Dammit! she thought. You have to stop thinkingof them as people. But that was harder than it was supposed to be. The onlyperson who seemed to be able to operate at that level was Katie, and that wasonly because she was off the deep end.
Joan had seen her face this morning, the dark circles,the unkempt hair. There was something seriously wrong with her. The death ofJane didn't help matters. Two weeks ago, if Katie had walked into the hospital,she would have sedated her and pumped her full of anti-depressants. But thiswas a different world. Depression would have to go untreated, and sedation wasa death sentence when, at any moment, those things could find a way into yourhiding place no matter how secure you thought it was.
They walked down Holladay Street. It was the type ofstreet in the city that everyone forgot about. There were a few officebuildings on their right, a hotel, a church, but nothing of any interest. Therewere no stores. Even the dead seemed to have forgotten about it, with theexception of the horde that was dogging their footsteps.
The road was a wide thoroughfare with enough room forcars to drive in both directions on the same route that the MAX travelled.Every couple of blocks, there were stops identified by neat rows of hedges andsturdy but not dominating lean-tos for waiting passengers. There were nopassengers waiting that day, just a few stray cars, with crumpled and dentedhoods and the doors sitting open.
They were able to skirt around the dead on the wide openstreet, dodging them as if it were some sort of macabre game of tag. But thiswas the easy part of their trip. The MAX tracks would take them within blocksof the Coliseum, the place where they had all almost died a week before. Joanwas keeping her fingers crossed that the horde that had surrounded the Coliseumhad broken up and spread out in an effort to find more food. But she was justtheorizing. She had no idea. For all she knew, there could still be thousandsof the damn things within sight of the Coliseum, waiting for something livingto come along to begin anew their quest for flesh.
They passed by a broken down Passat. The blood coveringthe hood of the car combined with the giant dent in the grill gave them all agood idea of what had happened. Blake walked over to the car and begansearching through it. Mort stood with his rear against the car, protectingBlake's back should one of the dead pop up out of nowhere. They could do that.They had seen it all too much. One minute you think you're in the free andclear, and the next, there's a rotting corpse trying to gnaw your face off.
The rest of the group moved on, but at a slower pace.Joan hung back, and Clara stuck with her. Standing and waiting for Blake tofinish his search was not an enjoyable sensation. With every second she stood, the horde got closer. It was a good two blocks behind them now. But what wasthat really? Fifteen minutes? Ten minutes, if that?
Joan looked down at the handgun she held. It was heavierthan she had always imagined guns to feel. She felt like she was holding aliving viper, one that could turn around and bite her any minute. She made surethe safety was on for the tenth time. She had been practicing with the thingfor a week, trying to build the feel of turning the safety on and off into hermuscle memory. Her hands were delicate things that she had always admired. Shehad small hands with dainty fingers. They were perfect for performing emergencysurgeries, but for holding a gun, they were woefully small. The safety was on,so she let the gun fall to her side as Blake emerged from the car, a half abottle of water in his hand. There was a look of disappointment on his face.
Joan turned to find the horde had advanced quicker thanshe expected.
"Let's jog," she said to Clara, and then theyloped forward to catch up with the group. In the distance, she could see anoverpass, with a hundred tiny shadows waving back and forth like a field ofgrass in the wind.
"Do you see what I see?" Clara asked.
Joan nodded her head, and resisted the urge to ask Claraif they were playing a morbid game of I Spy.
To their right, the front window of a hotel lobby broke,and a stream of the dead poured out, led by the mangled corpse of theconcierge, her brass nametag shining in the sunlight. Though the dead were sometwenty feet away, it was still too close for her liking. She raised her gun andleveled it at the concierge. She attempted to pull the trigger, but itstubbornly stayed in place. "Shit," she muttered before she beganfumbling the safety off.
They moved backwards as the swarm of dead surged towardsthem. How many people had died in that hotel, she wondered, her feetsliding backwards across the pavement.
From up the street, Lou yelled, "Forget them. We'vegot bigger problems."
Joan turned and ran towards the rest of the group.Immediately, she could see what Lou was talking about. The dead on theoverpass, excited by the action down the street, were cascading to the ground,a waterfall made of limbs and rot. Their options were limited The dead came atthe them from ahead, behind, and to their right. To their left was an officebuilding, the kind of nondescript place that no one would ever think to hidein. The building was modern. Hundreds of thick glass windows dotted the frontof the structure.
"There!" Lou yelled. They all followed, theireyes keeping tabs on the advancing dead as they ran to the front door of thebuilding. The train from the hotel was closest, close enough that Blake feltcompelled to put down the frontrunners. The gunfire echoed through the street,likely acting as a homing beacon for the dead.
The doors were locked, and Joan barely had the time toread the words "Teller & Associates" emblazoned
