They heard shuffling feet and moans as the dead movedthrough the house, honing in on the source of the loud bang.
"Isn't that bad luck?" Joan asked.
Lou just laughed. "Shit, bad luck would be anupgrade for what we've had recently. Let's go."
Katie slid into the driver's seat while Joan and Clarahopped in the back. Mort and Lou leaned down and lifted the door of the garage,throwing it upwards, as fast as they could. Katie saw shadowy forms in therearview mirror, backlit by the bright sunshine outside. She looked up andpressed on a compartment hidden above the driver's seat. She smiled as shepulled the sunglasses out and propped them on her face.
Mort and Lou scrambled into the car, slamming the doorsshut. Katie turned the key in the ignition, and the engine purred to life aftera few seconds. She threw it into reverse, released the emergency break, andthen stepped on the gas. A camera on the dashboard of the car showed her theshambling forms behind her. They went under the car as she plowed into them.The passenger side mirror ripped free from the car as it rammed into the headof a dead teenage girl standing too close to the car. It hung from wires,bouncing back and forth as she spun the wheel.
The tires of the SUV screeched as she backed out quicklyonto the street. She slammed on the breaks, threw it into drive, and punchedthe accelerator again.
For the first quarter mile, she saw the pack of dogsloping after them, the big black Rottweiler-Doberman mix seemed as if it couldkeep up with the car forever, and then it just sat down in the street, itstongue hanging out of its mouth and its head cocked to the side. Katie turnedthe corner, and it was gone.
They were flying now, everyone grabbing ontooh-shit-handles as Katie weaved in and out of the traffic, Joan calling outdirections in an effort to guide them along the backroads.
Chapter 21: A New Hope
"Are we there yet?" Clara jokingly asked. Shewas riding bitch in the backseat, and Katie could see her face clearly.
"I don't know where 'there' is, but we're not evenclose," Katie shot back, all of the sudden becoming nostalgic. Sitting inthe driver's seat and cruising along the country roads brought her memoriesthat she didn't much care for, happy memories that had soured into sadness,memories of road trips and vacations with her husband and her child.
"Man, I love that new car smell," Lou said.
"I don't know how you can smell anything over yourown stink," Mort said, the rare joke catching everyone by surprise.
"Oh! Mort's got jokes everybody. Check him out.Fucking Bill Cosby in the backseat," Lou said amid the laughter.
"Pull over, I don't feel safe next to Cosby overhere," Clara quipped.
"Why not?" Mort said, clearly not up to date oncurrent events.
The banter made Katie feel sick, or maybe it was just theresult of her pregnancy, the mood changes, the emotionality. She cursed Zekefor her plight.
They drove at a leisurely 25 miles-per-hour, It was fastenough to get them where they were going, wherever that was, but not so fastthat they would die if some sort of obstruction popped up in front of them. Italso allowed Katie to swerve around the dead, which she still had to do, even outin the sticks.
They weren't actually driving through the sticks per se,but it seemed like it compared to where they had come from. They were drivingalong Skyline Boulevard, a two-lane road that wound through the spine of thehills that separated Beaverton from Portland. It was a place of mansions,well-built homes with long driveways and expensive gated communities. It wouldbe a prime place to scavenge.
Just thinking about some of the giant homes they weredriving past pissed her off. They were the types of things that her and herhusband could have never afforded, not on a teacher's salary. She had spenthours combing through the newspaper, clipping coupons just so they wouldn't haveto live paycheck to paycheck.
She wanted to see what was inside the houses.
"Hey, what's today?" Clara asked.
"Uh... I don't know," Joan said.
"You're asking the wrong, dude. I never knew whatday it was even before all of this happened. Why do you ask?" Mort said.
"I think it might be my birthday," Clara said.
Seeing her chance, Katie swerved to the right, up a darkdriveway surrounded by fir trees and unmarked by lines. She could see the peaksof a large house over the hill.
"Hey, what are you doing?" Lou exclaimed as hegrabbed onto the handle built into the ceiling.
"Let's get Clara a birthday gift," she said,though really, all she was thinking about was seeing inside one of thosehouses. Maybe they could spend the night.
Her voice pinched and tense, Joan said, "Are yousure this is such a good idea?"
In answer, Katie began singing the first bars of HappyBirthday to You. The others joined in, and Joan's complaints were washed awayby the silliness of a group of zombie apocalypse survivors driving up to amansion singing a birthday song to someone even though they had no idea if itwas actually her birthday.
Their singing stopped abruptly when bullets smashed holesin their windshield. Katie cut the car to the left, and they crashed into amarble statue of a lion. Steam rose up from the car, and as they tried toorient themselves, they were greeted by the barrel of an automatic rifle.
"Hands in the air," a man in an FBI baseballcap said.
They put their hands in the air.
****
Saunas were nice. At least, that's what Mort thought ashe sat on the tile bench. The people at the end of those guns hadn't been nice.He had a swollen lip to attest to that. He leaned his head back against thetiled wall. It was cool on his head. He reached up and touched the hair on hishead. It was long, longer than it had ever been. If they ever got out of there,he would have to find some way to cut his hair.
Mort looked over at Lou.
