3.2 As the World Dies Untold Tales Vol. 2 (15 page)

The zombie’s head jerked to one side as it fell out of sight.

Tito looked at her with surprise, but quickly climbed into the car, banging the door shut. Sliding into the front seat, Lenore grabbed hold of the passenger door.

“
Close it! Close it! Close it!” Ken screamed in his most girly voice. Cher yowled in agreement.

Lenore tried to pull the door shut, but it caught. Looking down, she saw the handless zombie had wedged its head up under the door and was trying to climb into the car. Panicking, Lenore scrabbled at the shotgun.

She was deafened by the gun going off near her head. Later, she would swear she felt the heat of the blast and saw the bullet go arcing past her to smash into the head of the zombie.

“
Shut the door!” Grandma shouted, her revolver in her hand.

“
Damn, Grandma! You’re fierce!” Tito exclaimed.

Ken whimpered.

Lenore reached out to grab the door again just as the side door into the garage slammed open. Zombies poured in, moving swiftly toward her. Her sweaty fingers fumbled with the latch as she tried to shut the door. She could see far too clearly the first zombie barreling toward her, its broken and hungry mouth opened wide to bite as its hands lashed out to grip her.

The car lurched forward, plowing through the zombies in the driveway. The passenger door slammed shut with the momentum. The old car barreled down the short drive, tossing zombies off the hood. Tito spun the steering wheel sharply to the left, the back of the car fishtailing for a second before the tires gripped the road and they surged forward.

The neighborhood was in chaos. People fled on foot from the wreck of a car that had crashed into a van. Swift-footed zombies were in pursuit as the slower undead clawed at the doors and windows of the smashed vehicles.

“
We gotta help them!” Lenore cried out.

“
Can’t! We gotta keep moving or die,” Tito answered tersely.

“
Those poor people go to my church!” Grandma protested.

“
We stop, we die.”

“
I don’t want to die,” Ken said emphatically. “Really don’t want to die!”

Lenore twisted around in her seat to see that the small group of people was quickly being cornered by the zombies in the neighborhood. She saw what Tito said was true, but the twisting pain in her gut and throat told her it wasn’t right. Closing her eyes, she looked forward, unable to watch.

Tito avoided a pack of zombies and the car whipped around the corner. Lenore took a deep breath and watched the road, her eyes rimmed with tears.

Taking a hard left, Tito directed the old boat of a car into the alley, speeding along toward the RV parked behind Mr. Thames’ house.

“
Do you know where the keys to the RV are?” Ken asked from the backseat.

Tito shrugged.

“
That isn’t what I want to hear,” Lenore snapped.

“
Cause if those keys are on Mr. Thames, I think he is busy eating those people from my church right now.” Grandma’s voice was harsh.

“
Actually, I killed him earlier,” Lenore mumbled.

“
Oh,” Grandma said. “Oh.”

“
It doesn’t matter if there are keys or not. I can get in.” Tito gave a little shrug. “I was a bad kid for a few years in my teens. I got...skills.”

The car rolled to a stop beside the RV. Tito quickly leaped out. “Stay here. I’m going to scout it out. Lenore, get behind the wheel just in case.” Before anyone could protest, he darted around the RV and disappeared.

Lenore slid into the driver’s seat, grumbling the whole way. Gripping the steering wheel, she stared down the surprisingly-quiet alley.

“
What if he doesn’t come back?” Ken asked from the backseat.

Lenore slowly exhaled. “We better pray he does. The car is almost out of gas.”

16.

Fear

Ken could barely catch his breath. His chest felt so tight he could barely stand it. With Cher’s carrier wedged between him and the seat in front of him, he supposed that could be part of his problem. But he was pretty sure it was the sound of the zombies nearby that was about to give him a full-fledged heart attack. He wasn’t sure if it was better to die with his heart exploding or not. Of course, getting eaten by zombies wasn’t a pleasant thought either.

“
Take deep breaths, son,” Grandma instructed him.

“
It hurts,” he complained.

“
Do it anyway,” she said, patting his hand. “Take a deep breath and let it out slow.”

Ken obeyed because Lenore was giving him a sharp look over her shoulder. He drew in a deep, shuddering breath, then slowly exhaled. To his surprise, the tightness in his chest lessened and his heart slowed a bit. He took another long drag of the warm air in the car and immediately started choking on a strand of Cher’s fur. Coughing violently, he heard Cher hiss as Grandma whacked his back.

“
Only you could screw up breathing,” Lenore muttered from the front seat.

“
I’m sorry!” Ken coughed out, still gagging on the fur stuck in his throat.

He was pretty sure he was turning bright red when Tito ran around the RV. He was holding a crowbar in one hand. Something red and chunky was dripping from one end. Tito yanked the driver’s door open and leaned in.

“
I can’t find the keys and the zombies are coming in the front door of the house. I got the back door barricaded, but we got only a few minutes before they’re out here. I’m gonna jimmy the door and hotwire the RV. The second you hear the RV turn on, I want out you out of the car and into the RV. Don’t get out of the car until you hear the engine. If things get bad, you may need to take off. I’ll follow you in the RV.”

“
We’re almost out of gas,” Lenore informed Tito.

“
Shit!” He ran his hand over his slick hair. “Just stick to the plan.” He shoved the door shut and loped around the back of the RV to work on the door on the other side.

Ken felt his chest tighten again and his breath caught in his fur coated throat. Silence filled the car as Lenore dragged the shotgun onto her lap. Beside him, Grandma checked her revolver one more time. All Ken had as any sort of weapon was Cher’s carrier. He stared at his feisty, angry feline and felt like sobbing. He didn’t want her to die. He didn’t want to die either.

“
I really hate today,” he wailed before he could catch himself.

“
You and me both,” Lenore agreed.

“
I can’t say I’m fond of it either, honey.” Grandma shook her head sorrowfully.

The old RV’s engine suddenly chugged to life beside the car. A poof of dark smoke burst out of the back of it as Tito revved up the gas.

“
Let’s go!” Lenore ordered.

She swung her body out of the driver’s side as Grandma popped open the back door. Ken fumbled with the lock and latch on his door, his chest hurting with anxiety. Looking up, he saw a zombie on the other side of the chain link fence bordering the alley. The creature was shaking the metal mesh violently, its mouth open in a long wail. The door swung open and Ken almost fell out as he tried to maneuver himself, Cher’s carrier and his bag out of the car. Lenore grabbed the bag of food as Grandma hurried around the back of the RV.

“
Oh, Jesus, they’re coming!” the old woman cried out.

The revolver fired twice as Ken got his legs under him and finally yanked his bag out of the back seat. Sweat pouring down his face, his breath ragged in his ears, he ran around the car, ignoring the growling zombie just a few feet away on the other side of the fence. Lenore was ahead of him, running with the big bag over her shoulder.

As he came around the back end of the RV, he saw the zombies Tito had warned them about struggling through the unhinged back door and shattered windows of Mr. Thames’s house. The undead creatures fought with each other to get through the openings and to the humans trying to escape. Ken felt his breath catch in his throat as one of the zombies broke free from the tangle of legs and arms and ran straight for him.

A bullet slammed into the zombie, knocking its head back with the impact. Its body flopped like a rag doll as it fell to the ground and tumbled to a stop.

“
Hurry up, boy!” Grandma yelled from the doorway of the RV.

Lenore grabbed his arm and jolted him out of his frozen state. Together they rushed to the open door. Tito appeared in the doorway holding Grandma’s gun and fired a few more shots at the pursuing zombies. Lenore tossed the bag in then clambered up into the RV. Ken knew he was hyperventilating, but couldn’t stop it. He could barely see straight as he threw his bag inside and lifted Cher’s carrier up into his arms as he tried to get in. Tito’s strong hand gripped his shoulder and dragged him inside, firing into the face of a zombie about to take a bite out of Ken’s back.

“
Get him away from the door!” Tito ordered, taking another shot.

Grandma grabbed Cher’s carrier as Lenore grabbed Ken’s shirt, yanking him away from Tito. The heat inside the vehicle was overwhelming and Ken felt like he was going to faint. He felt something grab his foot and screamed. A child zombie had reached in to grab his pant leg and was trying to climb. Tito kicked the kid’s head, knocking him back out.

“
Lenore, you gotta drive! I need to watch the door! I broke the latch getting in!”

“
Crap!”

“
You can do it, honey,” her grandmother assured her.

Ken lay on the floor, Cher staring at him through the door of her cat carrier with an accusatory look. Struggling to breathe, he crawled to a nearby chair. He pitched into it as the RV took off with a mighty jolt. Tito braced himself in the doorway of the RV and fired the last shots of the revolver. He tossed it onto the counter nearby and grabbed up the crowbar. Some of the faster zombies paced the RV as Lenore drove down the alley.

“
Faster,
chica
!” Tito ordered. He shoved another zombie off its feet as it tried to make a dive for the door.

Lenore’s grumbling was loud and angry from the driver’s seat, but the RV picked up speed. “Hold on!”

The vehicle swung out of the alley far too fast and Ken screamed as he held on for dear life. Tito looked dangerously close to falling out of the RV for just a second. Another zombie took a swipe at him and Tito kicked it in the face.

“
Where do I go?” Lenore shouted over the sound of the wind whistling through the open doorway.

“
Not near downtown!” Ken wheezed at her.

“
Take this street straight out to the old farm road. Don’t slow down, Lenore. They’re thick out there,” Tito instructed

Tito stared out into the chaos of the world, his powerful muscles tight under his shirt as he gripped the doorway with both hands. The crowbar glistened with blood. Ken couldn’t help but stare at the man with awe. He hated that he was falling apart. In his imagination, he had always believed himself to be stronger than this. Slowly, his gaze was drawn to the world beyond Tito.

The small town was in shambles. Houses were on fire. Cars were snarled pieces of metal crashed into sign posts or each other. Screams of terror filled the air mingling with the groans of the dead. Boarded up houses were under attack by the undead as other living people tried to escape on foot or in cars. In the distance, he saw a man on a bicycle pedaling as fast as he could just ahead of a crowd of pursuing zombies.

“
Where are we going?” he finally asked. “We can’t go to another town.”

“
Into the hills,” Tito finally said. “Up into the hills far away from the towns.”

“
What about your family?” Ken swallowed hard, unable to imagine what Tito was going through.

“
I don’t know,” Tito said after a long pause. “I don’t know.”

17.

The Dead Are Coming

Lenore’s hands were cramping. Her grip on the steering wheel kept slipping and she cursed her sweaty palms. Tightening her hold, she stared out the dirty windshield at the world that was slowly falling apart. The old RV was almost out of town, but they weren’t in the clear yet.

Hordes of the undead were wandering the streets. The walking dead were attacking anyone foolish enough to be on foot. The gruesome zombies also charged cars and tried to break into buildings. Gunshots cracked through the morning air as smoke drifted over the road, briefly obscuring her view. It was like driving through a horror movie.

Two zombies flailed at the RV as she passed, slapping their hands against her window. She gave a little start and muttered a curse, but she kept her eyes on the road and her hands steady. Freaking out while driving would not be a good thing. It would get them killed.

Lenore wished she was still sleeping and that she would wake up in her cozy bed. Her mind snagged the idea and tried to cling to it. Shaking her head, she forced the enticing daydream out of her thoughts. It was crazy to hope for something that could never happen. She had to remain focused on what was happening right now. Frowning, she concentrated on the road.

“
You doing a good job, Lenore,” her grandmother encouraged her from her perch on the passenger seat.