“Last I heard from her, she had killed Jonas at the hospital,” he closes. “And I thought this time it was really over.” He sighs heavily, shaking his head. “Something must have gone wrong, because I saw her in a news report from the hospital … as a zombie. They also said something about a bus outside town that got attacked by an elderly couple. I’ll bet you it was the old woman, the one who lived in the woods. She got infected from her cat after it stepped in the officer’s blood.”
William is quiet for a while after Dan stops talking. They’re almost out of town now, and the traffic is sparse.
“It all makes sense,” William finally says. “It all began here. Right here, right in the middle of fucking Denmark, and not even in Copenhagen, oh no, it began all the way out here in our tiny shithole of a town. Right here!” He stabs the steering wheel with a finger, as if to emphasize his point. “What are the fucking odds, man? Of all the places …”
“I know.”
“And it’s only here,” William goes on. “Right? Isn’t that what you’re telling me?”
“As far as I know.”
“Yeah, it has to be. Since it started with that voodoo-shit. Holy crap, I always imagined it would be some kind of top-secret military project with genetically modified super soldiers or, or maybe a radioactive release or some shit—didn’t you think so? I mean, that’s always how it goes in the movies.”
“I … I didn’t really think about it,” Dan mutters.
“You seriously never contemplated how the apocalypse would go down?” Williams asks, giving him a critical look. “Come on, everybody has!”
“How about you?” Dan asks, conveniently switching the subject. “When did you find out?”
“I was at the hospital right before it went crazy.”
“You were?”
“Yeah, man. I work there—or worked, now that the world is ending. You thought these were my regular clothes?”
Dan hadn’t really noticed it before, but William is wearing what looks like the white shirt and pants that hospital staff usually wear.
“I think I saw that girl you mentioned,” William goes on. “Selina.”
Dan stares at him. “You did?”
William nods and swallows something, but doesn’t say anymore. Dan eyes him for a moment, surprised to see his driver hesitate for the first time. William strikes him as the type of person with tons of confidence; the suntanned skin, tattoos and the latest haircut.
“I think it’s your turn to tell your story,” Dan says, just as they cross the town border and continue out onto the open road stretching far ahead between the open fields.
EIGHTEEN
She’s floating somewhere between wakefulness and unconsciousness. Unpleasant images keep flickering by. Mads sitting up, his eyes all wrong. Krista screaming her heart out as Mads bites down on her chin. The sound of the skin ripping.
“Krista!” she tries to shout, but the word won’t come out. She tries instead to call for help, but that doesn’t work, either. When she turns to look down the street, all the cars are suddenly gone. Instead, an army of living dead comes marching at her.
Mille screams and opens her eyes. The scream catches in her throat, only producing a hoarse whimper. She stares around bewildered, blinking the stinging sweat from her eyes and trying to comprehend what she’s seeing.
She’s lying on the backseat of a car, but not the same as before. Krista isn’t here, and neither is Mads nor the Arab. Instead she can hear unfamiliar voices talking together.
“… in a way it’s my fault; I guess I should have called the police instead of just bailing.”
“They probably wouldn’t have believed you anyway.”
“No, and I thought it was too late anyway. You know, that it had begun in other places, too.”
“It had. At that time the bus must have already been attacked.”
“Yeah, and you know I wrote a warning on the door, but I guess someone must’ve opened it anyway …”
Mille sits up with a strained groan. Her head is spinning, and a stinging pain is throbbing just behind her forehead. Something sniffs the back of her head, and she spins around with a whine of surprise to see a large dog look curiously at her.
“Oh, hey! You’re awake.”
She turns around again. A boy is in the passenger seat and guy a little older than her is behind the wheel. They’re both looking back at her.
“Who are you?” Mille murmurs, rubbing her forehead.
“I’m William and this is Dan. I picked you up back in town—you remember?”
Mille moans. “I don’t know ... I remember Krista, she … oh, no … what happened to her? What happened to Krista?”
The guy behind the wheel sends her an apologetic look in the mirror. “If you’re talking about the girl who was with you in the car—I’m sorry, but she’s dead.”
Mille lowers her head and feels like crying. She’s not sure whether it’s mostly due to grief or shock or confusion, as all of them fight inside her. “My head’s all … did I pass out?”
“Yeah.”
“And where are we going?” She looks out at the fields gliding by.
“We’re going to my uncle’s place, where we’ll be safe for now.”
Mille’s brain is slowly clearing up, and her memory starts throwing up fragments from what she thought was only bad dreams. Her classmates screaming inside the bus, Mads dying on the backseat of the car, Krista trying helplessly to perform CPR on him … it all spins into an awful cocktail, faster and faster.
“Are you all right?” the boy in the passenger seat asks, eyeing her closely. “You’re turning pale.”
“I … I think I’m going to throw up,” Mille croaks.
“Hold on,” William says, hitting the breaks. “Keep it in just a second longer.”
Mille feels the sick come rolling up
