do?” It annoyed me that the guys looked so calm. There was nothing to be calm about. Yeah, the creatures couldn’t get in, but we also couldn’t get out. There was one door, and corpses blocked it.
“We’re going to have some breakfast, then we’re going to leave.” Quinn turned to his bag and pulled out a propane-fueled burner. He grabbed some cans of hash and opened them into a pan.
I stared after them as they made themselves comfortable around the admissions desk. I wanted to scream, pull my hair, something, to get them to realize the danger we were in.
“They’re not going to get in,” Kyle reassured me. “C’mon. Have something to eat.”
I fought back the urge to shake him. He hadn’t spoken two words to me the day before, and now he was trying to reassure me? With who knows how many zombies at the door? How did they know the zombies weren’t going to get in? If there were enough of them, and they pounded for long enough, they might get in. I didn’t know a lot about the guys, but I thought they were crazy. Either that or on drugs. Either way, they freaked me out.
The smell of salty meat and potatoes reached my nostrils, and my basic needs took over. I took a deep breath and stepped up to the desk. Quinn handed me a plate and fork, and I ate greedily. After we finished, we sat silently for a moment. The pounding still echoed through the room, but it lost some strength.
Kyle leaned back in his seat and rubbed his stomach. “Do we have anything else? I’m still hungry.”
“Yeah,” Bill said. “I could eat some more.”
My stomach still growled, and I nodded my agreement.
Quinn pulled out two cans of beef stew to heat them
. As it cooked, I took a seat. I figured if we were going to be trapped, might as well be comfortable. He handed me my plate full of food. I burned my mouth as I shoveled in the contents. I cursed under my breath, and Kyle handed me a bottle of water. I took a quick drink and turned back to my food. After a few minutes, I realized the guys stared at me.
“What?”
They averted their gaze to their plates.
“What?”
Kyle chuckled. “I haven’t seen anyone eat like that since I was fourteen.”
I rolled my eyes. “You guys are eating just as much as I am.”
“Yeah, but not as fast,” exclaimed Bill. “Are you even chewing?”
I set down my empty plate. “How are we going to get out of here? They’ve blocked our only exit.”
Quinn forked a hunk of meat into his mouth. “No, they haven’t. That’s the beautiful thing about jails. There’s always a hidden set of stairs the guards can use in case of an emergency.”
I glanced at each of them, convinced they were messing with me. “Oh, yeah, then where is it?”
Quinn pointed at the floor by his feet. “Didn’t you notice the brass ring?”
I looked where he indicated, and sure enough, there was a brass ring and the faint outline of a door. I cursed myself in my mind. I should have been more observant. One of the first rules Pam had taught me about going into any situation was to know where the escape routes were. I handed the plate to Quinn and waited for them to finish.
When we were done, we went back to our cells and packed our things. I kept my gun in my hand, despite the fact the guys told me I didn’t need it. Bill pulled the brass handle on the floor, and the door swung open. He shined a flashlight into the hole. A ladder led down to the first floor, and I saw the light from outside.
“This should lead us to the alley, then to the street where we parked the trucks,” Bill explained. “I’ll head down and make sure the coast is clear.” He grabbed a rifle from his belongings and stepped down the ladder.
A few minutes passed before his face reappeared at the bottom.
“Coast’s clear.”
The rest of us followed him down, through the door, and into the trucks. Quinn started the engine, and I glanced out the window. A line of undead headed inside the building, each attempting to climb the stairs. There were quite a few of them, probably close to thirty. How did they know we were in the building? A few of them turned when they heard the trucks, but they were too slow to catch us. The convoy pulled out of town onto the highway. I took a deep breath and holstered my gun when we were a couple miles out of town. I sank into the chair and placed a hand on my forehead. My head thumped, almost as if the zombies pounded on my brain. I was glad we got out of there safely and alive, and I thought maybe the guys weren’t on drugs or crazy. Maybe they actually knew what they were doing.
“You don’t encounter zombies very often, do you?” Quinn asked.
I shook my head. “We see our fair share. We like to take care of them from a distance.”
“They’re not as bad as you think.”
I shot him a look. “Uh, yeah, they are. They destroyed almost the entire population of the U.S. Maybe even the world.”
He chuckled. “Well, they are that bad, but you don’t have to worry about them quite as much as you do. Sure there are a lot of them, but they don’t move very fast, and they’re easy to take down. I’ve seen one person surrounded by fifty zombies come out unscathed. I’ve seen people walk right through a field of them, and they don’t even know they’re there.”
“I’ve seen people get eaten alive,” I spoke quietly.
Quinn frowned. “Yeah, I’ve seen that, too. My point is, as long as you use your head and stay calm, you’re going to survive.”
“Have you ever seen anyone turn?”
Quinn was quiet for a moment. “Yeah.”
“What’s it like?”
He glanced at me. “It’s nothing you ever want to experience for yourself.”
I opened my mouth to ask another question when something bumped against the driver’s side of the truck. I sat up and tried to look out Quinn’s window.
“What was that?”
“Zombie.” He pointed out the windshield.
I turned to where he indicated, and my mouth fell open. A horde of undead—close to two hundred strong—slowly walked down the highway. Quinn accelerated and plowed through the group at seventy-five miles per hour. I leaned forward to get a better view of the destruction. Bodies clanged against the grill, and arms and legs were ripped from their torsos. A few sprays of blood and other fluids flew over the hood and spattered the windshield. He turned on the wipers and smeared the goo across the glass. The smell of decay permeated the cab.
We were through the horde in a few moments. The stench of rotting flesh was overpowering. The bile rose into my throat. Quinn squirted cleaner onto the windshield and swiped as much of the gore off as he could.
“We’ll have to stop and get this cleaned off,” he said. “Just be careful when you get out. Sometimes those buggers grab onto the side.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “You know, there is a way to avoid that.” I raised my eyebrows as Quinn looked at me.
“Not really,” he smiled. I could tell he enjoyed what he’d just done. “You ever go driving with your parents?”
“Of course.”
“Well, you know how sometimes on the road you hit these clouds of bugs and they coat your car like rain?”
I nodded.
“Well, the zombies are kinda like those clouds. There’s really no way to avoid them and they stick to your car like glue.”
We stopped at the next gas station and took a quick glance around. As I climbed onto the cab roof to stand lookout, I slipped in some of the blood and guts and proceeded to throw up. I couldn’t help it. Between the smell and the slick texture, it came up. Quinn told me to climb back into the truck. I crawled into the seat, pulling my knees up to my chest.
Bill and Kyle stood guard for him while he cleaned off the gore. I felt lightheaded, and the blood on my clothes nauseated me even more. Without thinking, I pulled off my shirt and pants and threw them out the window. I wanted them off and as far away from me as possible. I dug through my bag, looking for new clothes, when Quinn climbed into his seat. His face instantly turned red. My face flushed too, and I couldn’t climb into the sleeper fast enough.
“Sorry,” he muttered and put the truck into gear.
I pulled on my sweats and lay down. A hand reached through the curtain with a bottle of water.
“This will help you feel better.”
I took it from him and sipped on the liquid. “We should be in North Platte in about four hours.”
I sat up and poked my head through the curtain. “How often do you run into hordes like that?”
Quinn shrugged. “Depends.”
I grimaced. “God, that was awful.”
“Just wait until we have to wash it off. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”
I pictured the severed limbs, blood, and pus, and my stomach lurched. I kept the vomit down, but became lightheaded. I shrank behind the curtain and lay back on the bed. I closed my eyes and swore I heard Quinn chuckling.
***
We stopped in a town called Pine Bluffs, which was on the Wyoming/Nebraska border. We hooked a hose up to the first hydrant we found and turned on the water. Bill and Kyle kept an eye out for zombies, and Quinn and I cleaned the truck. He handed me a shovel.
“What do you want me to do with this?”
“After I spray it with the hose, you’ll use this to pry any parts loose the water didn’t get.”
I looked at him in disgust.
“Do you want to use the hose?”
“Yes.”
“Fine.” He handed me the hose, and I aimed it at the truck.
I turned the stream on, and even though it wasn’t full power, it was still enough to knock me back. I staggered but didn’t go down. The hose wen
t a little crazy in the process, and I accidentally sprayed Bill and Kyle. They didn’t say anything, but their looks told me they weren’t happy. I gained a foothold and aimed the water at the vehicle. Water and zombie fluid splashed back and hit me in the face. I instantly snapped my mouth shut and froze in shock. Quinn lost it. He laughed so hard he doubled over. My eyes narrowed to slits.
“You think that’s funny?”
“You should…you should see the look on your face!” He opened his mouth to say something else, but laughter poured out.
I felt the heat rise into my cheeks, and I set my jaw. I turned the hose off and then ran to the truck. I grabbed a handful of blood and something clear and stringy and smeared it in Quinn’s hair. He stopped laughing and stared at me.
“You think it’s funny now?”
Quinn wiped the gunk out of his hair and flipped it onto the ground. As he stared at me, a smile crept onto his lips. He was planning something. I waited to see what it was.
When he moved for the hose, I had a good notion what ran through his mind. I went after him, but he grabbed the hose first and turned on the water. He positioned it so it ricocheted off the truck and hit me. I was soaked. I stood there, my arms out at my sides with water dripping off me, and I stared at him. I went to retaliate, to throw a shovel full of zombie parts at him, but Bill told us we didn’t have time for such nonsense. Quinn repositioned the stream and washed the truck off. I picked up the shovel and took care of the bits the water missed, making it a point to throw the goop in his direction.
Quinn had his back to me as I dislodged an arm. It was stuck on the running board, and I was so focused on digging it out I didn’t see the hand reach out from under the truck until it grabbed my calf. I squealed and fell onto the ground. Nails black with decay and soot tore through my sweats and into my flesh. I jerked my leg back, hoping to get free of the thing, but all it did was slice deeper into my flesh and tear a bigger hole in my pants. I grabbed the fingers and pried them off my leg. The skin was cold, and the bones snapped like dry twigs. Once I was free, I jumped up and backed away. The creature pulled itself from underneath the truck. It was a head, torso, and arm. The zombie opened its mouth to moan, but before it could get it out, I swiped its head off with the shovel. Pain burned through my leg and dots danced in front of my eyes. I had to sit before I fell. Quinn raced to my side and knelt.
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