“What the hell is going on?” Celeste yelled.
“I don't know! I don't know! I think there are too many of them.”
Our tires spun with a dim hiss as they tore through mounds of flesh before sinking down on the pavement in a loud squeal. We still weren't moving forward. Countless hands danced across the bloody windshield. Without any more debris accumulating against the glass, we began to see what we were up against. The highway looked like a Japanese subway car in rush hour. Not a square inch of pavement lay bare. A sea of zombies surrounded the Humvee, beating against the windows. The bulletproof glass was our saving grace.
“Holy shit, Celeste. There's so many of them that we can't move forward.”
She grabbed her weapon and cocked it. The Humvee started inching slowly backward.
“You want us to go back? All right, fuckers, let's go back!”
I shifted hard into reverse and the Humvee lurched backward, but the force of the zombies pushing against the vehicle sent it careening back into the center divider. The mob flooded in to fill the gap as I shifted into drive. The vehicle couldn't turn against the rising tide of ghouls. We slammed head-on into the concrete barrier at the edge of the highway.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“I'm fine, I'm fine,” Celeste replied. She looked a little shaken up.
The Humvee slid and rocked from side to side as crowds on both sides pushed against it. The armored doors bulged slightly from the pressure. I shifted into reverse and hit the gas, but it wouldn't move. The sound of untold numbers of ghouls beating on the outside of the vehicle was deafening. It felt like we were trapped inside a tin can.
“What are we going to do, Royce?”
“We're gonna get out of here before they find a way in.”
I reached into the back seat and grabbed the remaining clips of ammunition. I reloaded my gun, tossed one to Celeste, and shoved the rest into my pockets.
“Put that fresh clip into your gun. You're gonna need as many rounds as you can squeeze off at once.”
“Where are we going to go?”
“We're gonna run for it.”
Celeste looked mortified. “We'll never make it, Royce. There's too many of them out there.”
“No, we can. Look . . . the grill is up against that barrier, right?” She nodded. “There's no one in front of us. We just need to climb out the ringmount, unload on the freaks around the hood, and run for it down that embankment. They aren't fast. If we can break free of them here, I'm sure we can find a safer place to hide.”
“Or better yet, another car.”
“That's my girl. Let's do this. You ready? Okay, I'll go up first, and I'll clear some room for ya. Then you follow.”
I popped the hatch on the ringmount and stood from the waist up outside the roof of the vehicle. My presence there up high for all the undead to see caused true hysteria among them. Their groans and screams reached a fevered pitch I hadn't heard since New York. Coarse, veiny hands started grabbing at me from all sides. I fired off single rounds into the heads of those close enough to get ahold of me. I pulled myself up out of the vehicle, balancing precariously on the middle of the roof.
“Celeste, come on up!”
I used the bayonet and bullets to keep our attackers at bay. The roof of the Humvee was wide enough that only the tallest zombies and those standing on top of a fallen ghoul were able to get within grabbing range. The hood was a different story. Since it was much lower to the ground, a sea of arms waited for us to come near.
“Okay, I'm going to work the left side, and you take the right. Just spray the ones standing along the edge. As soon as they go downârun for it. Don't give the ones behind a chance to make their way up to the hood. Leave yourself a few extra rounds if you can.”
As usual, Celeste was armed and ready. “Count of three?” she asked. I nodded. “One, two . . . three!”
I started working on my side, careful to get head shots without spraying too many bullets. Celeste meanwhile charged down the windshield and across the hood of the vehicle like a ruthless mercenary, leading with a stream of
gunfire that dropped each zombie in her path a split second before she was within reach. She was heading safely down the embankment, and I was still standing on the roof of the Humvee.
My boot slipped in a puddle of blood as I lurched forward to follow Celeste, and my leg slid back right into the grasp of a female ghoul's outstretched arm. I spun around and stabbed my bayonet into the side of her head, then scrambled to my feet as others nearby struggled to get ahold of me. Multiple hands grabbed my pant leg. I pulled forward with all my might. When I broke free, the momentum sent me somersaulting down the windshield and across the hood. I landed with one leg over the concrete barrier and the other wedged between it and the vehicle. My crotch was in the middle of this mess, and when I landed the top of the divider went right into my testicles. What normally would send me rolling on the ground was an afterthought; my body was so flooded with adrenaline. I managed to hold on to my weapon during the fall, and I unloaded my remaining rounds into the gruesome faces of the ghouls that reached in to make a meal of me. I pulled my leg free and spun backwards over the wall onto the grass.
Celeste was at the bottom of the embankment, making her way back to me. I waved her off and lumbered down the embankment, feeling as if someone was squeezing my testicles and my abdomen from the inside. Since I wasn't moving very quickly, I stopped at the bottom of the embankment and looked up the hill to make sure there was enough room between the zombies and me. The mindless ghouls were walking straight into the barrier. It was short enough and they were clumsy enough that they were falling over the barrier by the dozens. They knew what they were
after, and as soon as they got on their feet, they stumbled down the hill toward me.
Celeste was waiting for me at the bottom of the hill. We ran toward a strip mall between the highway and a sprawling suburb. The parking lot was lit up like the place was open for business, but only a few cars occupied spaces. The buildings looked empty.
“We better get in one of these cars, quick,” I said. “They'll be here soon.”
The first car we approached was a four-door family sedan that looked sleek and aerodynamic. It reminded me of the odd concept cars I used to see in auto magazines that would never get produced.
“No keys,” Celeste said, peering in the driver's-side window.
“Let's try that one over there.”
The next car was a sporty little two seater with clunky, over-sized rims.
“I'd love to meet the douchebag that drives this one,” I quipped.
“No keys!” Celeste yelled from the other side of the car.
“Let's make sure this time.”
I rammed the butt of my gun into the passenger window. The glass shattered. An ear-piercing alarm started screeching. I opened the door and searched frantically through the glove box, center console, behind the visors, and under the seats. No keys.
“Hurry, Royce, they're getting close.”
The zombies were in the parking lot, lumbering toward us. We ran over to a minivan. No keys in the ignition. I reared my weapon back.
“Don't, Royce!”
“Why not?”
“Look behind you.”
A fresh crowd of zombies walked out of the neighborhood and into the parking lot. Large groups of the filthy monsters burst forth between the boxy houses like pus squeezing out of a pimple.
“Fuck, fuck fuck! They must be drawn by the alarm. We need to get somewhere safe.”
I spun around and scanned my surroundings. The buildings in the strip mall looked like our only options, as droves of undead were encroaching on the perimeter of the parking lot. We ran up to a large sporting goods store and yanked on the door handles.
“It's all barred up in there,” Celeste said. “We'll never get through that.”
We ran next door to a nail salon. The doors were locked and the windows free of bars.
“Not this one, not this one. We can't barricade ourselves in there once we break the glass,” I said.
I turned and looked to my right, toward the highway. A McDonald's sat at the edge of the parking lot. The lights were on inside, and I could see someone watching us through the window.
“Celeste, you see that? See that guy in there? Let's go.”
We sprinted to the McDonald's weaving between the zombies in the parking lot. When the gaps were too tight to run through, I put my shoulder down like a football player and knocked them to the pavement. It was risky business, but we were out of options. There weren't enough of the oafish ghouls to get hold of us.
When we reached the McDonald's, we pounded on the front door. There was someone insideâa pimple-faced
teenager with curly, platinum blond hair. He was dressed in a wrinkled McDonald's uniform with navy slacks, a powder blue shirt, and a red tie. His cap had a big yellow M stitched into the front. We stood there anxiously as he made his way over to the doorway. He looked skeptical, but he moved to unlock the door. Then he stopped and pointed behind us.
We turned and looked. Zombies coming from the highway had redirected to the building. The fastest ones were closing in on us. They had fewer wounds and looked fresher than the others, at least in death, and they walked at a pretty good clip.
“I need to reload,” I said, digging a clip out of one of my deep uniform pockets. “I'm grabbing a freshie for you, too.”
Celeste was methodic in firing her weapon. She was a great shot, even from a distance, and she dropped our attackers one at a time with rhythmic strikes to the head. Celeste's weapon clicked. I handed her a clip, then I went to work with my rifle. I was a terrible shot from long range. I was only able to pop off a bunch of shoulder shots, whiffs over the head, and a partial removal of one ghoul's ear. This wasn't slowing their progress, so I squeezed the trigger and held it down, unleashing a spray of bullets that felled three zombies before my weapon clicked.
Celeste had reloaded by this time, and she was dropping attackers from all directions in rapid succession. In between shots, we heard the key turn in the lock behind us with a click. The boy opened the door, and we backed inside. He slammed the door shut and locked it. The zombies outside began pounding on the glass.
“Come in the back,” he said. “I had a few do this before, and they left after a while once they couldn't see me.”
“They'll break their way through the glass before they'll go away,” I said. “I've seen 'em do it.”
“This should help,” he said. The boy walked behind the counter and pushed a button behind the cash register. Metal bars slid down from a compartment in the ceiling and covered the windows. They looked like the kind of metal grate you'd expect to find protecting a pawnshop in the seedy part of town.
“You need those to keep people from breaking into a friggin' McDonald's?”
The boy was confused by my question.
“There's a lot more crime now,” Celeste whispered to me. She smiled nervously at the boy like I was some kind of mental patient.
We walked into the back and sat down on the floor against a dormant fryer. The front counter shielded us from the zombie's view.
“You two in the army or something?” the boy asked.
“No, no, we came from New York,” I said.
“New York? Really? How'd you make it all the way here?”
“The Chinese military is pretty much trashed, son.”
“I'm Jason.”
“Oh, sorry, Jason. I'm Royce, and this is Celeste. Ya, they've pretty much all turned into these freaks. We just had to stay out of their claws to make it this far.”
“What are you doing at work with all of those things out there?” Celeste asked.
“I've been in here since yesterday. I heard rumors during school of people getting sick and some weird stuff happening in the city, but the kids at school are always saying all kinds of crap so I didn't take it seriously. I went home and played video games all afternoon. When it was time for my shift, I went to work. My boss is the biggest
dick you'll ever meet, so I knew he'd want us to work no matter what. Everything seemed normal on my way over here, but then no one was inside the building, and some of those kooks came after me in the parking lot. I locked myself in here, and I've been here ever since.”
“Did you drive here, Jason?” Celeste asked. “Are one of those cars yours?”
“I don't have a car. I have a moped.”
“That's not going to get us out of here, Jace,” I said. “Who do you know that has a car?”
“My parents, my friends . . . lots of people. But the phones aren't working for some reason, and no one has come by. I thought for sure somebody would come to get me by now.” Jason looked despondent.
“Don't worry,” Celeste said. “I'm sure they're fine. They're holed up somewhere safe and sound just like you are.”