The zombies were flown back by the impact, their frail scrawny limbs flailing out from their sides. The truck’s massive tires mashed chunks of soft dead flesh into the pavement, branding odd shapes into their pulverized carcasses. A few slammed against the driver and passenger quarter panels, casting split second stares at Colin and Jason before pinwheeling away from them.

  Rosie glanced out over the crown of Jason’s right shoulder, peered at the dead bodies stumbling back and sighed. She buried her head against the front of his shirt, rubbed at her eyes with her tiny pink hands and kicked her right leg out.

  Fear clenching his throat, Colin turned left and sped away from beside of the restaurant. Teresa, Pixie and Dominic sat up and cast narrow angry glances at him.

  Teresa knocked on the back window. “Tell us when you’re gonna do that next time.”

  Colin raised his right hand and nodded.

  He turned right, climbed onto the main drag and sped past a chain of medical offices, antique shops and other local businesses. A second wave of flesh eaters stumbled along brightly-painted curbs, emerged from dark alleyways and roamed through the desolate and empty wasteland they’d left behind. More bodies had been jerked out from the safety of their vehicles and torn apart or draped over broken windows so their exposed flesh sat baking under the sun like deer carcasses.

  They heard a loud rumbling noise, followed by the sound of squealing tires. The Jeep sped out from behind a nearby building, striking a small cluster of zombies stumbling across the curb. Its front grille glinting, it eased itself back onto the road and continued its pursuit.

  Teresa raised her pistol again, aimed and fired twice. The first bullet struck driver-side headlight, sent a mist of broken glass erupting through the air that rained down across the hood. She kept the sight trained on the driver but the truck kept weaving through fallen debris and sent her aim off kilter.

  “Jeez.” Jason said. “I hope I never drive like this.”

  “If you can drive any better,” Colin said. “I’d be more than glad to pull–”

  Two seconds was all it took for him to draw his attention from the road; another seconds was all it took for Teresa, Pixie and Dominic to scream his name and jab their finger across the road. Colin saw the wide-eyed look of horror register across Jason’s face, watched in slow motion as he screamed and jabbed his finger at the front window with his right hand and clutched his little sister’s face tightly against the front of his tee-shirt with the other. He flicked his gaze back to the front window and snatched a quick breath.

  He kicked the brake and gripped the wheel in both hands until his knuckles ached. The tires skidded against the pavement, tainted the air with the smell of burnt rubber and the piercing wail of metal rubbing against metal clawed at the bright afternoon sky. He cursed under his breath and glanced at a white minivan parked in the middle of the street on four flat tires, its alabaster-white shell streaked with bloody handprints.

  The truck skidded to a halt and collided with the driver-side door, filling the street with the loud whine of crunching metal. Colin chest-bumped the steering wheel and fell back in his seat as the seat belt gave Jason’s gut a tight squeeze and rubbed against the heels of Rosie’s chubby pink feet. Pixie and Teresa were flung across the cab and sent sliding toward the back window while Dominic clutched the edge of the tailgate with his right hand to keep from sliding away.

  The hood was crumpled together like an accordion. A network of spider-legged cracks were etched across the middle of the front windshield before branching off toward the top and far right corners of the glass.

  Rosie lifted her head from her brother’s tee-shirt and glanced at Colin, her lips quivering. Jason glanced down at her, drew a short breath and peered over at him. She glanced out the window, peering over the crown of Pixie and Teresa’s shoulders and gave a loud piercing wail.

  The sound grated against Colin’s eardrums, spread a carpet of gooseflesh across his arms and raised the hairs along the nape of his neck. He squeezed his eyes shut, pressed his shoulders together and clamped his hands over his ears. He tore his hands away from his face, muttering a hundred apologies to both kids that fell on deaf ears, rammed his elbow against the front door and punched it open.

  When he stepped out of the truck, his right foot slid out from underneath him. He drew a sharp intake of air deep into his lungs, threw his arms across his face and onto the pavement. His right hip bounced off the edge of a pothole, sent sharp piercing pain slicing across his gut and squeezing the air from his lungs.

  I deserved that, he thought.

  The heat waves wiggled off the pavement and caressed his sweat-covered face. Footsteps shuffled against the pavement followed by the sounds of gunshots popping across the air above his head. A tall figure loomed over him, blotting out the harsh rays of the sun.

  Sweat beads dotted Dominic’s baggy pale face. “We got to go, man. We’re almost there.”

  Colin rolled onto his stomach, planted his hands against the pavement in a mock push-up and stood. He followed Dom across the street, their head and shoulder hunched down low to avoid being shot. Bullets pinged off the metal guardrail shouldering the road and threw small bright orange sparks across the air.

  They took refuge behind the downed minivan and knelt down onto the pavement, pressing their kneecaps against the hot gray asphalt.

  He glanced over to his right and saw Pixie and Jason were standing on the other side of the minivan. Jason cradled his sister’s head inside of his right hand as they both cast angry glances at him. He raised his left hand in the air, fingers spaced apart and, amongst the chorus of gunfire echoing across the street, apologized to both of them.

  Dominic peered around the corner and cupped his hands around his mouth.

  “Come on, Teresa.” He said. “We can hold up inside the store.”

  Ten seconds later, footsteps shuffled across the pavement and came around to the left side of the minivan. Teresa ejected the empty clip, watched it dance across the ground and slammed in a fresh one. She glanced over her right shoulder at Colin and shook her head at him.

  “Now I know why you drive a boat,” She said. “and not a car.”

  “Let’s go.” Dominic said.

  He jabbed his finger toward the opposite end of the street. Teresa held up her hand, craned around the left side of the van, raised her pistol and fired across the street. She pivoted around on the balls of her feet, grinding the tip of her shoes against the gritty gray asphalt and brushed her right hand in the same direction Dominic was.

  “Go now!” She said.

  Dominic and Pixie ran across first, followed by the kids. Colin and Teresa followed and stayed together to shield the kids from the next bullet. Their feet shuffled against the pavement, stirring tiny whispers across the air that sounded like sandpaper rubbed against a wooden surface.

  A small red brick building with a steeply-pitched roof and a metal white door pocked with fist-sized holes sat behind them; MICHAEL ROSS DDS was plastered across a small brown plastic sign next to the front door alcove in bold green font. She jabbed her finger wildly toward the end of the street, her horrified face slick with perspiration. He peered through the haze and pressed his right hand across his forehead, shielding his eyes from the intense glare of the sun.

  He glanced up at the tall red sign looming in the bright blue sky and felt a wave of elation pouring down his chest. He’d never thought he’d felt so good to see a giant square-jawed face with slick black hair and a salesman’s smile holding a thumbs-up sign; above its head the words FOSTER’S AUTO WORLD were plastered in bold yellow font.

  A loud gunshot echoed across the street, pulling him way from the sign’s hypnotic trance and back into the present. Colin peered over his shoulder and sighed. Matteo was slumped over the steering wheel, his eyes and face frozen with horror; the hole in his left eye poured a river of blood down the front of his shirt.

  Colin saw something out of the corner of his eye and glanced across the street. His mind replayed a piece of dialogue he’d heard earlier today when they were hiding under the overpass.

  He hadn’t paid much attention to it until now.

  A large road map had bloomed across the front of an I-Phone locked inside of a black and gray phone case. A road map with a blue dot glowing across from a bright red dot that pulsated across the map like blips on a radar screen.

  Bullet Head and The Jamaican had taken cover behind the Jeep. They held their weapons above their heads, swept them back and forth across the air and spewed a bright orange wave of gunfire across the street; bullets pinged off the back of the truck, throwing small bright orange sparks into the air.

  “You’re dead, motherfucker.” B-Head said.

  As before, it came out mudderfudder.

  A trio of zombies shambled toward them. An overweight dark-haired man in another orange jumpsuit, swinging a bloody stub where his right hand used to be and a pair of uniformed policemen, the left side of their faces peeled back to expose a road map of pulpy red flesh streaked by spines of gray bone. They stopped in their tracks.

  Teresa glanced over her shoulder to see if the gangsters had taken the opportunity to come out of hiding. Instead, she heard the growl of an engine and felt her skin bristling with fear.

  Pixie clutched Dominic’s right sleeve inside of her tiny pale fist, snatched a short breath and paused. Jason inhaled, drawing a cloud of hot stale air deep into his lungs and clamped both hands around the back of his sister’s head.

  Teresa backpedaled across the parking lot and slid past the driver-side door. She stopped, ejected an empty clip and jacked in a fresh one before backpedaling across the street with ease.

  Colin saw the trio of zombies before she did, clutched her left shirt sleeve, slid the Magnum from the back waistband of his jeans, gripped it in both hands and fired. The gun gave a thunderous bellow, sending waves of recoil up his arms; a deep ringing resonated in his ears as if someone had rapped a tuning fork against a metal surface. A geyser of blood and brain matter sprayed out the back of their heads and across the air as they fell to the street in a ragged dirty heap.

  They headed northeast across the road and onto a spacious concrete parking lot dotted with more discarded vehicles and less dead bodies. Colin felt that cold thing deep in the pit of his stomach, twisting his insides like a crank. Dominic hurried over, clutched his left sleeve and dragged him across the parking lot.

  “We got to keep going.”

  Colin did as he was asked. A trio of zombies shambled toward a wooden fence on the opposite side of the parking lot and peered through the cracks like a nosy neighbor.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  COLIN led them along the fence and scowled at the mingled stench of burning flesh and gunpowder riding on the breeze. He swallowed the ball of sour bile rubbing the back of his throat, sent back down to pit of his gut and hurried through the strip of grass separating the fence from the doctor’s office. The rear parking lot was cluttered with deserted vehicles and discarded body parts lying upon large pools of blood that baked under the sun’s intense heat.

  Colin hurried up next to Jason and Rosie, his left arm pressed against the middle of his back. Pixie hung back until she met up with Teresa and whispered in her ear. They stayed behind and stared back over their shoulder every so often to see if the thugs had discovered that they were gone.

  Since he first met them, the two women formed a bond bigger than friendship and stronger than sisterhood. Teresa had obviously been there for Pixie on several occasions and vice versa, one of them reminding the other of their unique qualities and always steering them into the right direction.

  They reached the end of the lot, crept around the left side of a red privacy fence and onto a wide cement parking lot. The hot rank odor of hot sticky garbage floated out of a rusted metallic- green dumpster sitting on the right side of the parking lot; a nest of flies hovered above it, buzzing at the air. A sports bar, a Chinese restaurant and an antique store were squeezed into a red-brick mini-mall planted inside of the city’s business district.

  Dominic led them across the lot when a chorus of loud angry protests echoed across the street behind them. They froze, their eyes and face creasing under a mixture of fear and shock. A loud rumbling sound vibrated across the street behind them.

  “Don’t slow down.” He said. “We got to keep going or they’re going to kill us.”

  They followed him past the dumpster. Teresa ejected the clip out of her Glock, slammed it back in and held it down beside her right thigh.

  He cleared the first mini-mall and slowed to a moderate jog as he arrived at his destination. FOSTER’S AUTO WORLD sat housed inside of a squat gray brick building with an array of thick evergreen bushes running along the right. A trio of bright orange posters proclaiming a slew of weekly deals flapped in the breeze; a pair of leafy oak trees sat on the left, spreading an obtuse cape of tree shadows down the corner and along the sidewalk.

  His body flooded with joy, he ran toward the front door. The sign above the store loomed overhead, its curved edges and blooming yellow letters winking in the sun. Something clutched his left shoulder, snapping him out of his dream-like state.

  He spun around on his heels and locked eyes with a trio of zombies stumbling across the parking lot wearing tattered silky purple-and-white graduation gowns. A skinny male zombie, his chin-length dark hair framing its shrunken gray face, bearing deep red bite wounds along his right arm and along the crown of his shoulder; a large red bib of blood spread along the crotch of his tattered blue jeans. An overweight boy with curly red hair sported a large bite wound along the left side of his neck and a tall gaunt blonde girl with a large chunk of flesh missing from her left shoulder.

  Jason flinched and screamed, slapping his hands around the back of Rosie’s head. Rosie screamed as Teresa swooped in and handed the kids over to Pixie. She said something to her she couldn’t hear over the roar of Rosie’s panicked cry, pointed toward the front of the store and drew her pistol from her holster.

  Colin flipped the Magnum around and caught it by the barrel. The zombie’s fingers slid down the front of his shirt, its cold gray knuckles brushing against his left breast. He gave a loud protesting grunt, whipped the Magnum’s checkered black grip hard across its face and sent a bone-jarring crunch across the parking lot.

  The zombie’s arms flailed as it stumbled back on drunken legs and collided with his friends. They slumped onto the ground in a twisted heap of bloated gray flesh, their shimmering purple gowns flapping out from their sides. Teresa hurried toward the front of the shop snatched Pixie’s right hand inside of her left hand and led her to the front door.

  “Shit.” Dominic said. “It’s locked.”

  Colin scowled, his eyes still fixated on the three flesh eaters rolling around the parking lot. He flipped his gun back around and shot the first zombie in the left eye, spraying a mass of soft red pulp from the back of its head.

  Teresa leveled the Glock at the front door and fired. The lock snapped free with a loud metallic PING, flew across the air and tumbled across the parking lot. She stood beside the front door, glanced over her shoulder and peered across the parking lot at Colin.

  “Come on, damnit.” She said.

  Jason cupped his hands around the back of Rosie’s head, stooped and crawled in through the bottom of the door. Pixie hurried inside, followed by the others.

  When they shut the door, the Jeep screech to a halt in the middle of the parking lot. The remaining two zombies hissed and groped at the hot stale air like a kitten batting at a ball of yarn.

  A blast of hot stale air swished around the doorway and caressed the back of Colin’s shoulders. They threw the door shut and, their shoes crunching small bits of broken glass, pressed their backs against it. Pixie strode back and forth across the window and tapped her fingers against her right thigh as Teresa ejected the clip from her Glock and slammed it back in.

  Pixie opened her mouth to say something when a second hail of gunfire burst across the parking lot. His arms prickling with fear, Colin flinched.

  The two zombies were lying face down, their ruptured skulls spreading a puddle of red pulp beneath their heads. Bullet-Head cussed at the two dead zombies, ejected the empty clip from his AK and slapped in a fresh one. Colin spun away from the window and swung his hand across the air in a wide rotund circle.

  “We need something heavy to pin this door shut.” He said.

  His forehead dotted with tiny beads of sweat, Colin scanned the lobby.

  Four perforated metal shelves ran perpendicular across a sleek white marble floor, streaked with odd patches of light and shadow. Five cashier stations were strewn across the right side of the store in front of six tall floor-to ceiling metal shelves crammed with boxed-up auto parts. An array of clear plastic jugs with anti-freeze was strewn along the left wall and a second shelf standing along the other side of the room was crammed with brand-name car batteries.

  Teresa flashed a narrow-eyed glance at Pixie and stopped the young woman dead in her tracks. They stacked each car battery against the bottom left corner of the door and stood back to collect themselves.

  The others glanced at each other.

  A loud arrogant voice echoed across the parking lot outside. “If you come out quietly, we won’t hurt you.”

  Teresa stormed off across the lobby, pressed her hand against the window on the right side of the shop, peered out across the parking lot and gave them the finger. Childish laughter echoed across the parking lot.

  “We don’t want any trouble.” The wigger said. “We just want the boat. We don’t care what you do after that.”

  Colin and Teresa shared a long awkward pause. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, he was right. No one had known about the boat but them.