Everyone would have the same problem. Maybe they could help each other get through this, though he had trouble opening up to his wife, much less total strangers.
By now everyone had their phones out and were reporting calling and texting but receiving no response.
He looked at the battery charge on his phone: 59%. He didn’t have his charger with him, and he doubted he could find one in the supermarket.
Some social media sites were active, and others were down. He reported himself “safe” on all of the ones that allowed him to, and he checked if anyone he knew also reported as “safe.” No one on the active sites reported “safe,” except for him. He got zero responses to his “safe” posts.
Everyone else described similar experiences. No one was able to get in touch with anyone using their cell phones.
Vin came back without a radio. It was unlikely that a supermarket would carry radios in stock, but it was worth a search. Vin eyed Jize on his cell phone, and Alexander explained about the phone situation. Vin went through his own efforts, with no more luck than the rest.
The last person to give up was Jize. When he shut off his phone and put it in his pocket, he stood dumbfounded, shaking his head. Everyone looked at each other, and a sense of dread hung in the air.
Jamie, Gerald, his wife Brittany, and their son Jake ran down the street. Marty was there just in time to save them!
“Jamie,” Marty called as he slowed down his car, rolled down his window, and pulled up close to them.
Blood matted down their hair. Sores covered their faces.
Oh, no.
Marty’s heart sank. He was too late.
Gerald immediately rushed up to him. The others, including Jamie, held back.
Jamie didn’t say a word. Maybe he hadn’t heard him. Maybe Jamie couldn’t hear him. Maybe Jamie didn’t care.
Gerald thrust his arms in through Marty’s window. Marty stepped on the gas pedal, accelerating away, tires squealing, and, after a second or two, made a tight turn and came back around, and rammed Gerald, knocking him to the ground. Marty turned the wheel and sped up, ramming into Brittany and Jake.
He executed another U-turn and slammed on his brakes, ABS working smoothly, stopping next to Jamie, his open window less than three feet from his son.
Maybe he could save his son after all. His head was intact. What if the disease could be reversed?
If it was a disease and not something supernatural. But the supernatural might be reversible as well.
“Get in, Jamie, hurry!”
Jamie eyed Marty suspiciously.
“Get in, son, quickly, before the others get up!” But they were already getting up and running toward Marty’s car. Jamie looked around at everything curiously . . . And then bared his teeth and moved toward Marty, his hands reaching into the window.
This broke Marty’s heart. This would not work if Jamie was determined to attack his father.
Marty sped away and stopped a ways up the street. Then he retrieved his shotgun, got out of the car, steadied, aimed, and fired successfully at the heads of Gerald and his family.
Those three dropped onto the road, but his son sped up toward him. He aimed for his son’s leg and fired. The boy cried out and collapsed.
Could there be something of Jamie in there, somehow?
“Jamie, I want you to get into the car. Can you do that for me?”
Jamie looked at him curiously as he stood up, his jeans and leg still bloody, but sufficiently healed. He bared his teeth, snarled, and lunged at his father.
The boy got very close and opened his mouth, going for his father’s neck. Marty instinctively hit Jamie with the barrel of his gun, deflecting Jamie enough to prevent the bite. Jamie’s momentum drove them both together onto the asphalt. The force of the impact made Marty release his grip on his shotgun, hearing it clank on the ground next to him.
They wrestled, and the smaller Jamie held his own. Not only was Zombie-Jamie a lot stronger than Normal-Jamie, but the sorrow of what had happened to his family diminished Marty’s will to fight.
Marty finally summoned the strength to throw Jamie to the ground and break free from the grappling. He spied his shotgun out of the corner of his eye. Keeping his eyes on his son, he retrieved it and dashed back to his car.
Clearly, he couldn’t capture his son, his only choice being to either kill him or leave him. As he hurried into his car, wasting precious moments instinctively reaching for the seatbelt, he realized his best option was to leave him. While still a zombie with his brain intact, Jamie had a chance, however slim. A cure had to be possible. Right?
As he sped away in his patrol car, now almost out of gas—fuck me—he realized that being able to find Jamie at some later date was a long shot. Leaving him wrenched his gut and would probably haunt him for the rest of his life.
Marty vowed to come back for his son.
Chapter Sixteen
Day Zero
Marty headed for the police station to look for survivors, but deep down he knew he would find none. For the next mile into town, Marty encountered no more zombies. They all seemed to have moved on up north. That meant Jamie would head north, too, shortly. He realized, despite his vow, that he had little hope of seeing his son again.
How could this terror have been unleashed? Was it just some kind of random virus? He doubted it. He hadn’t heard of anyone being sick at all. A tidal wave of zombies had swept through town with no warning. They had canvassed his neighborhood—most likely the entire town—in their efforts to infect everyone they could find. They didn’t seem intelligent, but there was definitely an intelligence to
