“Never liked monsters. Always mucking things up,” Grandma muttered from the humid darkness inside the garage.
Reaching the doorway, Ken shifted the cat carrier as he tried to get his huge bag through the narrow opening.
Lenore heard the zombie before she saw it. The hard slap of its feet against the asphalt accompanied by its grunts drew her attention through the lattice toward the front of the house. The zombie raced up the driveway then veered off to head directly toward her.
“I ain’t dying today!”
Lenore shoved Ken through the door, sending him sprawling as Cher yowled in her carrier. She barely managed to get through the doorway before the zombie burst through the flimsy wood and vines, sending splinters and leaves flying. Whipping around, Lenore caught the door with one hand as the disoriented zombie twisted about looking for her. Just as it spotted her, snarling, blood foaming around its torn lips, Lenore slammed the door in its face.
“Lock it!” Tito ordered.
Fumbling with the lock, Lenore jumped as the zombie hit the other side. Tito slammed into the door next to her, bracing it with one shoulder as she managed to twirl the doorknob lock and the deadbolt.
“Ken, get in the car now!” Tito let go of the trembling door long enough to seize an old wheelbarrow and shove it up against it.
The door was old, thick wood, but the hinges and locks were rusted and flimsy. It wouldn’t last long under the constant assault of the undead.
“This could complicate things,” Tito muttered.
“Ya think?” Lenore raised an eyebrow.
“We’ll move fast,” Tito answered, daring to release his hold on the door. “Cover me.”
Lenore stepped away the vibrating door, her eyes flicking toward the hinges. She could see the screws slowly working loose.
“Make it super-fast,” Lenore said to Tito.
Inside the car, Ken and Grandma pulled on their seatbelts as Cher wailed. Lenore yanked the passenger door open as Tito matched her actions on the driver’s side. Leaning in, he fit the key into the ignition and started the car. After a cough and a stutter, the old car’s engine rumbled to life.
“I’m going to open it now.” Tito took a deep breath while heading over to the garage door. “Cover me.”
Lenore swallowed as the sound of the zombies pounding on the side door filled the small garage. The noise grew even louder as more fists began to bang against the garage walls.
“They know we’re in here now,” Tito moaned. “Dammit! Lenore, shoot anything that moves. Just make sure it’s not me!” Cracking his knuckles, Tito leaned down and gripped the lever for the garage door. “Couldn’t have an electric door, huh?”
“Grandma is too cheap,” Lenore grumbled.
“Once it gets going, it’ll slide right up!” Grandma called out.
Lenore checked the safety on the shotgun. It felt awkward in her grip and she felt useless with it. She had no real idea what the hell she was doing, but she knew for sure that she was not going to get eaten by those things.
Behind her, she heard the whine of one of the car windows descending. Looking over her shoulder, she saw her grandmother, seated behind the driver’s seat, leaning out the window clutching her revolver.
“Open that door! Let’s get out of here before those things get in!” Grandma shouted.
With a grunt, Tito yanked up on the door, the old rollers creaking and groaning as they slid upward along the old tracks. Bright sunlight billowed under the door, harsh and blinding. It took Lenore’s eyes a second to adjust as the door rolled back. Tito had already fired into the face of a zombie by the time her vision cleared. Another was crawling toward him on the nubs of its wrists. Lenore aimed and fired.
A tuft of grass from the front yard sailed into the air and landed near the crawling zombie.
“Hit the zombie, Lenore!” Tito shouted, shoving another zombie off its feet.
A small crowd of zombies were coming up the drive and Tito backed away quickly.
“I can’t shoot ‘em with you in the way!” Grandma yelled, waving at him to move.
Muttering in Spanish, Tito darted around the open car door. A zombie followed, smashing into it as it tried to grab Tito. The door started to close, pinning Tito to the side of the car. His gun spun away, disappearing behind some boxes piled near the door. Using one hand, Tito gripped the zombie’s throat, holding off the snapping teeth.
Lenore swung the shotgun around and took aim.
“No, don’t!” Tito cried out, terrified.
She fired.
The zombie’s head jerked to one side as it fell out of sight.
Tito looked at her with surprise, but quickly climbed into the car, banging the door shut. Sliding into the front seat, Lenore grabbed hold of the passenger door.
“Close it! Close it! Close it!” Ken screamed in his most girly voice. Cher yowled in agreement.
Lenore tried to pull the door shut, but it caught. Looking down, she saw the handless zombie had wedged its head up under the door and was trying to climb into the car. Panicking, Lenore scrabbled at the shotgun.
She was deafened by the gun going off near her head. Later, she would swear she felt the heat of the blast and saw the bullet go arcing past her to smash into the head of the zombie.
“Shut the door!” Grandma shouted, her revolver in her hand.
“Damn, Grandma! You’re fierce!” Tito exclaimed.
Ken whimpered.
Lenore reached out to grab the door again just as the side door into the garage slammed open. Zombies poured in, moving swiftly toward her. Her sweaty fingers fumbled with the latch as she tried to shut the door. She could see far too clearly the first zombie barreling toward her, its broken and hungry mouth opened wide to bite as its hands lashed out to grip her.
The car lurched forward, plowing through the zombies in the driveway. The passenger door slammed shut with the momentum. The old car barreled down the short drive, tossing zombies off the hood. Tito spun the steering wheel sharply to the left, the back of the car fishtailing for a second before the tires gripped the road and they surged forward.
The neighborhood was in chaos. People fled on foot from the wreck of a car that had crashed into a van. Swift-footed zombies were in pursuit as the slower undead clawed at the doors and windows of the smashed vehicles.
“We gotta help them!” Lenore cried out.
“Can’t! We gotta keep moving or die,” Tito answered tersely.
“Those poor people go to my church!” Grandma protested.
“We stop, we die.”
“I don’t want to die,” Ken said emphatically. “Really don’t want to die!”
Lenore twisted around in her seat to see that the small group of people was quickly being cornered by the zombies in the neighborhood. She saw what Tito said was true, but the twisting pain in her gut and throat told her it wasn’t right. Closing her eyes, she looked forward, unable to watch.
Tito avoided a pack of zombies and the car whipped around the corner. Lenore took a deep breath and watched the road, her eyes rimmed with tears.
Taking a hard left, Tito directed the old boat of a car into the alley, speeding along toward the RV parked behind Mr. Thames’ house.
“Do you know where the keys to the RV are?” Ken asked from the backseat.
Tito shrugged.
“That isn’t what I want to hear,” Lenore snapped.
“Cause if those keys are on Mr. Thames, I think he is busy eating those people from my church right now.” Grandma’s voice was harsh.
“Actually, I killed him earlier,” Lenore mumbled.
“Oh,” Grandma said. “Oh.”
“It doesn’t matter if there are keys or not. I can get in.” Tito gave a little shrug. “I was a bad kid for a few years in my teens. I got...skills.”
The car rolled to a stop beside the RV. Tito quickly leaped out. “Stay here. I’m going to scout it out. Lenore, get behind the wheel just in case.” Before anyone could protest, he darted around the RV and disappeared.
Lenore slid into the driver’s seat, grumbling the whole way. Gripping the steering wheel, she stared down the surprisingly-quiet alley.
“What if he doesn’t come back?” Ken asked from the backseat.
Lenore slowly exhaled. “We better pray he does. The car is almost out of gas.”
16.
Fear
Ken could barely catch his breath. His chest felt so tight he could barely stand it. With Cher’s carrier wedged between him and the seat in front of him, he supposed that could be part of his problem. But he was pretty sure it was the sound of the zombies nearby that was about to give him a full-fledged heart attack. He wasn’t sure if it was better to die with his heart exploding or not. Of course, getting eaten by zombies wasn’t a pleasant thought either.
“Take deep breaths, son,” Grandma instructed him.
“It hurts,” he complained.
“Do it anyway,” she said, patting his hand. “Take a deep breath and let it out slow.”
Ken obeyed because Lenore was giving him a sharp look over her shoulder. He drew in a deep, shuddering breath, then slowly exhaled. To his surprise, the tightness in his chest lessened and his heart slowed a bit. He took another long drag of the warm air in the car and immediately started choking on a strand of Cher’s fur. Coughing violently, he heard Cher hiss as Grandma whacked his back.