Please don’t let it be Lana, I thought, guilt pounding against the hope that she was alive, that it hadn’t been her.
“Spread out. Be careful. I don’t know if they can hide, if they can ambush …” Evan trailed off, looking at me as if I might have the answer. I shrugged hopelessly, then remembered the little girl who had almost bitten Lana.
“Yeah, they probably can. If they’re fresh.”
“We can’t walk into that corn field then.”
We all stared into the tall stalks, a breeze hissing through the browning leaves. “What do we do?”
“Honk the horn. While we’re in the truck. Take off if any of them come,” Jean said. She was clutching her husband’s arm desperately, and I was absolutely sure she was praying it hadn’t been her daughters who’d left the bloody smear, just as Dan was praying Owen was hail and hearty.
We got back into the truck and Evan honked and honked the horn. Two of them stumbled out the door of a white farmhouse ahead, their uncoordinated walk telegraphing what they were long before their plaintive song could be heard.
“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine—”
“Let’s go back to town,” Jean said. “Now. They would have gone back to town.”
“On foot? It would be suicide,” Evan said.
“What would you do?” Jean gestured to the van and we all sat staring at it as the two zombies came at us.
As they got closer, I saw that one of their legs had been stripped of its flesh. The bones glistened in the stew of red meat and muscle. The tendons churned like belts in a factory machine and I snapped my gaze away but the sight would forever be burned into my brain. “We have to go, please. Isaac and Paisley are vulnerable in the back. Either way. North or south, but we need to move. Now!” I snapped when Evan still hesitated. “We know they didn’t stay here. We know they didn’t answer our calls or honks. We can check out the farmhouse. We can go back to the semi wreck if we have to, but we move. Now!”
We moved. Evan headed for the farmhouse, giving the truck a burst of speed before we understood what he meant to do.
We hit the two zombies with a horrendous crunch of bones and meat. The slam of their heads into the concrete sounded like exploding melons. The truck lurched violently over one of them—maybe the one missing the flesh on her leg—and I slammed into Dan as the truck righted itself.
“Evan!” Jean shrieked. Paisley was screaming. Isaac had been thrown almost over the side of the bed, only Paisley’s frantic hands stopping him from tumbling over. Evan was panting heavily, his fingers white claws on the wheel. “Evan! What the hell? What the hell?”
“You could have killed us!” Dan’s hand shot between the seats and gripped Evan’s jacket. “You fucking idiot, don’t you take my life in your hands again. You probably fucked the axle. You fuck!”
I could have tried calming Dan, but I felt the same. I understood Evan too, though, understood the visceral horror the sight of that leg had produced in me.
We sat panting, processing, dissociating, maybe too, and then Evan drove toward the farmhouse, seemingly not noticing the grip Dan still had on him. He drove right up to the steps of the house and jerked the truck into park. Only then did he turn in his seat and point the gun at Dan. “Let. Go.”
Dan did, raising his hands while Jean continued her panicked questioning of her husband.
“I’m going in there,” Evan said with an calm that belied the wild look in his eyes. “Come or stay, don’t care. I’m finding my daughters.”
He got out and slammed the door. After a glance at Dan, I followed. Jean came too and we stood behind Evan while he banged on the door, waited, banged again. If any more of them were in the house, they’d come see what the noise was about, right?
Could they ambush us? Was one of them hiding in a closet? Waiting?
I wished I had a metal tipped bat and combat armor and the big, strong, burly Ving Rhames at my side ready to smash some zombie brains. When it came to zombie brain smashing, he was the best. “Sorry Lana,” I whispered.
“What?” Evan asked, irritated I’d made noise.
“Nothing. Try the door.”
He did. It was unlocked and we pushed in in a tight clump. I knew we needed space to use our weapons, but I needed the comfort of my fellow living, breathing humans more. We moved through the room on shaking knees—at least, mine were shaking. I was projecting my fear on them, maybe. Then again, Jean’s teeth were audibly chattering.
“Lizbeth? Olivia? Girls? It’s your daddy. I know you might be thinking I’m one of them monsters, but I’m not.” Evan poked a head into the living room, a cozy spot once upon a time, before something ate the family dog. Its corpse lay half-eaten on the couch, its soulful dark eyes glazed over in death, its tongue stiff. “Clear,” he said, as if we were soldiers searching a terrorist den. Jean took the door on her right, her fingers trembling as she shoved it open. It banged against the wall which made her squeak in fear. The room was a den filled with dark wood, papers, and a softly glowing computer in one corner. “Clear?”
Jean nodded. “Yes. Unless …”
“Either it’s clear or it’s not,” Evan said.
“Something might be hiding under the desk.”
Evan shoved past her, knocking her into the jamb, though she didn’t seem to notice. He gave the desk wide berth, then shoved his gun at the space behind it. “Nothing. Clear.”
Jean nodded and we went on like that, checking each room, scaring the shit out of ourselves at every shadow that moved wrong, at every creak of the house. When we got to the final door, we all
