We all retreated inside the house. Joy scrambled around to pack, and the boys stood next to the windows to keep watch. Miranda and Ashley helped Joy put as much food as they could carry into bags, and then we met in the kitchen.
“I don’t . . . have a lot of room in my car,” Miranda said.
“My Taurus is in the garage,” Walter said, grabbing a set of keys hanging from a nail on the wall. The key ring was made of multi-color plastic that spelled ORLANDO.
“Okay, Zoe and I will ride with Walter and Joy. Problem solved.”
Miranda nodded nervously.
“They’re starting to fan out!” Bryce said.
A muffled, high-pitched yapping came from next door, and we all froze.
Joy blanched. “Dear Jesus, it’s Princess.”
Bryce and Cooper leaned against the windows to get a better look. Princess continued to bark excitedly at the horrifying procession. It didn’t take long for the first of them to notice the barking and veer away from the others.
“We can’t wait,” Bryce said. “We have to go now before any more come down this dead end.”
Miranda nodded, and then looked to me. “He’s right, Nate. It’s time to go.”
“But what about Princess?” Zoe asked.
Joy leaned down to Zoe with tears in her eyes. “We’ll come back for her, sweetie.”
Walter held out his hand to his wife, and we followed them to the garage. Miranda and Joey lifted the garage door while Ashley and Bryce loaded Joy’s bags into the trunk. Zoe and I settled into the backseat of the Taurus and waited for Walter to start the car. After a few seconds, the engine made a sickly whirring sound and then Walter turned to me.
“Walter?” I said.
“I . . . I don’t know. I just changed the oil and filter thinking we were headed to see Darla.”
“Try it again,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm.
“They’re coming!” Ashley cried.
“Shit. Shit!” Cooper yelled, pulling Ashley toward the house.
Walter tried the ignition again, but this time the Taurus’s engine wouldn’t even turn over. “M-maybe it’s the uh . . . alternator. I had trouble with it last year . . .”
“We don’t have time to figure it out, let’s go!” I said, opening the door and pulling Zoe with me.
Bryce and Joey were already fighting with a few infected by the time we made it inside. A shot was fired off, and then they were inside with us.
Cooper had a look of bewilderment on his face. “I’m sorry,” he said, a gun in his hand. “It almost bit Joey.”
I rushed to the window. More were filing down the street. Princess’s barks were at an even higher pitch as the infected climbed up onto her porch and pawed at the window where she stood. Bryce and Miranda pulled the refrigerator in front of the door in the kitchen that led to the garage. A dozen or more infected were on and around the porch, pounding on the front door and windows. The glass broke, and I threw Zoe over my shoulder. “The bedrooms! Go out the back!”
When we reached the bedroom, the kids were pulling the dresser in front of the bedroom door, and Joy was pulling a long, wooden stake from the bottom of the sliding door. She stood up and immediately panicked.
“Walter? Walter!” she screamed.
Walter was standing at the other patio door, trying his damnedest to slide open the glass. He had somehow gone one way when we went the other, and, unlike us, he had no one with him to barricade the bedroom door while he tried to escape to the backyard. A group of infected appeared behind him. His eyes grew wide as they tore into him, but he kept trying to claw at the door, realizing too late that he’d failed to remove the wooden block they’d placed there for protection.
Joy was right behind me, and her loud screams for her husband made my right ear buzz. The infected mashed him against the glass, biting into him. He screamed, and the sound, although muffled, made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
“Walter!” Joy bawled, tears streaming down her face. She clawed at the glass, and then yanked the door open. She ran to the adjacent door, working in a panic to free her husband.
“Joy! Joy! Joy!” Zoe bawled, reaching for her friend. Her words bounced as each of my feet hit the ground. I held on to my daughter tight, afraid she would wriggle free.
Joey opened the back fence gate, and led the kids to the Bug.
I watched them squeeze in, and then Bryce shut the door.
It was then that I recognized our fate. “Please, take her,” I said, standing at the passenger door.
Miranda started the car.
Bryce looked past us to what was sure to be a mob of infected headed in our direction. “We don’t have room. I’m sorry.”
“Daddy, no!” Zoe screamed. She balled up her fists, gripping my shirt in her tiny hands so tightly that her arms shook.
“Please!” I said, staring straight into Miranda’s eyes. “I have no way to get her out of here. She’s small. She’ll fit.”
Miranda looked to Bryce. He shook his head. “Let’s go, Miranda. Go! Go!”
She pulled the gear into drive, and then Cooper shoved Bryce forward and reached for the handle. As soon as he reached it, he pulled the door open and jumped out.
“What are you doing?” Ashley cried.
“She can have my seat,” Cooper said to Bryce.
“Coop, no,” Bryce said, his eyes widening at whatever was happening behind us. “We don’t have time for this, let’s go!”
Cooper tore Zoe from my grip with one hand and pulled Bryce’s seat forward with the other, pushing Zoe into the seat. She was fighting him, but Joey grabbed hold of her. Cooper shut the door.
“I can help Nathan get to Red Hill.”
“It’s ten miles from here, Coop! No!” Ashley said, squeezing between the front seats to reach for him.
“Daddy!” Zoe said, leaning away from Joey.
“I’ll see you soon, honey. It’s okay. Daddy will see you soon.”
Cooper touched my shoulder. “I know the way, Zoe. I promise I’ll get him there, okay? Don’t worry.”
“We have to go!” Bryce said. “For any of us to have a chance, we have to go right now, Miranda!”
Miranda’s face crumpled, distorted from guilt. “Run fast, Coop.”
Cooper nodded and winked at Ashley. “I can make ten miles in an hour, baby. No problem.”
“Don’t leave him, Miranda, please!” Ashley begged, reaching out for him. “No, please! Please!
Cooper raised his gun and shot behind me. I turned, seeing an infected fall to the ground.
“I was all-state four years in high school. I was the man to beat in college. I hope you can run, Nathan, because I made Zoe a promise.”
I nodded. “So did I.”
Chapter Eighteen
Scarlet
THE MOTHS AND LIGHTNING BUGS were bouncing and gliding over the top of the prairie grass not far from me. I sat on the top step of the wooden deck that doubled as a front porch, waving away the mosquitos buzzing in my ears. The crest of the red dirt road that Jenna and Halle might be walking toward was bright, lit by the setting sun. There were so many variables for them to make it to the safety of Red Hill. What if Andrew hadn’t made it back to the house to see my spray-painted message on the wall? What if the girls were too upset to know what it meant? What if they had forgotten Halle’s song? Carrying those questions with me all day and night weighed down
