steering wheel. But in every moment that passes I get a clearer, closer view of our pursuers. Don and Derek! At least Lissa's not there. The Chevy's V8 engine is soon drowning out my sputtering four cylinders.
Don neatly swings the car into the next lane and it roars up beside me. The stereo's breathing nothing but static now.
Derek smiles at me. There's a rifle in his hands and a predatory look sketched across his face that somehow combines the Stirrer's hatred of life and Derek's almost palpable dislike of me. His shirt flutters in the wind and I can see the gaping hole where his chest should be.
He fires through the window. I've got the windows open-the only aircon you can get in a '74 Corolla-so there's no explosion of glass. The bullet misses me by just inches. I'm so glad Stirrer Derek isn't using a shotgun or most of my face would be missing now in a red spray of shot.
The road narrows up ahead. I smack my foot down on the brakes and the tires smoke. The Chevy shoots past. I'm already spinning around, my foot hard on the accelerator, choking on the smell of burning oil and smoke. Lissa's yelling, I'm yelling-shrieking, really. Various forces that I'd understand more about if I'd listened in my high school physics classes tug at us as we turn, and it's a near thing between rolling the car, colliding with a tree and getting back on the road. We make it, somehow, judder up to speed and head back the way we'd come. Simon and Garfunkel crackle back into life.
'Thank Christ,' I say, though my relief's short-lived. In the rear-view mirror the Chevy turns neatly, far more neatly than I could ever have pulled off, and tears back after us. What else was I expecting?
'Steven!' Lissa's pointing frantically in front of us. That's when we nearly collide with a police car, head on.
It's only through luck that we both veer to our left.
I keep going, and the cop performs a textbook handbrake turn.
Then the Chevy clips the back of the cop car and hurtles through the air, flipping over. It slides down the road on its roof.
I bring the Corolla to a shuddering, squealing, rattling halt. I can't leave the cop with these Stirrers, even if the Chevy is totaled. He's a target, and if they take him they've just got another agent for their cause, and a cop car. Time to put an end to their aggressive expansion.
I take a deep breath and turn the Corolla around. This would be all so very Mad Max if I was driving a V8, and if it wasn't me. Lissa doesn't say anything until I stop the car off the road by the smoking wreck. She knows what I have to do. I swing open the door. Lissa follows, staying back, the Stirrers' combined presence pulling at her.
Only one of them is getting out of the car. Don. I slide my knife across my palm.
But that's bad enough. I'm gagging at the sight of him. Most of his chest is crushed against his back and his heart flutters beneath the wreckage of his meat and bones. He's the perfect picture of a Romero zombie, except the bastard is lowering a rifle to point at my chest. I'm thinking about the standoff at Albion, only this time Don is going to shoot me.
Why couldn't the gun have been totaled in the crash?
'Hey!' the cop shouts.
Don spins and aims the rifle at the cop. I sprint toward him, grab the Stirrer by the arm and feel him slide through me. But almost at once there's another one in the body. It stalls through, too, and then another one. Every stall is rough and breath-snatching. The Stirrers are getting stronger, and the rate at which they are re-entering bodies is rapidly increasing. I feel each one's rage at its too-swift passing, and there's so many of them.
Lissa's frantic behind me. There's nothing she can do. We both know that. But it doesn't make it any easier.
Stirrer Don is a bloody spinning door, and I'm standing on the precipice of a vast and horrible invasion. The body jerks and I grit my teeth against the motion. Each Stirrer gets a single movement in. They're orchestrating it, each entering spirit moving in sync with the previous one. Jesus knows how they're doing it, but I'm getting an elbow in the head. The movement is little more than a series of stop motion convulsions, but the elbow is no less persuasive. And every stall is tearing through me, so I'm hardly at my best.
This is going to kill me. I let go, and the gun rises up again. But I've not stopped. My knife is out again. I slice open my hand, deeper this time.
The Stirrer snarls at me, the rifle against my chest. He fires. The bullet must just clip something, blood's washing over my face. I swing my head hard against his and with that bloody contact the body drops to the ground.
The cop has his gun aimed at me.
I lift my hands in the air, then remember the weapon, and let the knife fall.
'Don't shoot!' I'm almost screaming. I don't want to die like this. The car is now an inferno behind me, and my back is hot. I'm dripping with grimy sweat and blood's sliding down my wrist and face.
'Get down,' the cop roars. He hits the ground, covering his face with his hands.
I'm on my chest with a bone-juddering dive. The Chevy explodes. And there's more heat striking me, and bits of car spilling from the sky in a heavy metal rain. I stay there a moment, coughing with all that smoke and dust, then slowly get to my feet.
The cop is already up, peering over at the corpse.
'He's dead,' I say. 'He was before I touched him.'
'I know. That body's been dead for a couple of days at least,' the cop says. His eyes widen at something behind me. He shakes his head. 'I've seen some flaming weird shit lately. But this, you've got to be kidding me…'
The second Stirrer has pulled itself from the car. Derek's body is burning, but it doesn't stop it from shambling toward us: another rifle raised. Shit, give dead people firearms and soon enough it's all they know. Shoot this, blast that.
The cop doesn't hesitate. He fires twice, both scarily accurate headshots. 'Supposed to work on zombies, isn't it?'
'Only in the movies,' I say. 'Slows them a little though.'
The Stirrer hasn't done more than stumble though there's barely anything left of its head. It shoots, and misses. If it still had eyes it wouldn't have. And its presence is offending me, driving me mad. This isn't Derek, but this is as close as I'm going to get. I know what I need to do.
I rush at the flaming body. My knees almost hit me in the chest I'm running so hard. My shoulder slams into Derek's stomach, tipping him onto his arse, and he lands with a grunt. I drive my bloody palm against his flesh, and then roll away, extinguishing flames as I go.
Not well enough, obviously, because the cop drenches me with a fire extinguisher.
'My hair! How's my hair?' I demand, and the cop laughs, and then we're both laughing the crazed laughter of the utterly terrified.
'You're insane.' He stretches. Joints crack, and he looks from the corpses to me, and back again. 'Sorry about this, mate, but you're going to have to come with me.'
'I've got a number for you to call,' I say, and I can't quite hide the desperation in my voice.
He raises an eyebrow. His shoulders tighten belligerently almost instantly.
I give Alex's special number to him. The cop walks away and when he comes back, holding two shovels and some gauze, he's pale.
'You've got some very powerful friends,' he says. 'He said to tell you that it's getting bad in the city. And not to use that number again. Oh, and you're to help me, so dig.'
After I bandage my hand (the wound in my scalp has stopped bleeding) we dig two holes for the bodies. My back's screaming by the time I'm done. I'm a Pomp, not a gravedigger. My hand's not much better.
'You all right?' the cop asks, wiping sweat from his brow. We've worked in silence, though I can see there's a good dozen or so questions he's desperate to ask me, and that he can tell I have no intention of answering them.
'Not really,' I say. 'About as good as you'd expect.'
He laughs at that. 'Yeah. You seem to have a complicated life.'
'You don't know the half of it.'
The cop goes back to his sedan. The back end is dinged up badly but it still looks driveable. The radio's already screeching with something or other. He says a few things into the handset and looks set to drive away, but
