by Lukens, Mark
Petra was at the back door on the driver’s side in a flash, jumping inside and slamming the door shut.
“There are hundreds of them coming,” Petra said, breathing hard, her gun still clenched in her hand. “Maybe thousands of them.”
Max pushed the button down for the door locks and then stomped on the gas pedal again. The back tires spun for a moment in the muddy ground, then gained traction. The truck shot toward the mass of bushes, away from the horde that was coming, the horde that had swarmed all over Lisey, dragging her down.
Petra was right—there were hundreds of them, their caravan stretched all the way down the street, but they were fanning out as they got to the house, going around the house like it was a rock in the middle of a river. Some of them were across the street: men, women, children. Many held some kind of weapon: kitchen knives, crowbars, golf clubs, tire irons, pieces of wood, chunks of rock and concrete.
Lisey twisted and fought as she was pulled down by dozens of hands. She screamed, her words unintelligible now. Her clothes and hair were torn away in strips. One of the rippers wrenched the shotgun out of her hands and struck her in the knee with it, driving her all the way down to the ground. A woman, maybe even a teenager, was on Lisey’s back, hacking at her with a meat cleaver, digging her fingers into the wounds to pull skin back and tear muscle away. Others were digging at other wounds, opening them wider, peeling skin away in sheets.
“Go, go, go,” Kate said, muttering the words like a mantra.
Max looked away from Lisey—he couldn’t watch anymore. The rippers had grabbed the woman’s arms and legs like she was on a medieval torture rack, about to be pulled apart. He focused on the street only twenty feet ahead of them, but their narrow gap of escape was filling quickly with rippers.
A rock pelted the back door of their truck, bouncing away.
Petra rolled down her window, shooting five times at the approaching mob, driving a few of them back, but not enough.
Max ran into one ripper, and then another, knocking both of them back and out of the way. He was on the street, driving too fast as he cut the wheel, the back end sliding, the tires spinning and trying to find traction on the wet pavement.
Petra shot again and then barked out a scream as a rock hit her in the head, knocking her back into the vehicle, her gun slipping out of her hand and falling down to the floorboard.
“Petra!” Max yelled.
No answer.
“She’s hurt,” Brooke cried.
Max couldn’t worry about that right now. Even though he was already on the street, the rippers were all around them. They seemed to be pouring in from the sides, like they had run farther down the other side of the road to head them off, clogging their escape route.
He gunned the gas, the six-cylinder motor roaring, yet also making a loud, unhealthy ticking sound. Rippers bounced off of the front of the truck, falling away to the left and the right. Max only got a glimpse of their wet, bloodstained faces, filthy and wild hair matted down from the drizzling rain, clothing hanging like rags, dark stains all over them. Knives and sticks bounced off of the hood and grill. One piece of wood bounced off the windshield, cracking it along the bottom.
“Go, go, go, go!” Kate yelled. “Just keep going!”
What else could he do? He kept his foot jammed down on the gas, the pedal down to the floor. But it felt like they were driving through mud, like a force was sucking them down, pulling them back into the horde. Fists and weapons beat at the rear of the SUV, and Max wondered if the rippers were clinging to the vehicle, their weight holding the truck back, the tires spinning uselessly on the wet street.
And more of them were coming.
But maybe it had been an illusion, because Max could feel the Honda SUV picking up speed as more and more rippers bounced out of the way. He ran some of them over, the truck bumping along. But there weren’t enough of them yet to bog the truck down. And it seemed like the wet pavement was helping, like it was easier for the truck to push the fallen ones out of the way and to the sides, like a cowcatcher on the front of an old steam locomotive.
The seconds seemed to stretch out forever as rippers grabbed at their truck, arms and hands trying to reach in through Petra’s open window, sticks jabbing in, knife blades. Somehow Petra had fallen far enough back to be out of the way, and somehow Brooke had pulled her back down onto her, farther down onto the back seat to be out of the way of their grasps. But as their truck picked up speed, the rippers’ arms were smacked away from the open window—Max even heard the snapping of bones and joints, screams of agony. He pushed the button down on his door to roll Petra’s window up.
The herd was thinning out. Max saw the gray daylight ahead. Some of the rippers were even backing away now as he drove the truck faster and faster.
They were in the clear now.
CHAPTER 15
Kate
Kate felt like she could finally breathe again. Those few moments with the rippers around them were just a blur of angry faces and fists, weapons swinging. Max was driving even faster down the road now, leaving her parents’ home behind, leaving the herd of rippers behind, the trees whipping by out her passenger window.
“Slow down a little,” she told him.
He was gripping the steering wheel so hard, facing forward, his mouth a thin line amid his gray facial hair. He glanced at her with eyes of shock, and life seemed to be coming back into his eyes. He nodded, showing that he’d heard her, but it seemed like he had to force himself to lift his foot up off of the gas pedal.
“Where do we go?” Max asked her.
Kate didn’t even understand what he was asking for a moment, unsure if he was talking about traveling south or north.
“Where does this road lead to?” he asked.
“Petra’s hurt,” Brooke said from the back seat, her voice hitching. “She won’t wake up.”
Tiger meowed from the back of the truck, a sickly sound coming from the cardboard box he was in.
Kate’s mind was spinning—there were so many things she needed to focus on right now. Too many.
“I don’t want to keep driving down this road if it ends in a dead end and we have to circle back,” Max said. “The rippers will be on us by then if we have to turn back around.” He was talking so fast his words were running together.
“She won’t wake up,” Brooke said again. “She’s bleeding.”
Tiger howled.
First thing first, Kate told herself. Petra was hurt, and they would need to find out how serious it was, but she had to calm Max down first. They were still on Appleton Road because Max hadn’t had time to turn right or left onto Creekbend Drive. Where did Appleton Road go? What other road would they eventually get to? It had been so long since she’d been here, since she’d been down this road. Was it a county road? A road that led to Perry—the nearest town of any size. Yes, Perry. That’s where they used to go once a month to do shopping when she was a kid. She had loved those monthly trips into “town,” as her parents had phrased it. They would often eat at a fast food restaurant, even ordering desserts. There was a mall with a book store in it, and her dad would let her roam around in the store for a few minutes. But she never bought anything there. She’d never been allowed to.
“Yeah,” Kate told Max. “Just keep going down this road. You’ll come to a county road.” She almost said that the road led to Perry, but they wouldn’t want to go there; Perry was much larger, it would probably be crawling with rippers. They wanted to try to avoid as many towns as they could.
The map. She checked her hoodie pockets. She had the envelope with her mother’s letter in it, but not the map. It was in one of the boxes in the back. At least she hoped it was. When they’d been ready to leave the house only minutes ago, she had felt that she was forgetting something. And now she had a sinking feeling that that thing was the map.
“Okay, good,” Max said. “At least we’re not going to get cornered.”
“Petra,” Brooke said, still cr
ying. “Petra, wake up.”
Max glanced in the rearview mirror.
“I’ll check on her,” Kate said. She climbed into the back a little so she could get a look at Petra.
Brooke’s face was shiny with tears. Her drawing tablet was crammed down beside her between the seat and the door.
Tiger was still meowing from the back. Kate wondered if the cat might be hurt.
Petra lay slumped against Brooke, her face covered with blood, her short and spikey hair wet with rain and more blood.
“Let me get her sitting back up,” Kate told Brooke. She wanted to get Petra up off of Brooke.
After a moment, Kate had Petra sitting back up and then leaning against her door, her head hitting the window with a soft thump. Her hands were limp in her lap, her gun on the floorboard along with the rock that had struck her.
Kate looked at Brooke. “We’ll all be okay.” Her words sounded dishonest to her own ears, a platitude said to calm kids down. “Are you hurt?”
Brooke looked down at her hands and her lap, her eyes wide with shock, a blank look on her face. She shook her head no.
“Does your neck hurt?” Kate asked. “Your back?”
Brooke shook her head no.
“Do you think you can unbuckle your seatbelt and check on Tiger?”
Brooke nodded, unfastening her seatbelt with shaking hands. She was up and over the back of the seat in a flash, in a similar positon that Kate was in. Her hands and arms moved frantically as she searched through fallen boxes and bags to find Tiger’s box.
“How is she?” Max asked.
Kate turned her attention back to Petra.
Petra’s eyes were still closed, her skin smooth, her constant scowl gone for once. She looked so much younger now. Was she unconscious? Dead? There was so much blood.
“What happened?” Max asked, that panic beginning to creep back into his voice again. “Was it the rock? She’s not shot, is she? That crazy old lady shot at Petra when she was at the front of the truck. Some of the buckshot might have gotten her.”
“I don’t know,” Kate snapped. She wanted to tell him to keep his eyes on the road and let her worry about Petra, but she didn’t. “Give me a second.”
Brooke was tearing at tape and pieces of cardboard, and then she had the box open. “Tiger,” she cooed.
The cat was free and he jumped out of the back and onto the seat between Brooke and Petra, his ears flat and a miffed expression on his face, but he didn’t seem terribly injured in any way. Brooke turned back around and sat back down, pulling Tiger closer to her, holding him.
Kate felt that Tiger was a good distraction for Brooke. She focused on Petra again, feeling for a pulse in her wrist, but she couldn’t find one.
“Kate, how is she?” Max demanded.
There it was—a pulse. It was weak, but it was there.
“She’s not dead, is she?”
“No.” Kate felt tears in her eyes. “No. She’s alive, but she’s unconscious.”
Max breathed out a sigh of relief.
Yes, Petra was alive, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t still in danger; she could have some kind of brain injury, swelling in her brain—she could even be in a coma.
“I don’t see any county road,” Max said. “I don’t see anything except fields and woods. Hardly any houses. There are more woods up ahead. And more mountains. You sure this leads to a county road?”
Max was talking fast again, rambling.
Kate tried to think of how far away the county road would be, trying to remember how long it used to take them to get to Perry. Forty-five minutes? An hour? She really couldn’t remember.
Kate felt Petra’s arm twitch in her hands. And then her eyelids fluttered as she moaned.
“Petra,” Kate said, her voice loud and commanding. “Petra, can you hear me?”
Petra’s eyes opened just a little more and she moaned again. She winced and closed her eyes, her breathing heavier now, her pulse a little stronger.
“Brooke,” Kate said, “do you think you could look for any of the medical stuff in the back?”
She gave Kate a blank look, still holding Tiger close to her.
“Some bandages. Gauze. Tape. Aspirin.”
Brooke’s eyes lit up. She let go of Tiger and was back up and over the seat again, digging through the boxes. Tiger growled lowly, his ears still flat, bracing himself on the seat like he was expecting to be jostled around again in the moving car.
“Petra, are you awake?” Kate asked.
She just moaned again, not moving much.
Brooke was back down in the seat. She had a pack of gauze pads, some white adhesive tape, a towel. “This was all I could find.”
“Thanks,” Kate said, taking the towel from her. She dabbed the towel at Petra’s face, wiping some of the blood away, trying to see where the blood was coming from.
A loud popping noise sounded from the front of the truck, then a loud hiss.
“Oh shit,” Max said.
CHAPTER 16
Kate
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Max said. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
Kate didn’t know what Max was so upset about, but she had a feeling it had something to do with that popping and hissing noise, something to do with the truck, because it was beginning to slow down.
Petra’s eyes opened again for just a second, like she’d heard those popping and hissing noises, like she’d known instinctively what they meant.
“Can you find me a bottle of water?” Kate asked Brooke.
“We blew something,” Max said.
Kate looked back around to the front and saw the steam pouring out from under the hood, the road in front of them almost invisible through the haze.
“Temperature’s in the red,” Max said as he slowed down to a crawl, pulling over onto the side of the road.
“Is it the radiator?” Kate asked. It was the first thing she could think of.
“I don’t know,” Max said. “It could be a blown hose if we’re lucky. Maybe we could tape it up after the engine cools down.”
How long will that take? How long before those rippers caught up to them? She wished they had turned right onto Creekbend Drive when they’d left her parents’ home, but it hadn’t been like Max had had much of a chance to really think about where he was going—he’d been driving in a blind panic. And Kate hadn’t been much of a help in the navigating department. And she was pretty sure she’d left their map behind at the house.
“I got some water,” Brooke said, handing the bottle to Kate.
“Thank you,” Kate said. She wondered if the box with the other first-aid stuff was in the back. Maybe they’d left that behind, too. They’d gotten antibiotics, painkillers, antiseptics, and other medications from Lisey’s house—things Petra might really need right now. They hadn’t been prepared to leave; they should have had all of their most important stuff ready to go. But they’d been caught unprepared, and they had just grabbed a few boxes and bags in a panic when they had run out to the truck.
Petra had been right. They should have left a day or two ago. They should have been ready for something like this. And maybe she’d even been right about going back to Lisey’s house and taking more of her stuff. But Kate had wanted to do the right thing; she’d wanted to leave Lisey with enough supplies to survive. But Lisey hadn’t wanted to survive; all she’d wanted was revenge and to sacrifice herself and go to Heaven.
Now Lisey was gone, and all of the stuff in her house was either burnt up or taken by the rippers.
Kate poured out a little of the water onto the corner of the towel and wiped at Petra’s face gently.
Petra moaned and moved a little, her eyelids fluttering again.
“I’m going to check it out,” Max said from the driver’s seat after putting the truck in park and turning off the motor. “Try to see what’s wrong.” He opened his door and got out.
Petra pushed at Kate’s hand, moaning again.
>
It was too difficult to clean Petra’s face from between the front seats. Kate crawled back into the passenger seat and got out of the truck. Max already had the hood up, staring down at the engine as a wall of steam drifted up around him. There was a puddle of water underneath the front of the truck.
“I’m much more knowledgeable about houses than cars,” Max said.
Kate left Max to the engine. She went around Max, walking through the mist of steam, then to Petra’s door. She opened the door gently, catching Petra before she could fall out.
“Petra, can you hear me?”
Petra’s eyes were open, but she didn’t look like she was focusing on anything.
Tiger raised his head up, curious about the door being opened, but maybe too scared to escape just now. Brooke, sensing Tiger’s possible plan to flee, grabbed him and put him on her lap.
“Petra?” Kate said as she wiped her face, getting most of the blood off. There weren’t any cuts or damage to her face; it looked like her wound was somewhere in her hair. It was still bleeding, but only a little now, just one line running down the side of her face.
Petra’s eyes seemed to clear. She looked right at Kate.
“Here, drink this,” Kate said, handing Petra the bottle of water.
Petra took a sip and handed the bottle back. She touched her face, then the wound on her scalp, wincing.
“Do you remember what happened?”
Petra gave a small nod. “One of those fuckers hit me with a rock.”
“You know who I am?”
“You’re Kate.”
“You know where we are?”
“In hell.”
Kate smiled. Petra seemed to be returning to her old form. Kate handed Petra the bloodstained towel. “Here. Hold it against the cut on your head.”
Petra took the towel, wadded it up and pressed it to the side of her head.