Main Street loomed before them. The living dead were scattered along its length. Some moved surprisingly fast in the direction of the truck. These zombies were less damaged than their much-slower counterparts. In some cases, it took more than one look to realize they were dead. The worst of the slow ones was the upper half of an old woman that dragged herself around the corner by her bloodied fingertips.
Ken accelerated away from the shops and drove through the middle of town. His sobs filled her ears as his cat meowed in fear. The truck lurched a few times as they ran over one of the undead and the zombies lashed out at the truck as they passed.
“Why did he jump, Lenore? Why?”
“Maybe he was done with this crazy ass world, Ken. I dunno. He was bit. He was as good as dead. We all knew it.”
Ken gripped the steering wheel with one hand as he wiped his face with the other. “I don’t know how to get to your house.”
“I’ll tell you,” Lenore said. “And we’re going the long way. I don’t want any of those things following us.”
The truck continued down Main Street and, one by one, the zombies they passed turned to follow.
11.
Hell Sucks
Ken hated this new world. He hated it with a vengeance. It made him sick to his stomach. He just wanted to go home, go back to bed and start the day all over again. Of course, that was not an option. Instead he was driving his dead friend’s truck to the outskirts of town. The plan was to loop around to Lenore’s neighborhood using back roads. Hopefully, they would be in time to save her grandmother.
A soft meow drew his attention to his precious little Cher sitting in her cat carrier. She didn’t look very happy with the situation and he didn’t blame her. Their life together had been relatively calm since the no-good-jerkoff had run away with the boy toy. But that was over and what lay ahead was shrouded in mystery.
Ken hated mysteries.
Lenore was silent beside him, her jaw set, her eyes fastened firmly on the road ahead. His heart went out to her. He couldn’t even imagine how she was feeling. Though he was worried about his family far away in Houston, he wasn’t as close to them as Lenore was to her grandmother.
The town was tearing itself apart all around them. As he drove, he saw flashes of bloodied figures out of the corner of his eye. Suddenly, a figure darted out in front of the truck. They both screamed just before the truck hit the teenage girl and hurtled her off into the ditch.
“She was one of them, right?” Ken felt like his head was going to explode. “Right, Lenore? She was one of them, right?”
“There was blood on her. If she wasn’t one yet, she woulda been,” Lenore assured him.
“Oh, God,” Ken literally felt his heart pounding in his chest. “I didn’t mean to-”
“It’s okay. I saw blood on her. I did,” Lenore swore. “I saw it.”
Ken nodded and swallowed hard. His hands shook as he drove and he tried to get a grip on himself. “Okay.”
“I wouldn’t lie to you,” Lenore said in a firm voice.
“Okay,” he said one more time. He bobbed his head up and down in affirmation of his words. “I believe you.”
“Circle around on Cemetery Road,” Lenore directed.
“Ugh! What if they are coming out of the graves?”
“Then they’re probably all out and eating someone by now,” Lenore answered without a touch of humor in her voice.
Ken flipped on his turn signal and drove the truck onto a very narrow dirt road. The old cemetery was just that: old. No one was buried there anymore due to restriction of space. Most people from the town were now buried around ten miles out of the city limits in a brand new cemetery with flat headstones and boring landscaping. The old cemetery on Cemetery Road was full of tall gravestones, mausoleums, and weeping angels. It was overgrown with weeds nowadays and the city was constantly harassing the holders of the privately owned land to clean it up.
As Ken drove over the road that was rife with deep gouges, they both lapsed into sullen silence. The cemetery, off to Ken’s left, was quiet and devoid of anything living or undead. The high wrought-iron fence leaned dangerously in spots, but the graves were undisturbed. Wherever the zombies had come from, it was not the graveyard.
The appallingly-potholed little road curved around behind the cemetery and under a canopy of gnarled, overgrown oak trees. The branches overhead created deep shadows under the canopy and Ken felt unnerved by the sudden gloom. The silent graveyard loomed in his peripheral vision. Even though he had seen the dead come to life, he was more unnerved by being so close to the hallowed ground of the cemetery.
Cher let out a low, cranky meow.
“It’s okay, sugar, we’re almost there,” Lenore said.
“Where is the shotgun?” Ken asked suddenly. “Mr. Cloy said the shotgun was in the truck.”
Lenore looked over her shoulder at the empty gun rack. “It’s not in the rack. Must be around here somewhere.” She began to feel around behind their seats.
Ken gasped as a zombie stumbled into the area where the old road intersected with the residential street that led to Lenore’s house. It was a male, terribly mutilated and missing its eyes. It appeared to hear the truck, for it started to screech.
Ken stomped on the brakes and stared at the creature in horror. Lenore yelped as she fell back into her seat clutching the shotgun.
“Ken!”
“What?”
“Run it over!”
The blind zombie wandered in front of them, its hands reaching out, searching for the truck.
Ken could not believe what he was seeing. The eyeless sockets and empty chest cavity was the stuff of horror movies or an X Files episode. This close, the zombie was almost too much for him to handle.
“Ken, run it over!” Lenore shouted again.
Cher yowled anxiously.
Ken shifted into reverse and pulled away from the zombie. Beside him, Lenore clutched the shotgun in both hands. Shifting gears, he took a deep breath.
“Just floor it and hit it,” Lenore instructed.
Ken swallowed and shoved his foot down onto the accelerator. The big truck roared forward and just before it hit the zombie, Ken squeezed his eyes shut.
“Ken!”
The impact was brutal. The truck was slammed to one side and the screech of metal grinding against metal filled the cab. Ken was thrown violently, his seatbelt catching him securely and pinching deep into his chest. The airbags exploded and the air filled with fine white powder.
“What the-” Ken muttered, opening his eyes.
It wasn’t the zombie that had smashed into the front of the truck, but a small car. Inside, a young woman was draped over the steering wheel. The windshield of her tiny, ancient car was shattered and glass glittered in her blond hair.
Cher hissed loudly as Lenore moaned beside him. Ken straightened in his seat as Lenore raised her hand to her bleeding temple. She appeared dazed.
“We need to get that girl and...” Ken’s voice trailed off. The front end of the truck wasn’t that badly crumpled, but it was listing to one side. He shifted gears quickly and tried to reverse. The truck didn’t budge. The tire was most likely rammed into the side of the wheel well and was not budging.
“What the hell just happened?” Lenore said in a slurred voice.
“An accident and-No! No! No!”
The zombie he had been trying to hit hauled itself over the hood of the small car toward the shattered windshield. Its grotesquely gnawed fingers anxiously sought flesh. Another zombie, this one a woman in a pale pink housecoat, also reached the car embedded into the side of the truck, and tried to reach the unconscious girl.
“Lenore! Lenore! We have to shoot them! Give me the gun!”
She just stared at him blankly, still woozy.
Ken snatched the shotgun out of her hands and fumbled with it. He didn’t have the slightest idea how to work the weapon. He feverishly searched for something labeled a safety. The characters on TV always talked about it on cop shows. He knew it had to be loaded and ready. Mr. Cloy always said he kept his weapons locked and loaded.
He found a button and pushed it.
The shotgun went off with a thunderous roar. The driver’s side window exploded beside him, showering him with glass. Deafened by the shot, Ken couldn’t even hear himself screaming.
Outside, the female zombie managed to grab the girl’s hair and began pulling her toward her. Ken could feel his heart pounding as he tried to aim the shotgun at the female zombie. Just as he squeezed the trigger, the shotgun was knocked to the side.
The blast caught the unconscious girl in the car full in the chest.
Ken gasped.
A hand, bloodied and chewed, thrust into the truck’s broken window, grabbing for him.
12.
It Gets Worse
When Ken fired through the window, Lenore jerked upright and felt her brain careen wildly inside her skull. She gripped her head tightly between her hands and moaned softly. Between being deaf and her head feeling like it was about to explode, she felt alert once more.
She had an inkling she may have been knocked unconscious for a few moments. The disorientation she felt after the crash was fading now. The world seemed to be coming out of the haze. Instead of feeling like she was moving in slow motion through a horror movie, she felt painfully-aware of the world in action around her.