be allowed to touch without wearing a wet suit. Would she give in to animal impulse and surrender her human dignity? She would not. Actually, she tried to go back there about fifteen minutes ago but it was occupied and there was a guy in there making weird noises. So, she was back in her seat, counting the miles to the nearest bathroom. Not far, now. They were right outside of town, already past the tractor dealership.
On the seat next to her was a white cardboard box from a bakery not far from the university, containing what was probably the finest food ever produced by the human species. They were red velvet cupcakes with a cheesecake filling and a cream cheese icing. There were only half a dozen in the box but you could barely finish one of them before you had to go sit down somewhere and stare at the ceiling. It’d sit in your belly like a bag of concrete but you’d have no regrets. The fat and sugar hit your system so hard that with every bite you just wanted to give the world a hug—
The bus was stopping.
Amy stood up and saw cars. Cars and cars and cars, stopped dead on the highway leading into town.
Her heart sank.
This was… surely just a car accident or something. Not every bad thing that happened revolved around David. Surely.
She was already dialing. But this time, no voice mail—a recorded message from the cell phone carrier saying all circuits were busy.
A helicopter swept overhead. Low.
Across the aisle of the bus, a couple of college-looking guys in vintage clothes and thick-rimmed glasses were whispering frantically to each other, huddled over the screen of a cell phone.
“Excuse me. Are you guys getting a signal?”
“Internet still works. Look.”
The guy held out the phone and Twitter was up. If you’re reading this in a future where the Twitter fad has passed, Twitter was a Web site where people posted short little messages, usually from their phones, for the world to see. So, at any moment you could go on their site and see what the world at large was talking about, in real time. The main page of Twitter would always list what subjects were hot or “trending” at the moment. So when news broke, it broke on Twitter first—if a plane crashed near New York, people on the scene would start Tweeting about it within seconds, long before the first news camera showed up. Within minutes you’d see “#NYPlaneCrash” pop up on the trending topics.
The number one topic on Twitter at this moment was:
#ZOMBIEOUTBREAK
Exodus
John’s old Caddie had a huge engine that would qualify as a human rights violation if built today. It roared down the road, chugging gas and farting a blue cloud of dinosaur souls.
“They’re sealing off the town!” John screamed over John Fogerty. “Munch told me! They’ve got the highway and Route 44 both blocked.”
We weren’t heading to the highway, however. We would never have made it even without the roadblock— John’s Caddie wasn’t exactly hard to spot and we were being pursued. Fortunately, we knew a shortcut.
John tossed his phone into my lap and said, “Call Shiva! Tell her to meet us at the water tower!”
“Who?”
“Shiva! My girlfriend!”
“That’s actually her name?”
“I think so!”
“There are absolutely no bars on this phone.” I pulled out mine and said, “Shit! Mine, too!”
“Goddamn we get shitty coverage here!”
Burrito stand. The tires screeched us to a stop. We spilled out and I yelled, “TRUNK! TRUNK!”
John stopped in his tracks and said, “Molly!”
I spun and there she was. She was by the trash can, her paws pinning down a scrap of aluminum foil while she hurriedly ate the remaining half of a chorizo burrito.
John fumbled with his keys and got the trunk open just as we heard in the distance, “DON’T FUCKING MOVE!”
Goddamned Lance Falconer, sprinting down the street, gun in hand. Holy shit that man could run.
I abandoned my stuff and sprinted to the back door of the burrito stand. The good news was it would get us out of there. The bad news was that the destination was a crapshoot and only one would work.
We opened the door and squeezed into the utility closet. A blink later the door changed in front of us and we stepped out to—
“PANTIES! SHIT!”
We were at the Walmart dressing room. No good. If the feds had blocked off the highway at city limits, we were still on the wrong side of it. John said, “Back in! Back in!”
Back into the dressing room. A blink. The smell of burritos hit us. We stepped out of the door at the exact moment Falconer skidded to a stop in front of us. He leveled his huge automatic at my face and said, “FREEZE!”
We ducked back inside. I heard Falconer yanking the door back open a split second before we emerged at a destination that stank of liquor and disinfectant.
“Shit!” hissed John, surveying a display of Jagermeister. “We’re at the liquor store.” Specifically, the restroom at the rear of the store. “What now?”
“Maybe if we wait here, he’ll wander away.”
“He’s not gonna do that, he’ll search the burrito stand for a hidden hatch or something. Then he’ll search our car and interrogate the burrito guy to see if he’s in on it.”
I glanced around. “What’s going on?”
The liquor store was packed. People were hauling armloads of bottles up to the counter and somebody was arguing with the cashier.
“People stocking up.”
“Screw it. He won’t be expecting us to pop back out. We’ll go out and right back in. Third time’s a charm.”
We shoved back into the liquor store restroom just as a guy nearby piled Jager and half a dozen Red Bulls into a shopping basket.
A blink. Burrito smell.
I peeked out of the utility closet. A hand grabbed my collar and threw me to the ground, knocking the air from my lungs. A knee was on my back.
Falconer screamed, “HOW ARE YOU DOING THAT?”
“WE TOLD YOU! Just fucking let us go!”
“
I said, “Listen! Listen to me! Everything that has happened has happened because they wanted it to.”
“Who’s ‘they’?”
“I DON’T KNOW! Find out! You’re goddamned Lance Falconer!”
John said, “Don’t you get it? You’re wasting your time, we’re just a couple of inconsequential dipshits in this whole thing. The people behind this will take out all three of us. We’re all pawns. Well, you’re a pawn, we’re a
