“Sure, whatever.”

  Colin heard the spiteful tone in Dominic’s voice and shrugged it off. He didn’t want to make things uncomfortable any more than they were already. He agreed to be civil with him until they reached their destination and nothing more.

  Teresa strode toward the front door. “Once we step out of here, there is no turning back. If we’re going to get out of here, we’ve got to stick together and watch each other’s backs.”

  They nodded. Sweat beads dotted the crown of Dominic’s forehead and slid down his cheeks. Pixie took Jason’s hand and shared a long neutral stare.

  Something struck the house with such force that it shook the windows and vibrated the floor. A pair of shadows eclipsed the light pouring down the back door and grasped at the doorway with shadowy gray fingers.

  Two more shaded the windows behind the table. A fourth staggered beside the bottom of the staircase, blotting out the shafts of sunlight seeping through the boarded-up windows like storm clouds.

  Dominic backed away from the window and crept beside of Jason and Pixie, his face creased by shock. Colin and Teresa hurried over to the front door, clutched the thick wooden beam in both hands and raised it. Once the beam was freed, they carried it across the room, set it onto the dining room table and hurried back to the door.

  The walking dead slithered across the front windows, their heavy footfalls plodding across the frail porch planks like erratic heartbeats. Jason snatched a short breath, licked a bead of sweat from his upper lip and, his cheeks flushed with fear, sighed.

  The door shuddered under the tremendous weight colliding against it. A chorus of moans echoed outside of the house and murmured across the front porch, spreading goosebumps across their arms. When Teresa drew her Glock, Colin grabbed the crowbar sitting in the corner under the nearest window, slapped it against the middle of his left hand and held it down against his right leg.

  Pixie screamed over the sound of broken glass and tightened her grip on Jason’s right hand. They struck the door again, shattered the window and spilled jagged shards of glass onto the floor. A tangle of bloated gray arms slipped through the white lace curtains and grasped at the air with their emaciated fingers, their moans echoing across the hallway.

  “Let’s get the fuck out of here.” Dominic said.

  Colin threw the door open, flooding the doorway with harsh yellow sunlight. A dead teenage girl in a frilly pink dress shambled up the front porch stairs with a chunk of flesh missing from her shoulder; two men in greasy denim-blue overalls stumbled in on her left and three more came in from the right.

  When she approached the WELCOME mat, he swung the crowbar in a whistling arc across her face. The impact spun her head around, spraying a mist blood and broken teeth across the air and sent her sprawling face first onto the porch. The two bare-chested men in the overalls grasped onto the railing, pulled themselves up onto the edge of the porch and flashed a tight angry sneer, their teeth coated with saliva.

  Teresa spun around and ushered them out of the house, first Dominic then Pixie and the kids. She and Colin stayed behind, not bothering to shut the door behind them, their weapons at the ready.

  She raised her Glock and fired twice, sending waves of recoil pounding against her shoulders. She hit the first zombie in the left eye and as the second bullet tore through the mechanic’s throat and knocked them into the bushes running the length of the front porch. A stream of blood and broken teeth burst out from the back of their heads and splattered across the porch.

  The mixed odors of blood, burnt flesh and cordite hung thick in the air. It permeated around her head, stung their nostrils and danced bitterly along the back of their throats.

  The zombies staggered toward them from all sides, their filthy frayed clothes hanging loosely from their rotting gray bodies. Bite marks gave way to open pockets of spongy pink flesh streaked with exposed bone. Their limbs were either missing, hanging on by a thread (or a vein in this case) or dragged behind, leaving slick red snail trails of blood behind; their withered lipless mouths exposed stained yellow teeth and blackened gums and their eyes had a milky blue tint that made them look blind.

  They weren’t the people you knew. They weren’t the kind-hearted grandma who made the best cookies, the father who checked your closet for The Boogeyman in the middle of the night, the mother who kissed your boo-boos to make it all better, the sister whom you could blackmail if she had boys over to the house when she wasn’t supposed to or the brother who had your back when no one else did. They were The Boogeyman.

  Colin gripped the crowbar in his left fist, ran up behind Jason and scanned the street for more hidden dangers. Their backpacks shimmied against the backs of their shirts, shuffling the contents inside like a deck of cards. Pixie and Jason flinched when a female zombie in a purple and white basketball jersey appeared from their left, dragging her left leg by a lone thread of muscle still attached to her knee.

  They headed west, running past a pizza place inside of a yellow and black brick building and a cluster of zombies coming in from both sides. Flies buzzed around the sticky puddles of dried blood and motor oil spread across the parking lot and hovered above the green metal dumpster sitting against the rear of the building. They passed what looked to be a bank (but was probably a credit union since the only letters left on the sign were ION), two more cozy-looking houses sitting on postage-stamp lawns.

  Their muscles throbbing with pain, they drew the hot stale stench of burnt asphalt deep into their lungs, their clothes clinging to their hot sweaty skin. They’d only gotten this far away from the house and they were already exhausted. Dominic’s round pale face had flushed, accentuating the fresh beads of sweat cascading down his temples and dampened the nape of his neck.

  The road veered left and headed north. A massive sports coliseum sat in the distance, its tinted glass dome glinting like straight razors. The flat shelf of grass on the right side of the road overlooked a large riverbed under a concrete overpass.

  A tall four-story concrete building with large, curtained windows stood to the southeast, looming over a large soccer field; the words MILTON RIDGE GENERAL were stamped across the left. A massive brick building sat caddy-corner from the rear of the area, its shattered windows glinting like broken teeth. Corpses were sprawled face down across the grass like broken sticks.

  A soft breeze stirred the treetops and the grass. Dominic panted, his chest rising and falling with each breath.

  Jason peered over. “Are you okay, Dom?”

  “I’m fine.”

  Colin caught with them, clenched the back of Dominic’s shirt and pushed him ahead of him. His forehead dotted with sweat, Jason cradled Rosie’s head in his right hand and ran alongside Teresa. Pixie’s boots clopped against the pavement, matching the rhythm of her own heartbeat.

  A dead woman with shoulder-length blonde hair appeared from between the evergreen bushes bordering the soccer field. A chunk of flesh was missing from her left shoulder and a curtain of dried blood clung to one side of her purple-and-white jersey. She stretched her arms out in front of her, raked the back of Dominic’s shirt with gnarled gray fingers and opened her withered gray lips to expose two rows of rotten black teeth.

  Pixie clutched the front of Jason’s shirt and screamed. Dominic glanced over his shoulder and saw his attacker lumbering toward him. His face twisted with terror, he drew back a sharp breath, raised his hands in mock surrender and gave a frightened cry.

  Colin stepped around, shoved him aside and swung the crowbar in a whistling arc over Dom’s head. It gave a loud crunching sound, filling the air with the sound of shattered bone. The impact snapped her head to the right, spraying a mist of blood, spittle and broken teeth across the air and sent her flailing into the bushes.

  He peered down the street, his skin prickling with fear. They’d merged into one wave of decomposing death, their moans filling the air, and shambled toward them. Another series of moans came from the road beside of the hospital, followed by a third that sounded as if it were nearby.

  Teresa snapped her fingers. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  They raced past the parking lot when more flesh-eaters began to rise out from between the parked cars. The zombies shambled onto the strip of grass separating the parking lot and onto the shoulder of the road, stretching their arms out from their sides to grope at the air with their bony gray fingers.

  She raised her left hand, peered down the sight of her Glock and squeezed the trigger. The gun’s report burst across the sky like ruptured bubble wrap.

  They fell one at a time, blood splattering against the bright-yellow curbs and along the chrome bumpers of more abandoned vehicles. Pixie placed her hand across Jason’s chest, launched her foot out in front of her and kicked the nearest one square in the chest. Jason mumbled something no one could hear under the roar of the wind and the blood pounding in their ears, took Pixie’s hand and followed her down the street.

  Colin clenched the back of Dominic’s tee-shirt in his right fist until his knuckles turned white. He buried his hand into the middle of his back and pushed him out ahead of him.

  A heavyset zombie with curly black hair and a chunk of flesh missing from his collarbone shambled out from between two cars and groped at Dominic’s left shoulder. They were shambling toward the street from the river like fishermen after a long haul: a six-year old girl in a long pink shirt and socks without one half of her face, a nerdy brunette baring a bright red stump that used to be her left arm on his right and then two more creeping out of the parking lot. He grunted and swung the crowbar across the brunette’s chin, sent her spinning toward the ground in a mist of blood and broken bone.

  He swung it again, connecting with the curly haired man’s left temple and knocked him onto the crumpled hood of a red Subaru. When he slid across the pavement over to Dominic’s right, he snapped the crowbar hard against the little girl’s forehead and knocked her back down the hill. He slid back to the left, hitting an armless redhead across the chest and sitting her down hard onto the pavement, struck the next one and the one after that and the one after that spraying the air with large mists of blood and broken teeth, his shoulders throbbing with pain.

  Dominic matched him stride-for-stride as they passed a thick knot of trees sitting on the far right near the stadium. The name of the arena, which would be located on the front of the building, were gone. Jason and Pixie hurried past Colin, their chest rising and falling with each breath.

  Teresa popped off another shot, hitting a bald anorexic zombie crawling across the street on its stomach, then beckoned them toward the arena with her free hand. Once they veered left, Colin released Dominic’s shirt and paced alongside. When they reached the front of the arena, Dominic collapsed onto a metallic green park bench sitting off to the side.

  A loud gurgling sound issued from Rosie’s pink saliva-covered mouth. Colin was surprised that she hadn’t cried during the first leg of their journey, let alone anytime during the night. As soon as she realized that her big brother was still around, everything was alright.

  “Get the fuck in here.” He said.

  The army grew, shambling toward them from the left and right sides of the lot, enticed by the scent of fresh meat. Colin handed his crowbar to Pixie and pulled Dominic back onto his feet. He raised the right side of the bench and took two steps toward the front of the building. He gritted his teeth, ran toward the front of the building and rammed it against the right-side door, spraying bits of shattered glass across the lobby.

  After he cleared the second set of glass doors, Colin slid to a stop inside of the lobby. He dropped the crowbar, bent down to retrieve it and swiped the back of his left hand across his forehead. They backed away from the first set of glass doors, their shoes crunching bits of broken glass, and stared out the front windows; carpets of early morning sunlight flooded the lobby.

  Outside, the living dead pounded their fists and pressed their faces against the glass, spouting notes of deep alien protest. Their mouths hung open, blood dripping down their chins and chests; the one on the far right pressed the tip of his nose against the glass as a centipede crawled out from between his lips and slithered across his right cheek before sliding into his left nostril. Other zombies shambled in from behind, growing in numbers and lured by the sweet scent of human flesh like an ant to a lump of sugar.

  “Can they get in?” Pixie said.

  “As long as the bench stays in place they can’t.” Dominic said, his voice trembling. “We can’t stay here for long, can we?”

  “Not really.”

  Colin nudged Jason on the shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  Jason nodded, tears brimming in his eyes and stared down at the floor. He swiped the pads of his hands across his eyes and sobbed hard enough to cleave a divot through Colin’s chest. Colin patted him on the shoulder and cupped his chin in his hand until their eyes met; Rosie squirmed and hiccupped.

  “When are you supposed to feed her?”

  “She got a bottle this morning.”

  “Let’s see if we can get you and her something to drink, okay?”

  Jason walked over to join Pixie.

  Teresa led Pixie and the two kids down the mouth of the tunnel as Colin and Dominic brought up the rear. He thought he’d seen something coming up the street across the river but he shook it off and kept up with them. Something slid across the floor behind them, igniting the shriek of metal against metal.

  She stopped at a row of ticket booths sitting along the hallway, tucked the Glock into the front waistband of her jeans and hopped over. She raised her arms at shoulder level to prevent them from following her, drew her pistol, held it against her right thigh and peered down the corridor.

  The fluorescent panels spasmed, tossing odd shadows across the walls. Her stomach curdled at the foul stench permeating around her face, dancing across the middle of her tongue. She swallowed the lump of bile stinging the back of her throat; she’d been quite familiar with the stench that dead bodies give off, even knew how to control herself in doing so but this wasn’t one of those times.

  Teresa nodded and waved them over. Dominic went first, waited for Jason to slide Rosie out of the carrier and held her until he crossed. Pixie followed then Colin.

  Jason waited for Dominic to strap Rosie back inside of the carrier before planting a soft tender kiss on the crown of her forehead. She giggled, her face creased by another one of her patent toothless pink grins.

  Teresa pressed a finger to her lips, crouched down on one knee and pricked her ear to the window. When she heard nothing, she jerked her head to the right, waved her hand and led them down the foul-smelling corridor.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  WHEN they reached the end, they peered down a long concrete tunnel that split off into two directions, connected by two large concession stands located on the east and west sides of the building. The words MEN and WOMEN were stamped across two revolving metal doors sitting off to the left inside tiny alcoves that bookended a pair of drinking fountains. An eerie silence permeated through the arena, save for the sounds of angry decaying flesh pounding against the front windows.

  “How do you know this is even safe?” Dominic said.

  “It’s better than being out there with those things.” Teresa said, peering over her shoulder.

  Colin followed her gaze. “We won’t be here for too long. This was the only place I thought we could go to get away from them.”

  “If we go through here,” Jason said. “We can cut through the college.”

  “I’m just hoping we can find a car and make this trip easier.”

  Pixie raised her right forefinger. “Now that you said that.”

  She peered over Teresa’s shoulder, looked both ways and made a mad dash toward the bathrooms. Dominic sighed and hurried after her; her boots clomping like lazy work horses.

  The others followed. A carpet of light poured out across the tunnel.

  When he caught up with her, he said, “What the hell are you doing?”

  They arrived at a massive gift shop, its sliding glass doors barred open by two dead zombies stretched across doorway. The words CHIEFTAIN EXPRESS were painted across the wall above the store entrance in bright purple letters on a pasty white background. Pixie spun around, her lips pursed in rebellion and jabbed her right thumb over her shoulder.

  “I’m going in here to get a pair of shoes.” She said. “If we’re going to be doing a lot of running, I don’t want to do it in these boots.”

  Dominic slumped over and sighed. Pixie entered the store without another word.

  “Somebody should go with her?” Dominic said.

  “I’ll go.” Colin said. “We won’t be too long.”

  He stepped inside and moseyed his way through the field of metallic wagon-wheel shelves displaying an array of purple-and-white hoodies, jackets, short-and-long sleeved tees, socks, pajamas, jerseys and knitted caps boring the same one-sided Native American logo he’d seen on Timmy’s tee-shirt. He made his way through and stopped at a trio of wooden floor-to-ceiling shelves standing at the end of the room crammed with sneakers of every size and color—including purple and white.

  He heard a loud sniffling sound coming from behind the last aisle on the far right. He spun around, peered over his right shoulder and glanced beyond the top of the clothing racks to see if the others were okay. When he saw Dominic, Teresa and Jason pacing back and forth across the store’s entrance, he felt a little better about Pixie’s impromptu rest stop.

  He spun back around and followed the sound into one of the aisles. Pixie sat on the floor with her left foot tucked up underneath her, pulling an orange and white sneaker onto her right foot like she were trying to fit into an old prom dress. Tears brimmed in the corners of her eyes and slid down her cheeks.

  After the umpteenth try, she stomped her foot on the floor and sobbed like a stubborn child. She clamped her hands onto her forehead and buried her face in them.