“Right up here!” Lana shouted, and Dan spun the wheel. We raced past truck after boxy truck, the houses whizzing by. “Right!” she shouted and we were smashed up against the door as he turned. Owen’s eyes were wide as he clutched the tablet with one hand and clung to Lana with the other.
There were more of them on the road, but Dan swerved around them, highway in his sights. The road in front of us glittered in the bright sun and for a moment I was dazzled by the light, then realized too late what it was.
“Glass!” I shouted, but too late. The tire blew. The SUV pulled hard to the left before Dan got us back on track and the sound of the flat rubber on the road sounded like a death knell.
“We’re going to die,” Lana whispered after a terrified look behind us.
“No, we’re not.”
Dan didn’t stop, didn’t dare stop because they were behind us and more coming. He didn’t dare go faster, either, so he held it at around twenty miles per hour, the SUV jerking and bumping on the pavement. Off to our right, a couple miles outside of town, there was a house with a packed driveway. Four trucks sat bumper to bumper out front like a shield wall, and more cars lined the road. The windows looked like they were boarded up and a spray-painted sign out front said, “Honk if you’re a survivor!”
Dan slowed, taking a glance back himself. “We have to stop. The rim’s probably already fucked, but if it’s not, it will be.” Without waiting, he honked, honked again, and a head peeped out the front door. He rolled down Ivy’s window and leaned over her to shout, “We have a flat and there’s a horde coming.”
“Shit. Pull around to the far side. Ground’s flat, ditch is minimal. We’ll let you in the back. Hurry!” The woman disappeared inside and Dan did as she ordered, driving around the cars to ease us over the ditch and the uneven ground. Lana unbuckled Owen, then herself. I grabbed our bags and as soon as Dan slung the SUV into park, we bailed, rushing for the back door, and the little old lady who waved her hand frantically at us.
We crowded into the small, seventies’ style kitchen, and our savior locked the door behind us. She looked to be in her eighties, her fluffy white hair piled haphazardly on top of her head. “I’m Norma, this here’s Jim my husband. We have a whole mess of people, so things are crowded.”
Crowded was right. There were at least fifteen people in the living room and more, according to Norma, in the bedrooms, of which there were three. “We saved as many people as we could when things went south.” She shook her head. “Things went south so fast. One minute Barbara Stanley was looking sick and the next she was chomping on her granddaughter. The sheriff? He managed to put them down fast, had heard some reports from out east but …” She shook her head. “You don’t want to hear this stuff. Pull up a piece of floor and I’ll get you folks some water. Then we’ll all have to be real quiet so they forget we’re here.” She aimed this at Owen, who nodded solemnly, his big eyes bright with unshed tears.
We found a spot by the fridge and took the proffered glasses full of ice water. It tasted so good I asked for another and got one. We sat in silence from there on out, unable to do more than smile and nod at the people around us as we waited for the crazies to find us.
“Help!” The first calls were small ones, as if they were coming from children. Owen buried his head in his dad’s shoulder when a woman called out next, “Baby boy! Baby! I need you. Come to mama!” She sounded so sad it made my heart hurt and terrified me all at once.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are!” called a man, his voice pitched high. He repeated the phrase as if his brain were stuck on it, repeated it sing-song, questioning, even angrily.
When the thumps came, I jumped and Lana grabbed my arm tightly, her face pale.
Norma sat on a chair near us and leaned close, so close I could see the fine white hairs on her chin. “We have the place fortified pretty damn good. They haven’t gotten in yet.” The whisper came with stale cigarette breath, but even so I was glad she told us because I still jumped when I heard them scratching their fingernails on the boards covering the windows.
“Help! Please. In. In? Let in?”
Bodies thumped against the doors, hands grabbing, grasping, the knob rattling but not turning.
“Please!”
Please, I echoed in my head. Please stop.
“I have to pee,” Owen whispered, and one of them heard him and began banging on the back door in earnest.
Norma stood, holding a finger to her lips as she held out her other hand to the little boy. Owen looked at his daddy, and at Dan’s nod, took Norma’s hand and followed her out of the kitchen.
Dan’s eyes stayed on his boy until he was out of sight, and then his gaze did not move from the doorway until Own safely returned.
The howls died down a couple hours later, and another hour after that, there was a creak in the hallway, and the sound of shoes on wooden steps. A man poked his head into the kitchen and whispered, “They’ve headed back into town.”
The relief around the room was palpable.
I needed to go to the bathroom myself and worried that with this many people I’d never get the chance, but Norma must have known what was on
