We slowed when we neared the loading bay and then Dan peered around the corner. He yanked his head back, face pale. “One on the ground. Jude, I think. Paisley and Isaac are on the other side of the fence.”
“How did he make it?” Jean breathed.
“I don’t know.” He grabbed her by the arm when she moved to look. “You don’t want to see. Let’s get over the fence here where they can’t see us and wait for Evan.”
“What about all this stuff?”
Dan shrugged. “We have what’s in the backpacks. Is the rest worth our lives?”
“It might be once it starts snowing,” Jean said.
We went over the fence, my fingers protesting as the wire bit into them. My tennis shoes kept slipping out of the small holes in the chain link, and it took way too long to climb. Once at the top, the pole sagged and the flesh of my palm got pinched all to hell between the pole and a bit of wire. I bit down on the yelp of pain, then let myself drop the rest of the way to the ground, hand throbbing.
We headed straight back for several hundred yards, circling around the gigantic water tower nearby, putting it between us and the crazies that filled the store’s parking lot. Evan came hauling ass up the hill, swerving in toward Jude and Paisley, who jumped in the bed. Jean stepped into the road and waved her arms until he noticed her and then we were safely in the pickup, too.
He made a Y turn and headed back to the main road. To our right, the zombies pressed against the fence, fingers poking through the wire, mouths pressed up against it. I couldn’t see Jude’s body, there were too many of them. I wondered how they’d gotten him and not Isaac, when Isaac had been the one to go out first.
I wished we hadn’t stopped at the damned store, now that I knew the cost of our visit.
“Where did we plan to meet? To the north, right?” Evan asked. “They’ll be north, right?”
“Yes,” I said, my heart stuck firmly in my throat. Lana had gotten away, I knew that. She’d driven away honking, trying to rescue us. They were fine. Lana was fine.
I twisted and opened the window to yell back at Isaac and Paisley. “Are you guys okay?”
Isaac’s arms were wrapped around his knees and he didn’t answer or look at me. Paisley nodded, swiping tears away with her shirt sleeve. There was blood on the cuff, and I wondered if she was hiding a bite. People in zombie movies always hid bites. All it took was one guy deciding to pretend like nothing had happened to wipe out the whole crew.
I made a mental note to keep an eye on her and Isaac. Just in case.
We passed a gas station on our right—no van. A trailer park further up on our right. A bank on our left. No van. Dan was running his hand through his hair every five seconds, and when he wasn’t doing that, he was rubbing at his face, shifting in his seat. Every once in a while, I could hear him say, “Come on, Owen.”
Come on, Lana.
We passed some sort of ag business on our right then slowed when we came on a semi-truck tipped over on its side. Hundreds of knobby, round sugar beets were spilled everywhere and our tires bumped and crunched over them as we eased past. Further on, a car rested wheels-up in the ditch, a zombie trapped beneath. It reached for us, pleaded with us to, “Come back! Please!” but we kept on. I tried to imagine what Lana would have been thinking. Why come this far? She knew the plan. She wouldn’t have had to come this far to stop safely, would she?
“We’re too far out of town. We must have missed them,” Dan said, clearly on the same track I was on.
“You want to go back into that mess?” Evan asked. “I thought we agreed that we’d wait outside of town to the north.”
“Maybe there’s another way north,” I suggested. “Or maybe this way was blocked when they tried it. I don’t know—” My words trailed off and my mouth went dry when I saw the van up ahead. It was parked diagonally across the road, the sliding side door open. A trail of blood smeared across the road.
Nothing living was in sight.
“Nononono,” Dan moaned. “No!” He slammed his hand on the door then opened it even though we were still moving. “Let me the fuck out!” The truck hadn’t even stopped before he was launching himself out, tripping and almost spilling to the pavement.
I saw the zombies in the cornfield ahead and everything inside me shriveled up. “Oh goddess.” I gripped the door handle but couldn’t make myself pull on it, couldn’t make myself get out.
“Owen!” Dan shouted, his voice as desperate as I’d ever heard it. “Baby! Come here! Daddy’s here! Please!”
He sounds like one of them,I thought. Like I had back there at the store. No way Owen would come to him. Not after his mother …
I stumbled out of the truck and lifted my gun, stomach churning. They had heard Dan and were coming for us and the gun barrel shook as I stared at them, wondering when I would see Lana’s face, when I would hear her plead with me to help her.
“Help me!” one of them called, and goosebumps broke out over my flesh. Not Lana’s voice.
“Help!” another chimed in, this one a child. Not Owen. I couldn’t remember Evan’s and Jean’s
