But I knew my wife—and her vocal tones—well. Even she didn’t believe what she’d said. She was simply desperate to save her mother. At almost any cost.
Gently, I pushed her toward the passenger seat, but she resisted.
“No,” Clare shouted with renewed determination. “No, Joe! You have to get her back inside!”
“Baby,” I whispered, trying to keep her from diving over my lap, “we have to go.”
“But my mom,” she whimpered.
“She’s trying to save us. To give us a fighting chance.”
“Clare,” Jill abruptly said from the open doorway. “Listen to Joe. There’s no saving me. We both know that. But at least I can help you all get away.” She glanced toward the hill, her forehead pinching with fear.
A few more gunshots punctuated the night.
Jill flashed us a look of urgency. “Close those damn doors and get the hell outta here!”
With that, she slammed the driver’s-side door shut. As I locked it, I heard the rear ones bang closed, too.
“Mom,” Clare whimpered, pushing against me.
“I love you, baby,” Jill shouted over the encroaching din. “And I always will. Now, go!”
“Mom, no, wait,” Clare pleaded, reaching for the door handle. “I love you, too!”
Jill knelt beside the headstone and finished filling the tire with sealant.
Clare continued to protest, and I held her tight against me—both to offer her comfort and to prevent her from busting through the door.
I glanced at the side-view mirror, checking on the status of our pursuers. The speediest ones were mere yards away from the van. I longed to step on the gas, but I needed to wait until Jill gave me the signal.
While shifting my focus toward my mother-in-law, who still crouched beside the headstone, I inadvertently loosened my grip on Clare. Distraught yet determined, she took the opportunity to slip from my grasp and bolt toward the rear of the van—no doubt intending to reach her mother via the back doors. An impulsive move that would not only get her killed but the rest of us as well.
“Clare, no!” I leapt from my seat, tripped over Azazel’s carrier, and fell flat on my face.
Luckily, though, George caught her before she could unlock the doors and flee outside. Weeping and wailing, my wife flailed like a ferocious lioness, but George proved to be the stronger of the two.
As I scrambled to my feet, the first of the zombies reached the van. Groaning, hissing, and grunting, they banged against the sides and rocked the vehicle so vehemently, I worried we would capsize. In fact, the only thing keeping us from tipping over was the sheer density of zombies surrounding us.
“Christ,” George yelled as she stumbled against the kitchen sink, almost releasing her grip on Clare.
Carefully, she guided my wife toward the sofa and, keeping one arm around Clare’s trembling frame, sat on the rumpled blanket beside her.
Jill screamed in anguish, and Clare responded with another crying fit. Even Azazel mewled—certainly not because of her grandmother’s impending death but for the sake of her precious mama, who was clearly upset.
Quickly, I slipped into the driver’s seat and glanced through the window. My mother-in-law still knelt, keeping one hand on the can and using the other to push away the hungry scouts. A valiant if pointless attempt to delay the inevitable.
I thought of my ill-fated pal Gigi and how she’d tried to steer the barge while fending off the relentless, jaw-snapping zombies, hoping to spare the rest of us from the same terrible demise. Like her, Jill couldn’t prevent the creatures from ripping into her. I could see them biting bits of flesh from her frail arms, back, and legs. But even as they did so, even as she hollered from the pain, she kept a firm grip on the can of tire sealant.
Damn, that’s one tough broad. Guess she really does have a high pain threshold.
As a hundred, or more, zombified scouts surrounded the van, swaying us back and forth, Jill, Clare, and Azazel kept up their discordant wailing. There was nothing I could do. Except wait a little longer.
Not too long, though. The horde was thickest along the rear and sides of the vehicle, but soon, the infernal creatures would block the front as well. I didn’t want to test the fortitude of my van by trying to mow down a dense mob of juvenile zombies and their chaperones—particularly given my tire trouble.
Perhaps reading my mind, George hollered, “Jesus, Joe, what are you waiting for?! They’re about to flip us over!”
My hands tightened around the steering wheel, the knuckles stretching and whitening. “I know.” I gazed down at Jill, who was still trying to seal the tire while batting at the monsters around her. “Just want to make sure the tire’ll hold.”
“No offense, Joe,” Casey said from the dining nook, “but I think it’s time to go.”
He was right, of course. They both were. But the trouble with instant tire sealants was that they weren’t, well, an instant fix. After applying the spray, you needed to resume driving in order to distribute the sealant and normalize the air pressure. Just one hitch… despite all the rocking, we were still hung up on the headstone. Would one can of Fix-a-Flat provide enough air pressure for me to roll clear of our latest obstacle?
I gazed at the zombies surrounding the front end of the van. The grotesque faces, the ripped-out throats, the gaping wounds, the missing limbs and innards… almost too much to witness—and definitely too much to forget.
Impossible to believe that we—as in, all of humanity—would ever come back from the absolute horror of it all. No matter how many preppers had yet survived, no matter how many secret government bunkers still existed, housing the idiots who had done nothing to stop the apocalypse, I couldn’t fathom how those that remained of the human race could possibly fight off such an undead tsunami.
My companions and I were currently engaged in a losing battle against a bunch of
