It was Emma. It had to be. Her sister’s husband was called Dave, not Dan, and Dave’s uncle had a large rural home that was an obvious choice of location to ride out the apocalypse. Kingsley and Emma had been there for one of Dave’s birthday gatherings. He knew where it was.
“Why?” the man asked again. “Do you know someone called Dan?”
If it wasn’t Emma, it was the biggest coincidence ever.
“Hello?” The man was getting impatient now.
Kingsley closed his eyes, breathed in deep through his nose, let the breath seep out between his lips.
Then he faced the homeless guy again and said, “I think I know the woman. And I think I know where she went.”
3.
Eric was only able to keep up with the van because of the snappers that kept getting in their way. The van had to slow down to weave between pockets of the undead scattered along the roads. The bus, on the other hand, wasn’t as mobile and could take more of a battering – though it was still hazardous to plough through groups of snappers – and as the van decelerated to dodge them Eric only sped up, bracing for the thud of bodies racking the bumper.
They were gaining on the van.
“You’re damaging the bus,” Rebecca said in Eric’s ear, pointing out a hand-sized fracture in the corner of the windscreen. “How are you gonna stop the van? If you hit them you’ll wreck their vehicle and end up killing her.”
Eric didn’t reply, his concentration taken by the chase. In truth, there was nothing he could think of doing to stop them that wouldn’t put Sammy at risk. But he had to do something. Inaction wasn’t an option; doing nothing was the same as giving up in Eric’s book.
“Listen to me, you arsehole!” Rebecca snarled.
“Shut the fuck up,” Eric bit back as another series of thumps shook the bus.
He was getting worked up, and he knew it was because he was coming to terms with the fact that he didn’t know how to fix the situation. It would have been easier if Kara and Rebecca weren’t with him, if he’d gone on this lunatic mission alone.
He couldn’t live with himself if he let Mark get away with Sammy. But if he drove them off the road, there was a high chance he would seriously injure or kill Sammy in the process of trying to save her from the clutches of a madman. Which outcome was worse?
“You’ll kill her,” Rebecca went on. Eric needed her to quit yapping at him. He couldn’t fault her logic, not when he was having the same thoughts himself. But she wasn’t helping.
Thankfully, Kara pulled Rebecca back down into her seat. “He’s not going to stop,” she said.
A bend was coming up and they were now almost bumper-to-bumper with the van. Immediately Eric saw an opportunity to stop the other vehicle; if he was quick enough he could catch the side of the van as it slowed on the bend, or get ahead of them and force the van to T-bone the bus. He realised that both options might injure or kill everyone in the van.
The opportunity was there for a fleeting matter of seconds. That was all Eric needed. He might not get another chance to stop them, to rescue Sammy.
So he floored the gas and swung into the opposite lane.
They were metres from the rear of the van. Without looking at the speedometer, Eric knew he was going too fast to take the bend. It didn’t matter, as long as he stopped them.
Another two snappers fell beneath their wheels.
Inches from the rear of the van now – the other vehicle just turning into the curve of the road. Eric fought the urge to slam on the brakes and avoid the collision as the plain white siding of the van filled their windscreen.
He wasn’t expecting the rear of the van to swing round in a wide skid, tyres squealing on the tarmac, narrowly dodging the bus.
And because he wasn’t expecting it, Eric didn’t react in time to stop the bus from hurtling through a chain-link fence at the edge of the road and down a small decline. Just as they were about to hit a brick wall, he braked.
“Fucking hell,” muttered Kara’s voice behind Eric as he caught his breath and began to assess their surroundings. He’d landed them in a grassy space with a wall ahead, buildings on both sides, and a slope leading up to the road at their back. They couldn’t reverse back up the slope and onto the road. The snappers pouring through the gap in the fence would only push the bus back downhill if they tried.
Which meant the bus was stuck. They would have to ditch it here and get away before the dead trapped them inside.
Eric cut the engine so the noise wouldn’t continue to attract more of them, then released his seatbelt and grabbed his things. “We have to leave or we’ll get stuck here. Come on.”
“What about Sammy?” Kara asked as she and Rebecca followed him out.
“We’ll work that out when we’re safe. Can’t do anything for her if we’re dead.”
The snappers bounded down the slope as they ran through an opening in the brick wall where a cycle lane exited from the cul-de-sac on the other side.
Stumbling to get away from the snappers already spilling through the opening behind them, the survivors made it about twenty feet into the cul-de-sac before noticing the row of snappers that had materialised in front of them at the other end of the street – a group as large as the one on their heels, too many to fight. They must have heard the bus crashing through the fence.
Terraced houses lined both sides of the street. Eric raced to the nearest one and tried the door, but it
