My Zombie Summer (Book 1): The Undead Road (18 page)

“What’re you doing?” Kaylynn asked.

Instead of answering, I plunged my hand into my backpack and grabbed the .500. Dad said it would blow up anything. Time to put those words of his to the test.

“How long have you had
that
?” Kaylynn asked.

Now wasn’t the time to answer. “Keep it steady.”

I climbed between the seats. Chloe barked as I stood on the armrest and poked my head out of the opening. Jewel repeated what Kaylynn had asked, but I had to do this before Malcolm shot at me first. He had someone with him, someone loading a revolver. Using the roof to steady my arm, I cocked the hammer back and aimed carefully, holding the grip as tight as I could.

BLAM!

My hands flew back as the semi’s grill blew out.

A shredded belt whipped the engine inside. Smoke billowed out, making it impossible for Malcolm to see. My ears rang, but we traveled on while the semi veered and slammed into the side of a school bus. The Vectors didn’t care about us anymore. We sped away from the inevitable bloodbath that was in store for Mr. Malcolm.

Our escape came with a price. My wrist hurt again, worse than the first time I’d fired that gun. I ducked down, closed the sunroof and sat down again. The giant pistol weighed a smidgen lighter than it had a second ago. I opened the cylinder and counted: two rounds left.

Between here and Kansas City, unless we found a place to stock up, that was our last and only defense.

Jewel returned to her seat and buckled in. “I can’t believe you did that!”

I put the .500 inside my backpack. “Me too.”

“Hey,” Cody said, holding his head in his hand. “How did we get in here? What happened?”

Before we said anything, I glanced at Kaylynn. She hadn’t cleaned herself. I rubbed at my mouth and chin. Catching the signal that I’d pitched, she rubbed the blood from her face with the sleeve of my extra shirt.

“After you passed out, we—found an opening, and we took it,” I said.

Cody seemed skeptical. “The three of you against ten of them?”

“Yeah,” Jewel piped in. “We have a special gun. Show him, Jeremy.”

I was glad to see that Jewel was back to her normal self again. On the other hand, she was back to her normal self again, talking about things that were better left unmentioned. I let Cody see the .500.

“Nice,” he said groggily. “What other surprises do you got in that bag?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” Kaylynn said, her eyes tight on the road.

I glared back at her. We had just made it out of Lincoln in one piece. What was her problem?

“We don’t have any other weapons,” Jewel said. “What are we going to do?”

“Stay on Highway 77,” Cody said. “I’m—crashing for a bit.” And that’s just what he did.

The rest of us took a breath.

Kaylynn refused to look at me, and my mind couldn’t let go of the man who had almost shot me. His arm broke for no reason, no reason that I could tell.

What did Kaylynn know that I didn’t?

Like my .500, she had a secret, too.

When it comes to the Midwest, you can always count on rain. Clear skies one minute—gray skies the next.

The first clap of thunder sounded after we’d driven south for an hour. We were then hit with a free car wash seconds later. Since the car was splattered in Vector guts, the rinse couldn’t have been timelier. Rain splashed the windshield, making it hard to see the road.

Kaylynn took the highway slow while I checked on Jewel. She stared out the window, stroking the top of Chloe’s head. As for Cody, he slept like a brick and breathed like a lion. I thought my snoring was bad.

As the road stretched on, my thoughts returned to the Holiday Inn, the chained Vectors, and what Malcolm meant by
scrambled eggs
. I really wanted to talk to Kaylynn. Fear kept my mouth shut—fear that Cody would overhear us. We had agreed to keep a good distance from big towns until we reached Kansas City.

The hours rolled into noon, and I released my mounting stress with a sigh. The silence was unsettling. I tried the radio a couple times without any luck.

Escaping a city of psychopaths warranted a lot of reflection, and I wondered how things would be if our confrontation had gone differently. If Kaylynn had some control of her infection, why not change sooner? Why did she wait until I had a gun to my head? The broken arm was the biggest mystery of all. Kaylynn was on the other side of the table. She couldn’t have done it.

I had no explanation. My imagination kicked in.

Did Kaylynn have telekinetic powers?

I’d read
Carrie
once, a book about a girl with telekinetic powers who lost it and tore her town to shreds with her mind. I stole a glance at Kaylynn. She was too busy driving to notice me. She had her Cubs cap on again. If we’d stayed together instead of splitting up, we would have avoided that horrific confrontation altogether. Was that why she was so angry with me? It wasn’t my fault. Or even Cody’s. Okay,
mostly
Cody’s.

I had to say something. My mouth was glue.

Kaylynn breathed, and then she whispered, “He’ll never buy it.” This was the icebreaker I needed. Cody shifted. I wished I had a feather and a can of shaving cream. “That guy’s arm—I’ve never done that before.”

“Did you mean to?” I asked.

Kaylynn checked behind her. She had dodged my question, her lips trembling. I looked too. We both wanted to make sure Cody was asleep first, before we continued. “I wanted that guy to point the gun away. I was so angry. I just thought of grabbing his hand and, I lost control.” She shivered a little. Rain kept splashing against the windshield. “Did I really break his arm?”

“You just thought about it, and it happened?”

“I don’t know. I’m never doing that again.”

“Unless you have to, right?” Jewel asked.

Kaylynn turned back, enough to see her. “Yeah. I’ll do what I must to keep you safe.” Her blue eyes looked at me before she turned back to the road. “All of you.”

And here I thought she was mad at us. “Thanks.”

“You took me in. It’s the least I can do.”

Jewel leaned forward. “Where’re we going?”

Good question. I hadn’t bothered to look at the map. Mom and Dad did mark the route they were taking. If we followed it, our chance of running into them was a fair one. I found the map and unfolded it.

Creases had worn away some of the details.

A highlighted yellow line started at David City and ended at Kansas City Missouri: south on Highway 15, east on 41, south again on State 77, all the way to Interstate 70—a straight line to Kansas City. It was hard to tell which road we were on. If we found Mom, I’d never be critical of her navigational skills again.

Our stop at Lincoln was something of a detour. Lucky for us, we were on State 77. We’d driven east a bit sooner than our parents had. If we stayed south and followed 77 all the way to the 70, we wouldn’t have an issue. Except we had an issue: no food and no water.

And with the exception of my two .500 rounds, no weapons. The icing on the crap cake was the gas-guzzler we were driving in. We were about to be high and dry if we didn’t fill up soon.

Beatrice was the next town on the map. Kaylynn drove around it. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, making it easier for us to see—and avoid—the roaming Vectors. Something about rain had an effect on them. They looked to the sky, mouths open, but they didn’t drown like turkeys. My guess is they were trying to figure out what was touching them. Rain dampens the smell and the sound, too. We drove around a pack of them, and they didn’t seem to notice us.

Forty miles later, we crossed over the state line:

Welcome to Kansas

We were finally out of Nebraska—not that the scenery was any different.

“Uh oh,” Kaylynn uttered. “Does this mean we’re running out of gas?”

I checked the dash. Sure enough, our needle was in the red. Just a few miles more and we’d be stranded.

“We’re on 77, right?” Cody’s sudden voice made us jump. “What time is it?”

“Almost two,” Jewel said.

Was it really mid-afternoon already?

“Still on 77,” Kaylynn added. “Almost out of gas.”

I looked at the map. “Marysville is the next town.”

Cody clapped once. “I know just the place.”

That’s what he’d said about Holiday Inn.

“Feeling any better?” Kaylynn asked.

Cody yawned. “I guess so. I kinda want to know what happened, but I’m hungry. What have we got to eat?” He went to see what he could find in the back, startling Chloe. “Damn—we didn’t take anything from the hotel, did we?” He grabbed the back of Kaylynn’s seat, frantically pulling himself forward to stare at her, Jewel, and then me. “Where’s my bow and knives?”

“They took it all.” I held up my .45. “Almost.”

Cody’s brow furrowed. “How did we get out?”

“The
South Side
guys showed up!” Jewel said.

Everyone turned to her.

“It gave us a chance to slip out,” Kaylynn added.

I nodded. “They almost made Jewel shoot you.”

Cody looked down at his knees and rubbed his eyes. I think he could tell I was serious. Throwing a little truth in there made our story sound more legitimate. My part would’ve happened if Kaylynn hadn’t let her infection loose. Cody shifted to my sister. “Is that true? Were they going to make you shoot me?” When she nodded, he raised his chin and sighed. “I owe you.”

That was the best
thank you
we’d ever get from him.

“Here’s Marysville,” Kaylynn said. “What now?”

We turned off the highway instead of entering the town and drove on a dirt road. Some of the rain had fallen there, so we didn’t kick up any dust. Cody directed Kaylynn, backseat-driving us to the parking lot of a big box store. Mom called it
Wally World
—I won’t tell you what my dad called it. He’d rather face a firing squad than step foot inside the place. Something about a friend who had gone out of business. His influence rubbed off on me, but my reservation had more to do with their cheap appliances, not to mention disturbing sights from the more unsavory side of humanity. After battling Vectors for four weeks, nothing could faze me.

Kaylynn pulled up to the entrance, its windows and doors smashed in. According to Dad, this meant people had either ransacked the place, or Vectors had found a way to eat the people inside. It was dark in there. With a few hours of afternoon on our side, we had to make do with the scant light. Jewel had her hands cupped. Her thumbs tumbled over each other. She was just as antsy to have a look around as I was. Kaylynn turned the car off, removed the keys and handed them to me.

Cody snatched them before I could reach them. “First order of business: get gas,” he said, resuming his command. “Then we’ll stock up on whatever’s inside. I’ll drive the rest of the way.”

On a full tank, we would reach Kansas City by morning. I popped the trunk, stepped out and grabbed Dad’s siphoning gear. With a dozen cars parked outside, filling up wouldn’t be an issue. The others piled out of the Explorer a few seconds after me. Chloe zigzagged from car to car, her nose close to the ground. My stomach shouted at me right then. Pale as Kaylynn was, and Jewel holding a hand over her stomach, we were all in need of a meal. Still, it made sense for us to find gas first, in case we had to pack up and leave in a hurry.

If Cody was hungry, he had masked it well.

One hour and an accidental mouthful of gas later, we had filled the five-gallon jug three times. I wasn’t about to put my mouth on that hose again. We poured our third can into the car and made sure the doors were locked before we went into the store. We grabbed the nearest things we could find for weapons: a random assortment of gardening tools and empty clay pots.

What we really needed were flashlights.

Quietly making our way to
Sporting & Outdoors
, we found some headlamps and flashlights that came with batteries. Cody took a knife from his boot and sliced through the impossible-to-open plastic packaging. Now that we had light, we could find some
real
weapons.