The rest of the corpses clung to the sides of the camper. They held on, pawing with their free hands at the glass. The children screamed and pushed back further on the bench. Lilly slammed on the glass and cursed at the corpses. A small flash came from her and she fell back, blinking.
“Well fuck that,” she said, sitting with the rest of the children. She crossed her arms and sulked.
The camper sped on, picking up speed. Carly wove less now. Maylee stood from where she'd fallen against the dashboard.
"Ow," she said, rubbing her ribs. They hurt but she seemed fine.
"Sorry about that," said Carly.
"Don't worry about me," she said. She glanced back into the camper and saw that the children were all fine. Corpses hung outside, pawing weakly at the windows and clinging to the side of the camper, and Maylee could hear a few corpses crawling around overhead.
Carly turned the wheel to the right. The landscape outside rearranged itself and the town square came into view. The gates were nearby. They were unopened but at the rate the walls were giving way it scarcely mattered.
Maylee peered out the windshield at what was left of the town walls. She saw several holes large enough for the camper to drive through. She was about to suggest one when she heard more scraping overhead. “We’ve got to get the corpses off this thing.”
“This ought to do it," Carly said, steering the unopened gates.
"Whoa!"
"Too late!" Carly said.
The camper slammed through the gates, sending wood and metal flying out in front of them. There were still corpses outside, and they groaned as the van crushed them into the snow. Corpses clung to the camper as they drove past. The wheels spun on slush and gore as Carly spun to the right. Then the wheels found purchase. The camper took off down the side of the town. Corpses clung to the sides. More than before.
“Well that didn’t work,” said Carly, bouncing in her seat as the camper bucked.
A large corpse clinging to the camper punched through a side window. The children screamed, and Maylee rushed over and shoved him back with the head of her bat. The corpse fell back but still held on. Maylee tried to slam the bat upwards to hit his other hand, the one he held on with. She couldn't get it.
She pulled the bat back in. The corpse reached back into the window. The children screamed, out of the corpse’s reach but terrified.
Maylee stomped to the door and pulled it open. Cold air rushed in. Snow, debris and the beaten town walls sped by.
"What are you doing?" Carly asked.
"Just keep driving!" said Maylee. She slid her bat into the strap across her back. Then she leaned outside and grabbed the ladder that led up to the top. She pulled herself outside.
* * *
Angie led the others down the twisting alleys of World Memorial. The close quarters worked to their advantage. The corpses were unable to crowd around them, and were forced to follow as Angie, Park and the others led them on.
“Make more noise!” Angie shouted, slamming her cane against a trailer as she walked past it.
“Come on, assbags!” Park bellowed at the corpses, shooting one through the head. “This way!”
Slowly, steadily, they lured the corpses after them. The corpses crowded into the alleyway in front of them, growling and snarling. Angie hoped most of them had followed. Guards were stationed at the fallback point, to make sure it was clear in case the children were brought there. They could handle a few stragglers, but most of the mob needed to be on the other side of town, away from the children.
The townsfolk and guards shouted and banged on the walls around them, luring the corpses after them. The corpses lurched and followed, slowly moving toward the town square.
Suddenly, Angie and the others reached a small crossroads where two alleys met. Angie looked side to side. Corpses clogged each side alley, groaning and coming at them.
“It’s working!” yelled Angie. “Keep it up!”
They all yelled and backed hurriedly toward the other side of the crossroad.
With a loud snorting, a large buck exploded from the mob of corpses and rushed the group. Everyone screamed as the elk slammed into one side of the cluster, knocking people back. The buck's horns slammed into April, one of the guards, spearing her through the torso. She coughed up blood and slumped over. The buck thrashed around, the guard's body still clinging to its horns. Townspeople and guards were knocked back into the waiting corpses. They screamed as the corpses bit into them. Blood flowed down and across the snow.
"Everyone back together!" Angie ordered.
The group closed ranks. Park and the guards fired shot after shot into the buck. It jerked, snorted in fury, and fell. The screams of the dying faded as they were consumed.
"Everyone keep moving!"
The group moved on. Park and the guards kept firing to keep the corpses at bay. They reached the passageway and pushed their way inside. Metal and dead flesh pressed in on them as they slowly crept back across the snow. Shots echoed off nearby walls, ringing loudly in Angie’s ears. The corpses ahead of them crushed in after them, filling the air with groans. The few corpses who had been behind the group when they reached the passage fell to the constant gunfire. Within a few moments, the way behind them was clear as they slowly stepped backward. The corpses pressed in from the front.
Suddenly, they reached the end. The group stumbled into the square and broke ranks. They staggered away from each other. Angie assessed the town square. It was in ruins. Bodies and death were everywhere. But not as many corpses as there had been. Most had followed Angie and the others to the center of town. And most were now in the narrow passage they had just exited.
Across the square stood the house. A small contingent of guards were on the porch, firing into the handful of corpses surrounding them, successfully holding them back.
The corpses who had followed her group poured from the narrow passage. Park and the others fired into them. Angie held her sword up, calling loud enough for the others to hear. “To the house!”
* * *
Maylee climbed the ladder that run up the side of the camper as it sped along through the snow. The walls of World Memorial sped by behind her.
The cold wind slammed into her, but she kept climbing. A corpse groaned from overhead. Maylee stopped mid-climb and looked up. A corpse was lying flat of the roof of the camper, its head hanging out over the edge. It was a young man with most of his hair torn out. Large black scrapes covered where his hair had been. What was left was frozen and sticking up in long thin spikes. He grunted and reached down to grab Maylee.
She grabbed his arm, and when he leaned in to bite, she jerked downward. The corpse slid from the roof and fell past her. She let go as he bounced across the frozen ground. Maylee watched him go for a moment, then continued climbing.
She made it to the top and pulled herself over. She stayed on her knees and low to the roof, not wanting the roaring, frigid wind to fling her off. Many corpses covered the camper, and were clinging to the sides and top.
"Great," she said into the wind. She looked to her side. She could see Sharon and Beulah fighting in the field, punching and kicking each other, each blow flinging the other back twenty or thirty feet. Chaos swirled behind them. Thick snow, large branches and huge piles of brush raced by. Maylee knew the only thing keeping the violent windstorm from reaching the town was the sisters’ presence. And the only thing keeping them out of the town was the barrier, the moat of blood.
Carly shouted through the driver's side window. "You okay up there?"
"Fine!" Maylee yelled back. "Just don't cross the blood!"
The corpses clinging to the roof turned their frozen heads to look at her at the sound of her voice. Maylee slid her bat from her back and waited.
"Come on!" She slammed her bat on the camper, as loud and hard as she could. "That's right! Here I am! Come on!"
The corpses stood and stumbled toward her, taking one step before the wind knocked all of them from the camper. They fell to the ground, crunching and rolling in the snow. They were quickly left in the distance.
Maylee snorted to herself. "Dumbasses."
She heard a groan, close enough to be heard over the rushing wind. She turned as a dead hand closed on her coat. She slipped and rolled across the camper's roof, hit the edge, and toppled off. She managed to grab a railing with her free hand. The force of it jerked her shoulder hard, but she stayed on the camper.
The corpse emerged over the edge. It was a woman with clouded eyes and dark scratches across her forehead. Dried blood coated her cheeks and chin. She reached for Maylee, trying to bite her hand. Maylee smacked at the woman with her bat. The woman fell back, then returned. Maylee hit her again and she came back. From her position, Maylee could not generate enough force to kill.
The door of the camper slammed open. Dalton climbed out onto the ladder.
"Get back inside!" yelled Maylee, slamming at the corpse.
Dalton glared at her, squinting his eyes against the buffeting wind. "I thought since you were doing such a great job I'd come out and watch!"
Maylee sighed, low and guttural. She held out her bat to Dalton. "Hold this! And stay away from the corpses!"
Dalton took the bat, freeing Maylee's other hand as the corpse leaned back out over the edge. Maylee grabbed the woman's hair and jerked downward. The woman slid off the camper, bouncing into the snow.
She grabbed hold of the railing with both hands, kicking against the side until her boot found purchase. She pulled herself up and rolled out onto the roof. Dalton climbed up the ladder after her.
"I said get back inside!"
"Eat me!" Dalton rolled the bat over to her. She caught it
"Mother fucker..." said Maylee, taking the bat and crawling over to where two corpses still clung to the side. They moaned and pawed at windows with their free hands, terrifying the children inside
Grunting, Maylee changed her grip on her bat, holding it like she was stabbing something. She rammed the bat downward into the corpses’ skulls. Their half-rotten heads split open, spilling dark gore across the glass. They slumped from the camper and fell into the snow.
Maylee pulled her bat up and flipped it back around to hold it normally. She crawled to face the other way. Dalton was crawling toward another group of corpses. He stopped, shaking his head and blinking. Maylee knew that expression. It meant he was in pain.
"Dalton!" she yelled into the wind. "You can't keep getting so close to them!"
Dalton resumed crawling. He quickly stopped and grimaced. His eyes flashed, briefly. He fell back, shaking his head and looking woozy.
He didn't see the corpse coming up from behind him.
"Look out!" Maylee stood, keeping bent over to minimize the wind. She ran as best she could to Dalton. She swung her bat, slamming the corpse across the temple. The temple split and the corpse fell off the camper. The camper hit a bump in the snow and bounced. Maylee fell, toppling over the edge. She bounced off the cab and landed on the hood. She caught hold before she fell off.
One of the remaining corpses leaned out over the edge, grinding its rotten teeth at her.
Maylee pulled herself to her knees. The camper bounced along through the snow, heading for the back of the town. The walls raced by to her left.
Carly stared out the windshield at her, her eyes wide.
"Everything's fine!" Maylee yelled, reaching up and grabbing the corpse by the shoulder. She ignored Carly's raised eyebrow and jerked the corpse downward. It fell, groaning and bouncing off the hood and into the snow. The camper rocked as the wheels crushed it into the snow.
Maylee climbed back onto the cab and then back to the roof. Dalton was crawling to the last corpse. It was clinging to the side of the camper and pawing at the children through the window. Dalton's eyes flashed as he moved. He gritted his teeth in pain, grabbed the corpse's fingers, and wrenched them free of the camper. The corpse fell and was quickly left in the distance. Dalton's eyes returned to normal and he slumped.
Maylee crawled to him. "You okay?"
Dalton nodded.
"Looked like that hurt."
"Oh yeah," said Dalton.
"Let's get back inside," said Maylee, and they both crawled toward the ladder.
* * *
Angie and the others raced across the square, heading for the house. Angie limped along as fast as she could. Park strode next to her, firing as he went.
A corpse, a man with a burnt and ruined face, drew near to Angie. Angie shoved her sword into the man's pus-filled eye and twisted. Her blade found the man's brain and she twisted back the other way and pulled the sword free. Another one down.
“So,” said Park, cocking his rifle and aiming. “What’s the plan once we get to the house? Tell the corpses to come back later?”
“Don’t worry,” said Angie, limping along, “we haven’t used all of West’s traps yet.”
* * *
Maylee shut the camper door. Dalton was clearly weakened but he headed back to attend to the children.
"Everyone okay?" he said.
The children nodded, quiet but shaken.
Maylee walked to where Carly sat, still driving. Snow and the town wall sped by outside. Maylee leaned forward, peering out through the windshield. "We're getting close to the fallback point."
"There's no opening."
"What?" said Maylee, looking over at Carly.
Cary kept her eyes straight ahead, staring at the racing snow. "I was hoping that if we kept going far enough along the wall, we’d find a broken spot near the fallback point.”
“Oh,” said Maylee, realizing.
"Yeah."
Carly turned the wheel to the right. The camper banked hard, skidding in the snow as it changed direction. It righted itself and charged forward as Carly gunned the engine.
They were racing straight for the wall.