It’ll be a miracle if she makes it without spilling any.
It’ll be a miracle if she manages to get away from the gas station without being burned alive. Or eaten.
Goddess, she does not want to be eaten.
She makes her way down to the gas station, heart hammering. There aren’t any of them here, at least not yet. She parks and gets out, remembering a time when she had people watching her back. Now she has to crane her head every which way, hoping to hell she sees them before they see her.
She doesn’t know how easy the lids come off, but after a quick turn and a yank, it lifts away from the hole.
What if there’s no more gas?
What if the rope won’t burn?
What if one of them gets her before …
“Stop,” she whispers and gets the bucket.
One of them has noticed her, though it doesn’t seem too spry. It’s sitting against the brick wall of a laundromat half a block away, and it tries now to get its feet underneath it to stand but its muscles don’t seem to be cooperating. It reaches for her, hungry, desperate. She hopes it can’t sing. She hopes its killer ripped its throat out.
She lifts off the lid of the bucket, nearly gagging at the fumes, and pulls the rope free of the gas. She realizes she should have left both ends free and curses herself, then drags the wet rope out of the bucket with shaking hands, hoping she doesn’t set herself on fire when she flicks the lighter.
Once it’s on the ground, she runs back to the wet end and nudges it toward the hole with her boot. It finally slithers into the dark space and more of it follows as she guides it. After half of it disappears, she stretches it out again, getting her a good forty yards from the hole. She takes another long look around and sees three more of them headed her way. The laundromat one still hasn’t figured out how to stand, but the three coming at her are shambling right along.
“Fuck.”
She gets out her lighter, hands shaking and stretches toward the rope, her boots well back. It lights, catches, goes out. Lights, catches, goes out.
Another glance. They’re closer, their hands reaching, reaching, their fingers itching to dig into her skin, to separate her muscles from her bones. Their teeth gnash and these remind her of good old-fashioned movie zombies.
Until they open their mouths and ruin it.
“Mom? You? Mom, help. You?” says the only guy in the bunch. Half of his scalp hangs off his skull, hiding one of his eyes. This doesn’t seem to bother him as he churns toward her.
“Georgie Porgie puddin’ pie,” rasps the older one, “kiss the girls, the girlsgirlsgirls.”
She drops the lighter on the rope, the flame still burning, and gets into the SUV. She can’t stay there any longer. They’ll be on her with their hungry eyes and grasping mouths.
With a bitter sort of anger, she puts her vehicle into drive and stomps on the gas, rushing at them with a growling scream that doesn’t quite sound like her at all.
At the last minute she swerves, clipping the ‘girlsgirlsgirls’ zombie with the right bumper and sending her flying into the others. “Spare!” she says in that same not-so-sane voice and drives back up the hill.
She’s almost to the top when there’s a strange whump of sound, a sound so loud it doesn’t even register as sound but as a vibration.
The SUV jounces slightly as the blast wave rushes past and she turns to see a black clap of smoke rise up from the now merrily blazing station.
It worked.
She watches as the zombies rise, turning their decayed, death-blasted faces to the orange ball of flame like rotted sunflowers in an abandoned field.
It worked.
She slams her hand down onto the steering wheel in exultation, then gets the SUV turned around while the zombies move toward the flames. “I’m coming, boys. Goddess damn it, I’m coming.”
28
Now
She gets a mile down the road before the zombies get thick again. She drives around several groups of them, most standing as still as statues until they hear the SUV’s motor. They call out, of course, and bring others, until she needs another explosion to distract them. No more rope, though, and so she honks, leading them away.
At this rate, she’ll have to find a safe spot to fill up with gas again. She has plenty with her, thankfully, but it won’t do her any good if one of them get her while she glugs it in. One of these trips around the block might end up being her last. Every time she takes a detour, she risks running into a crowd ahead of her too. So far she’s been lucky.
“Only a matter of time.” Knowing she’s being nihilistic but unable to help herself, she ponders how she’ll die. Will she starve, trapped in the SUV? Kill herself before the teeth snap down on her flesh? Crash?
She isn’t driving fast enough to crash.
Lurid red paint catches her eye. “Survivors! REI. 7th Ave NW. Safety. Food. Water.”
At first, she doesn’t even register the message, though someone climbed up the billboard to spray paint it there. When it finally dawns on her what it is, what it means, she stares at it for a long time.
The dead things are catching up to her, the crowds are bad and she’s tired. So tired.
Will they still be there? The survivors with the food and water? Does she dare hope?
She accelerates, dodging the cars left in the roadway, and heads in the direction
