She winced, peered over her shoulder and let off a loud piercing scream. Colin slid to a halt, his shoes scuffing against the pavement and ran back. Jason made a move to help when Teresa hurried over and stretched her arm across his chest to prevent him from going any further.

  A male zombie in a red fishnet tee-shirt, knee-length purple and white shorts stumbled out ahead of the horde sweeping across the street. His dark thick rimmed glasses were streaked by grit and wet mud. The meaty part of his right shoulder had been torn away, revealing a small pocket of flesh and bone.

  He collided face-first with the side of a light green parking meter, gave a protesting groan and toppled onto the parking lot. Two more tripped and fell, knocking six others down with them.

  They peered over their shoulders and saw the horde invading the parking lot, their twisted shadows bleeding across the sunlit pavement. A chorus of loud groans blared from inside of the horde, echoing across the street and spreading a fresh carpet of goosebumps down their bodies.

  Colin slipped his right arm across Pixie’s right hip, cradled her lower back and guided her down the street, his labored breaths thrumming against her ears. He could feel Pixie’s gaze pressing down against him, her sea-green eyes boring deep into him and brushed it away. When he realized Jason had stopped, he laid his hand across the middle of his back and led him down the street.

  Teresa was in the lead but Dominic found his own second wind and left him back there with the others. Rosie jostled inside of the sling, kicked her legs out from her sides and buried her face into the front of her brother’s shirt.

  “Is she—”

  “She’s good.” Jason said.

  He nodded and peered over his shoulder.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m good.” Pixie said.

  He raised his right thumb and turned his attention back to the road. They followed Teresa down a wide brick street lined by discarded vehicles and tree shadows. speckled with wind-blown litter and large sticky puddles of blood. Colin ignored the intense pain pulsating along the right side of his stomach and kept going.

  They came to a four-way intersection littered with more debris. A rank of tall brick and concrete buildings stood to the left, their steeply-pitched roofs looking dark and ominous in the sky. Black-iron street lamps were spaced along the curbs, their large oval yellow shades coated with dust from months of neglect.

  A two-story log cabin sat on the far-right corner shaded by a tall network of thick green oak trees. There was an inscription chiseled across a large bronze plaque hanging on the wall beside of the front door that were too faded for anyone to read. Two plump orange-clay pots packed with dry dirt and withered brown weeds sat on both sides of the main walkway in front of the door.

  Teresa stopped and looked both ways, her eyes widening with shock.

  “Shit, shit.” She hissed. “Mother fucker.”

  Before he could open his mouth, Colin scanned the cluster of deserted vehicles crammed across a concrete overpass rising toward the north side of town. The others gawked at the obstruction with slack-jawed expression and hateful whispers. He and Pixie traded glances as if to ask how the other was doing without saying it and nodded.

  “That was our only way.”

  “No, it isn’t.” Dominic said. “I know a shortcut.”

  The horde staggering in from the arena were now crossing the strip of grass between the sidewalk and the parking lot. Teresa hissed, raised the pistol and shot the first three.

  She led them down the opposite end. Dominic sidled up alongside of them, each step causing his backpack to rub against his spine and shuffling the contents inside.

  “Where’s your crowbar?” Teresa asked Colin.

  “I left it back there.” He said, then showed her the hammer. “I found this.”

  She slipped a sleek-black baton from her utility belt and laid it across his chest. He took it by the stubby little handle and swung it back and forth to test out its accuracy.

  “That’s not a police issue baton.” She said. “My grandfather made that out of pure elephant tusk. Don’t fucking lose it.”

  When he smacked it lightly across his hand, waves of pain shot through his hand. He winced and shook it off; she ran around him and back to the front.

  “If we go this way,” Dominic said. “We can cut through the college and—”

  When they headed toward the right corner of the nearest building on the left, a tall hairless zombie appeared in the doorway and skulked toward them. It wore a frayed blue turtleneck sweater and frayed green slacks. The skin going from the crown of his right shoulder and up to his ear had been stripped away, exposing a road map of flesh and bone.

  Two more appeared from around the left corner of the building, a pair of paunchy men in purple and white golf clothes. The one on the left sported two half-eaten thighs and two fingers on his left hand whilst the other carried a pulpy-red stump where his right arm used to be. Three more appeared behind them, sporting large open wounds of their own, wounds that spoke of agony and torture that no one should ever endure no matter what skeletons they hid in their closets.

  Teresa gnashed her teeth together, gave a loud animalistic grunt and raised the Glock. She pulled the trigger, sending waves of recoil pounding against her rotator cuff. The sound pounded against their ears and echoed across the street, crackling across the sky like ruptured bubble wrap.

  The first bullet struck the turtleneck wearing zombie in the left eye, sending chunks of soft flesh flying out the back of his head. She shot the fingerless golfer in the forehead, shifted the pistol over to his armless cohort and shot him above the left eye. They stumbled backward on drunken wobbly feet and fell over, as blood rained down across their faces.

  “Nice move.” She said. “Do you know another route that won’t get us killed?”

  When Pixie opened her mouth to protest, Dominic said, “Whatever we’re going to do we need to do it now.”

  Colin followed their gaze. The first horde grew as more zombies shambled out from the trees across from the arena and five more from the opposite end of the building. Four more gathered behind the three dead ones; the stench from the dead ones was less overpowering than the ones who were still alive.

  When a fourth stumbled out from behind them, he swung the baton in a whistling arc across his chest and whipped it hard against the thing’s face; it spun like a top and melted to the ground in a mist of blood and shattered teeth. He turned and glanced down at the concrete overpass he saw earlier as they were running toward the arena.

  There were no zombies in sight. Large purple and white silk banners hanging from goose-necked street lamps by thin golden strings fluttered in the dry muggy breeze. A second chain of isolated vehicles were strung across the bridge, etching a thin narrow trail that Colin knew would be too risky to walk across.

  “This way.” Teresa said.

  They jogged toward the overpass, veered to the right and stopped in front of a steep incline carpeted in dry yellow weeds.

  “We’ll go this way.” She said.

  Dominic leaped down and hiked through the unkempt meadow. She peered over the crown of Colin’s shoulder and saw the three hordes coming together, merging as one united front to protest the lack of human consumption. Their protesting moans echoed across the street and burrowed into her skull like a drill bit.

  Her stomach churned. A ball of acidic bile collected along the back of her throat and danced across her tongue. She swallowed it as she’d done so many of the guys she dated and extended her hand toward Pixie.

  Colin brushed her off with a dismissive wave of his hand, helped himself and Pixie down off the street and followed Dominic down the incline. A cloud of tension permeated around them, wafting off of them like rotten eggs.

  She leaned over and waved her hand at Jason. He stretched his arm out, gripped her hand tightly and stepped down. When Jason stepped over the edge of the street, Rosie gave a loud throaty chuckle that he thought might’ve been a sob.

  After Colin followed them down, she tucked the pistol into the waistband of her jeans, took another glance at the army shambling across the street and followed him.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  COLIN scurried inside of the tunnel and winced at a thick putrid stench wafting across his nose. He thought he’d heard one of them had gag but he wasn’t sure who it was. He clamped his right hand across his nose, braced the wall with his left hand for balance and crept along the thin jagged gravel shoulder running alongside the two inch creek.

  Graffiti streaked the concrete archway looming over their heads, a rainbow mix of swastikas, romantic addendums such SAM AND BELLA 4-EVA, political protests like TRUMP SUCKS strewn amongst a tangle of gang signs and prank phone numbers with FOR A GUD TIME CALL. Thin spider-legged cracks were etched across the walls, stretching onto much bigger cracks; sunlight reflected off the surface of the water and painted thin golden veins across the wall.

  As they paced along the water, Pixie said, “Jeez. It smells like someone died down here.”

  Everyone stopped and cast long awkward glances at her. When she’d realized what she’d said, her cheeks blushed.

  An apologetic smirk spread across her face. “Bad timing?”

  She caught something in the corner of her left eye and gave a loud terrified gasp. A loud panicked cry burst from her lips and her hands curled up into tiny pale fists. Tears protruded from the corners of her eyes as the color drained out of her shock and twisted face.

  Colin followed her gaze and, his cheeks flushed, felt a wave of sadness surging across his chest. He took a few deep breaths, his chest rising and falling, and inhaled the briny stink of the water. Dominic followed her gaze and clamped his left hand across his chin in a failed attempt to hide the surprised look on his face, tears brimming in his eyes.

  A bright polka-dotted baby stroller with blue piping and matching blue rollers was laying on its side amid a diamond-shaped patch of grass. Large bibs of fresh blood spread across the inverted cloth seat, dripping tiny crimson tears into the water; it floated through the current in milky-red curlicues. To the untrained eye, it’d looked as if something were laying behind it that no one wanted to see but it turned out to be the blood-soaked design of a light-blue elephant baring a wide pencil-thin smirk.

  It didn’t take Colin too long to put both pieces together. They weren’t the only ones who had sought shelter under this graffiti-laced haven and hoped they would be the last. The sight of the blood-soaked stroller seemed to trigger a nightmare that no black credit card or shot of crack could alleviate her from.

  Jason patted the middle of his sister’s back with his right hand and placed a soft soothing kiss upon the crown of her forehead. She made fists with her hands, pressed her thumbs against the sides and buried her face back against the front of his tee-shirt.

  Her voice broke, replaced by a series of loud quivering sobs. She wiped a film of tears and snot from her face with the back of her hand and smoothed the wrinkles out of her dress with the other. Rosie chuckled, her legs flailing out from her sides.

  Colin had never seen her act so frail since their last little exchange back at the arena but that was because she was as scared as everyone else. He glanced at Pixie when they heard a loud shuffling sound behind him and peered over his right shoulder. Fear washed over him, bristled across his skin and raised the hairs along the back of his neck.

  A tall rangy black man in a long white basketball jersey, baggy jeans and a shock of curly black hair appeared at the mouth of the tunnel, brandishing a black pistol in its right fist. Colin was confused when he realized he wasn’t a zombie. He neither sported no visible wounds nor did he have the usual deep gray skin texture to indicate so.

  “Don’t fucking–”

  Before the stranger could finish his threat, a loud cry burst across the tunnel. Dominic charged at him, his teeth clenched together as a thin line of drool hung from the corner of his lopsided lips. He rammed his left shoulder straight into the man’s right hip, squeezing the air from his lungs; the gun slid out of his hand, flipped over his head and landed in the water behind him with a loud splash.

  He wrapped his arms around his waist and tackled the stranger to the ground. The gold chain around his neck winked in the sun as he reached up to the sky with crooked fingers, his face twisted with horror and a pleading cry for help blurting from his lips. He raised a chiseled burnt-orange rock in both hands, fingers pressed into the sides until the tips bled into a milky-red tint, and brought it down onto the bridge of the man’s nose; the sound of broken bone and deep grunts echoed across the tunnel.

  Blood pumped at the air and splashed into the creek. He raised the rock again and struck him again, raised it once more and landed a third blow and then another, each blow raising the intensity of his scream, kicking up small plumes of water followed by another and another until there was nothing left to hear but the crash of the bloody rock striking the riverbed and the sound of soft pulverized flesh.

  Pixie sidled up against Colin and buried her face into the front of his shirt. His screams fading to a series of painful sobs, Dominic succumbed to exhaustion and dropped the rock back into the creek. Teresa gave a quick nod, stepped up and pulled him away from the man’s corpse lying spread eagled across the mouth of the tunnel.

  She carried him over to the left side of the tunnel, pinned him against the wall and whispered in his ear. For a woman of her size and stature, she was holding her own. He embraced her, his body quivering with each sob, and buried his face in her right shoulder.

  “I’m tired of this shit, Teresa.” He said. “I’m done with this fucking place with this fucking town and I want to leave here and never come back.”

  She held his hands in both of hers. “We’re gonna get out of here. Don’t worry.”

  Dominic nodded, his face creased with childish hope.

  Colin glanced down at the dead man and fought back the urge to vomit. The black man’s head was split in half by a large crack that began from the crown of his forehead and stopped at the bridge of his nose. Blood sprayed his gold chain in tiny red bibs, dripped out of his nose in a thin rivulets and stained the front of his tee-shirt; chunks of soft gray brain matter seeped out from a gaping black hole in the top of his skull.

  If he wasn’t a zombie, then who was he?

  When Colin asked himself the very same question, his mind ventured back to the barrage of gunfire they avoided back at the arena. His skin prickled with fear as the sun’s harsh yellow rays warmed the back of his neck. A loud chorus of heavy moans flooded the overpass, driving a spike of cold fear through the core of his chest and into his spine.

  He cast a tentative glance toward the bridge as an army of slow-moving shadows emerged from behind the guardrail, blotting out the carpet of sunlight flooding the tunnel’s edge. In all this confusion, he’d forgotten about the horde still pursuing them. He was foolish to think that the chain of discarded vehicles would hold them back.

  “Come on.” He said. “Keep going.”

  Teresa slid her pistol from the back waistband of her jeans and led them out of the tunnel. Jason cupped his right hand across Rosie’s left cheek to shield it from the sunlight and fought the urge not to turn around to see just how many of them were standing on the bridge.

  They ran across the riverbed, their footsteps kicking up large plumes of water. They cleared the creek in a matter of minutes and hiked up the other side of the bed. Beads of cold sweat slid down their temples, dotted their brows and trickled down their sides.

  Colin paused at the middle of the hill and peered over his right shoulder. The horde stumbled down the hill along the tunnel and lunged at the dead gangbanger. Something rumbled in the distance beyond the stumbling horde.

  It was followed by the loud screech of brakes.

  A black Jeep appeared from around the corner beside of the log cabin and screeched to a halt at the mouth of the bridge, its front grille glinting like mechanized teeth. Three black figures wielding automatic weapons climbed out, one at a time. They fired, spewing a loud barrage of gunfire cut across the bridge, laughing at the sight of their bullets punching through the decaying horde standing alongside of the bridge and sent them flying over the railing like rag dolls.

  A fourth man slipped out of hiding and gazed down the overpass. He slipped a nickel-plated pistol from a side holster and shot the horde of zombies scooping wet chunks of flesh from the dead gangbanger’s carcass and into their mouth. A string of curse words and the snap of fully-loaded clips being jacked into empty machine guns filled the air.

  “You’re dead, mother fuckers.” One of them said. “You’re gonna wish those fuckin’ zombies killed you when we’re done.”

  “Get your ass in there. Let’s go get ‘em.”

  Colin heard the sound of boots shuffling against rough pavement, followed a loud chorus of inaudible conversation. Teresa stood beside of him, cupping her hips with both hands and glanced at the bridge with dark narrow eyes.

  They traded a long awkward pause and finished their hike. Behind them, the Jeep’s engine gave a steady purr. The tires gave a banshee screech as it sped off tainting the air with the stench of burnt rubber.

  Dominic hopped over the railing, reached across to slip Rosie out of the sling and held her until Jason leaped over then helped him slide her back into the sling. As Pixie and Teresa followed, Colin kept his attention on the hulking black object weaving through traffic like a predator with the scent of blood.

  “Get the fuck over here.” Teresa said.

  He followed her toward a waist-high concrete divider that separated both lanes. More abandoned vehicles, either lying on their sides or on all flat fours, snaked up the interstate etching a small narrow trail. Bits of shattered glass, sporadic puddles of sticky blood and rusted fenders winked in the glare of the hot angry sun; the light framed the shaggy heads of the tall pines and gnarled oaks jutting up the crown of the jagged cliffs.