Red Hill

“Well”—I breathed, hating what I was about to say—“look on the bright side. There is a gas station in Shallot.”

“But we’re so close,” Ashley said. “Let’s just drive around and go home.”

“We can’t make it home.”

One of the dead ones seemed to notice the Bug, and she took a slow step toward us. She was young, and her long, blond hair might have been as beautiful as Ashley’s if it wasn’t ratted and covered in blood and . . . other things. Her movement drew the attention of another dead one, and then another. Soon, several were walking slowly but with purpose. Their eyes were milky and lifeless, but their mouths were open. Some of their upper lips were quivering, like a growling dog. The blonde reached out to me, and a low but excited moan pushed from her throat.

I pulled back on the gearshift and pushed the gas pedal to the floor. A few days ago, I had parked the Bug in the middle of nowhere to avoid door dings, and now I was driving it like a go-kart. I whipped us back and away from the approaching dead ones, and then followed the road on the right into Shallot, praying that there wasn’t another herd behind the hill, and we wouldn’t be boxed in.

“Whoa!” Bryce said, as I cut across a median. Everyone’s head but mine hit the ceiling.

“Sorry!” I said, grabbing the wheel with one hand over the other quickly as I turned to keep control.

“Ease back, babe,” Bryce said. “We’re okay.”

The town was vacant, and I sighed in relief to see a grocery store ahead, with a gas station directly behind it. I pulled around to the station, and we all climbed from the Bug, stretching and taking a moment to breathe.

I was relieved that even in the early hours of the morning, it was warmer than the day before. The previous day’s rain had brought with it a cold front, and I was worried Ashley and I would be miserably cold before we made it to Dad’s. For just a second, I thought about pulling out my cell phone to check the forecast, but then I realized I hadn’t had service since yesterday. None of us had.

Bryce walked around us with his eyes to the ground, checking the tires.

“Did I break her?” I asked.

“No, but you have to be more careful.”

“I was scared. I wasn’t sure what was behind the hill. Did you see those ruts in the field?”

“Yeah,” he said simply, his eyes moving from the tires to our surroundings. Once he was satisfied that we weren’t in immediate danger, he noticed my struggle with the gas pump. “Not working?”

I glared at the nozzle plugged into the Bug. “I was all excited because this thing is ancient. It doesn’t even have a place to run a credit card.”

“I’ll run in. Maybe there’s a switch to trip.”

He gave me a quick peck on the lips and jogged across the small lot to the station. He pushed open the door and jumped over the counter. He searched the register and surrounding area with a focused frown, and before I could register a thought, my legs broke out into a sprint toward the station.

“Bryce!” Our eyes met, and I was sure his reactive expression matched mine. He turned to face the dead one that had walked up behind him.

Just as I opened the door, the word no erupted out of me. Bryce pressed his forearm against the man’s chest to keep the snapping teeth at bay, and then reached across the counter to a pen that was attached to the cash register with twine. He yanked it away from its anchor, and in the next moment stabbed the man in the face. The man kept coming at him, so he stabbed him again; this time the pen went through the corner of its eye, and he collapsed against Bryce.

Movement on my left caught my eye, and dead ones, two females, one adult and one child, were slowly shuffling toward me. She was obese, her skirt dragging the floor around her ankles, and she was covered in dark, dried blood and dirt. The skin on her face and her lips were all gone. She’d been chewed on before she’d come back. I couldn’t see a wound on the girl, but her eyes were milky white like the woman’s.

“Bryce!” I screamed.

He pushed the man off of him and jumped back over the counter, yanking my arm as he pushed the door open and pulled me toward the Bug.

“Go! Get in!” Bryce swung his free arm around wildly as he commanded everyone standing around the Bug.

Everyone scrambled to get inside the car but me. I stood on the driver’s side with the door open, watching the dead ones claw at the glass on the double doors of the station.

“Miranda!” Ashley screamed.

“Look at them,” I said softly, my voice calm and full of wonder.

They couldn’t get out. Even though the doors would open a little when they pushed against it, they weren’t coordinated enough to continue pushing and walk. The doors would come back against them, so they clawed at the glass like it was a wall.

The woman’s swollen belly bumped the door, and I recoiled, realizing she wasn’t fat, but heavily pregnant.

I sat in the seat and closed the door, still breathing heavily. “Did you find a switch?”

Bryce shook his head. “We can’t make it to your dad’s?”

“I don’t think we should try. We might get stranded.”

“It’s too dangerous to go on foot. We need to figure out how to get inside and turn on that pump.”

“I have this,” the guy we picked up said. He held up a handgun.

I frowned. “Did you see those things around that car earlier? They’re attracted to noise.”

He didn’t flinch. “We could search the houses for something quieter. Baseball bats, scissors, kitchen knives. Bryce took that one down with a pen.”

“That could take days,” I said.

He shrugged. “You got somewhere to be?”

“Yeah, I do, actually.”

“Not until you get gas in this car, you don’t.”

I turned to face forward in a huff. He was right, but I didn’t like his smart-ass comment. I glared at him in the rearview mirror. He was tall and looked ridiculous sitting in the back, his knees nearly as tall as his head. His dark eyes were deep set, and his face was still sprayed with that girl’s blood. Combined with his buzz cut and muscles, he looked like a serial killer, and I’d let him in my car. For all we knew, he could have killed that girl before she turned.

“What is your name, anyway?”

“Joey.”

“What’s with the haircut, Joey?”

“I just got back from Afghanistan.”

“Oh,” I said. My response was more acidic than I’d intended. I was trying not to show my surprise, or sudden admiration.

“Dude,” Cooper said. He wasn’t holding back the fact that he was impressed. Cooper shook Joey’s hand. “Appreciate you, man. And I suddenly feel much safer.”

“Don’t,” he said. “I only have what’s left in this clip.”

“Still,” Cooper said. “You’re a badass.”

I wasn’t sure if Bryce was as impressed with Joey as Cooper was and just trying to hide it like me, or if he wasn’t impressed at all. I caught him rolling his eyes at Cooper’s words, and I elbowed him. We exchanged smiles. It wasn’t uncommon for us to know what the other was thinking. We’d been together so long and had spent so much time together it wouldn’t surprise me if Bryce knew what I was thinking before I did. That was probably why marriage wouldn’t be on the table until well after we both graduated. We were accused frequently of acting like an old married couple.

“No one move,” I said, watching a dead one pass slowly across my rearview mirror. It was heading to the highway.

We all sat like statues. The females in the station were still pawing at the doors, and I hoped they didn’t draw the new dead one’s attention. He was dragging a broken ankle, even slower than was typical. Ashley began to turn to look, but Cooper stopped her, just as Bryce stopped himself from telling her no.

The dead one passed. Rattled, we stepped back out onto the cracked concrete. The sun was getting higher in