She got it. This kid had seen the worst of his father’s temper many times. He knew when the bastard was ready to blow.
“Impending doom,” she mutters, and Alex reaches over to squeeze her hand, gently.
“It’ll be okay. We’ll go tomorrow.”
Dee nods, though she isn’t sure she believes it. Not anymore. And in some strange way, she’s relieved. “I’m so sorry, boys.”
They have to take the long way since a bad accident blocks the road that would have taken them straight there. She starts to see them now that they’re farther away from the Complex and wonders aloud why Peter and Gloria walked.
“They went through the pile up, of course,” Alex says and when she does, Dee feels dumb for not having thought of it. “It’s safer along there. We clean it out from time to time.”
They should have gotten their pictures some other day, a day when there were more people with them, guilt be damned.
“Good.” She watches an old lady struggle to her feet. Her house dress is ragged, and it flaps around her dirty calves as she stumbles toward the street. They leave her behind soon enough, but not before Dee hears her call out. “Please? So cold.”
Alex shivers beside her, though she makes no indication that she hears the woman otherwise.
Please? So cold.
Mel bumps over a curb to bypass a bus stalled in the road and as she eases back off the curb, they see the reason Peter and Gloria haven’t returned.
Ten or maybe fifteen of them crowd around a dump truck, their arms reaching, reaching, reaching upward. Their cries are plaintive, heartrending. Dee puts a hand on the gun she carries at her hip. Its weight is comforting.
“Ma! Mama!”
“Please!”
“Need!”
“Ma!”
“M!”
Mel swears.
“Look.” Alex leans forward and points between Gary and Mel to the top of the truck where a head is barely visible. “They’re there. Trapped in the bed.”
They strain to see. Sure enough a head pops up again and Dee recognizes Peter’s thinning hair. He waves an arm at them and gives a shout. This drives the things below him wild and they kick up their frenzied efforts to get to the living flesh, the dinner, the food just out of their reach.
“Let’s take them out,” Gary says, his hands gripping the shotgun he holds eagerly.
“Wait,” Dee says. She’s already surveying the area. A few of them are hanging back, she sees, waiting in the shadows beside the houses like lions in the bush.
“Fuck,” Gary breathes, and Alex’s fingers tense on Dee’s sleeve.
“Are they … are they trying to ambush us?” Alex asks.
“I think so. Yeah,” Dee says.
“What did you say?” Mel asks. She looks over at the house when Dee tells her where. “I don’t see—Holy shit.”
“They’re waiting for us. Look.”
“Ambush predators,” Dee murmurs. It creeps her out in a way they creeped her out the first time she saw them. It also sends a chill down her spine as she wonders if they’ve been watching the Complex. If they’ve watched them walk outside, watched them on the rooftops.
Waiting. Planning.
“What are we going to do?”
“I’m going to get out and get in the truck bed,” Gary says. “You can drive close and I’ll shoot the ones by the dump truck. You guys keep watch.”
“I’ll get in the bed with you. It’ll be a better viewpoint and I can watch your back, shoot the ones that try to sneak up on you,” Alex says. “Let’s get this done. Come on.”
“Move fast,” Dee says, capturing Alex’s hand on her sleeve a moment before letting her go.
Alex grins fast and hard. “Of course.” She reaches into her pocket for a pair of shooter’s plugs and pokes them into her ears.
Gary and Alex jump out and clamber into the back, then Mel drives them close enough to the dump truck to get good shots, but far enough away that Gary and Alex aren’t in immediate danger if the zombies surrounding the truck decide they are an easier meal.
Dee sees one lurch from its hiding place, its face so battered and rotted that she can’t tell its gender. “Alex!”
“Got it!” Alex’s rifle booms. The thing’s head snaps back. Flesh flies. It falls to its knees then collapses. Others come out now as Gary shoots. The sound is terrific, and Dee wishes she thought to bring plugs too.
The dead things drop one by one by one.
More of them come out from the hiding places, some running some shambling. Dee isn’t sure Alex and Gary can take them all. A few get within fifty feet and she feels her stomach sink down into her toes. Before she can think too hard about it, she opens her door and gets into the shooter’s stance Dan taught her. She picks off two that try to sneak up from the front passenger side.
“Good shot!” Mel calls out.
Dee nods, but doesn’t know if Mel sees or not. Doesn’t matter, either. She has to keep them safe. All of them. She won’t lose any more.
35
Then
I convinced Dan to leave by suggesting Lana and Owen and the others might be waiting for us up ahead. We’d planned a route, after all. If Lana had stuck with it, then they very well might be waiting for us somewhere down the road. There were fifty some miles between us and the next town, so I was hopeful there would be few dead things and several houses they could hole up in.
We could hole up too, once we found them.
We would find them.
It started snowing sometime that morning and the flakes rushed past the window as we drove down the road. Dan tensed beside me when we saw the van with its
