Phoenix (25 page)

"What’s the situation?" Brad asked.

Mort made a face and dipped his head. "The
guy was friendly enough. Paranoid as hell. Can’t say I blame him.
This is his place and he’s got five families in there."

Adams whistled.

Mort went on. "Said he’d take people in until
he ran out of room, but that he’s been lucky. He hasn’t had to turn
anyone away because no one else has shown up. Until now."

"And he’s–" Brad looked over at the house,
let his eyes roam over all the vehicles parked around it, then
settled them back on Mort. "He’s okay with taking more in?"

"For tonight, yeah. We’ll see what happens
tomorrow."

"Well," Brad sighed, "alright then. Better
get inside the sardine can."

Mort chuckled and headed to the trunk of the
car. No one took anything from their bags; they were content with
sleeping in the clothes they wore and not brushing their teeth in
the morning. Brad studied the house as they weaved their way to the
stranger waiting for them on the porch. It wasn’t a full two-story,
but there was a room or two upstairs. A one and a half story, he
supposed it was called. There was a window on this side of the
"upstairs" and just below that was the roof of a room that looked
like it had been added on in recent years. Smoke drifted from a
stovepipe sticking up out of the main roof. There was an old porch
swing on the left hand side of the front door. A cat lay stretched
out on it and didn’t pay them any mind.

"Come inside. I’ll find a place for you," the
stranger said, then turned and headed through the door.

Brad leaned over and whispered to Mort, "Man
of few words, huh?"

Mort just nodded and led the group inside
behind the man. They barely made it past the threshold.

"Holy…"

Brad stared as their host weaved his way
through the room they’d just entered. It must have been a living
room. The entire front of the house was one big cavernous space.
And it was full of people. Wall-to-wall, sitting or lying on the
furniture and the floor. Some covered in blankets or coats, some
using their blankets or coats as pillows. All of them looked like
hell.

Some were just dirty, but some were
bloody.

"Mort…?"

The older man gripped Brad’s upper arm. "Come
on."

Brad could hear the other three mumbling and
whispering behind him, but they followed nonetheless. They stepped
over bodies, whispered apologies, and came into the kitchen where
the man waited for them. He tipped his head and indicated another
room off to the side. There was a doorway with a blanket nailed
over it. The man pulled the makeshift door aside and waved for the
others to follow. Mort went first, followed by Brad. There were
people packed in this room as well, though not as many. It was a
small bedroom. There was a set of bunk beds and one single bed. A
staircase in the corner led to the small upstairs. On the opposite
wall there was another doorway with a blanket hanging over it.

"Some of you can sleep in here. The rest of
you, come with me." The man headed up the stairs.

Mort turned to the group. "Brad, keep Adams
down here with you." He turned to Laura and Izzy. "Girls, upstairs
with me." Then he fixed Brad with a look and sent a warning.

Brad answered, "We’re on it," and pointed
Adams to the lower bunk. It was empty and if they squeezed in, they
could keep an eye on both doorways and the stairs.

Mort nodded once and led the women upstairs.
A few moments later, their host came back down and disappeared
without a word through the other blanket, opposite the one they’d
come through.

"Man," Adams said. "I don’t like this."

They crammed onto the bunk. Brad took a
corner at the head of the bed and Adams took the corner at the
foot. They’d have to sleep sitting up with their backs to the wall,
but it was better than sleeping in the car and being surrounded by
corpses. The other people in the room whispered and mumbled to each
other. Brad heard a kid crying on the bunk above them and a woman
trying to comfort him or her.

Adams tapped his foot against the air. "I
don’t like this."

"Hey, don’t start that," Brad said. "Let’s
just try to get some rest."

The foot stopped moving but neither man
looked like he was getting rest anytime soon.

Engines
revved
,
people
screamed
,
orders
were
being
shouted
.
Everywhere
Brad
looked
,
it
was
bedlam
.
Walking
dead
caught
people
running
between
cars
and
dragged
them
to
the
ground
.
Vehicles
trying
to
get
away
kept
hitting
each
other
,
like
a
demolition
derby
.

A
few
times
they
even
ran
over
people
.

Izzy
was
limping
.
Adams
pulled
her
up
the
hill
.
Mort
herded
them
like
cattle
.

"
Go
,
go
,
go
!"
he
screamed
. "
Brad
,
it’s
too
late
for
them
!
Just
go
!"

Brad
turned
from
the
old
man
he’d
been
trying
to
help
.
The
man
had
a
small
dog
in
his
hands
.

"
Please
,
take
her
.
Please
,
sir
,"
the
man
said
.
He’d
been
hit
by
a
car
and
sat
on
the
ground
.
His
legs
were
broken
.

Brad’s
head
snapped
back
and
forth
between
him
and
Mort
.
He
didn’t
know
what
to
do
. "
C’mon
,
I
can
get
you
to
the
car
."
Brad
grabbed
the
man
by
the
arm
and
pulled
.

"
No
!
Forget
me
!
Please
,
take
my
dog
.
Just
go
!"

For
a
moment
Brad
thought
it
odd
,
how
worried
this
guy
was
about
his
dog
.
Then
he
wondered
if
he
was
dreaming
.

"
Brad
!
We
need
to
go
!"
Mort
screamed
again
.
He
had
reached
the
top
of
the
embankment
and
was
waiting
for
him
by
the
cars
.

Brad
looked
back
at
the
man
and
saw
the
dog
had
started
eating
the
old
man’s
face
.

Brad jerked awake. His legs stiffened and
kicked Adams. Brad’s chest heaved and sweat ran into his eyes.

Adams opened one eye. "Everything okay over
there?"

Brad wiped his face and tried to catch his
breath. "No, but I’ll live."

"Had a dream, huh."

"Yeah."

"Anything we should know about?"

Brad shook his head and didn’t answer. He
didn’t trust that dream any more than the others trusted their
abilities right now. It could have been a warning, a vision, or
just a dream. He leaned over the edge of the bed and pulled back on
the blanket hanging in the doorway. A few people lay slumped over
the kitchen table, asleep. An oil lamp still lit up the living room
and cast a glow through the house. Brad’s eyes drifted to the
kitchen door, which he assumed led to a side porch, and stopped on
a face peering in from the outside.

He jerked back and dropped the blanket.

What
the
fuck
was
that
?

"Brad?" Adams whispered.

Brad leaned over, moved the blanket, and
looked again. There was someone looking in the kitchen door’s
window.

"What’s wrong?" Adams’ voice was louder now
and caused a few people to stir on the floor.

Brad peeked through the crack between the
blanket and the doorframe. "There’s someone out there."

"No shit. The house is full of someones."

"I mean there’s someone outside looking in
through the door."

"Say what?" Adams crawled over so he could
see too, but someone screamed elsewhere in the house. Both men
jumped and looked at each other. Brad’s radar exploded, was stable
for a few seconds, then started shorting out again. What he’d seen
though, in that amount of time, got him moving.

Adams jumped off the bed and landed on a man
lying on the floor next to it.

More screams.

Everyone in their little bedroom was awake
now and moving around. Brad pulled the blanket back again and saw
that more faces had joined the first in the kitchen door.

"Oh my God," he choked. The faces were
dead.

Adams looked over Brad’s shoulder and saw
them. "Upstairs."

The people in the room were shoving each
other in their haste to gather up whatever belongings they had and
get out of there. Brad and Adams had to push their way through to
the staircase. The other blanketed doorway blew open and two short
corpses fell inside. People screamed and bolted.

They were teenagers, a boy and a girl. The
boy looked like someone from a Western who’d been scalped. It
would’ve seemed ridiculous if it hadn’t been so real. His scalp was
peeled, from the hairline all the way back. One eye hung from its
socket and flopped around as he tore into the person he’d pinned to
the floor. The girl was in worse shape. Her torso had been ripped
open from top to bottom and her internal organs were hanging out.
Brad saw a lung, a bloated stomach, and a lot of intestines.

Bile rose in his throat. The other blanket
moved and people ran back into the bedroom. Brad was about to yell
for them to go back, to get outside, but then he saw why. A man
bringing up the rear dragged a group of dead with him. Brad didn’t
wait to see what happened next. He turned and ran up the steps.
Adams was already up there with Mort and the ladies. The other
people who’d been asleep were gathered in a cluster, their wild
eyes darting around the room, looking for a way to escape. Brad had
been right; there
was
room up there for two bedrooms, except
it was just one open space with a window on either end. He ran to
the closest window and looked out. Nothing but a twenty or thirty
foot drop.

No good.

He shoved through and looked out the other
window.

There
it
is
.

The roof of the added-on room was right
there, a few feet under the windowsill. He could see their vehicles
straight ahead, parked up on the bank, with a cluster of cars in
between.

"So that wasn’t just a dream," he mumbled to
himself.

"What do you see?" Mort asked from behind
him. The screaming was getting worse downstairs.

"Have a look."

Brad moved aside and let Mort step closer. He
motioned for the rest of the group to gather in and tried not to
pay attention to the frantic strangers at the other end of the
room.

"Listen up. We’re going to have to climb out
onto that roof and jump down to the ground. The cars are right up
there," Brad jerked his thumb over his shoulder, "and right now
there’s nothing between us and them, besides more cars. We have to
hurry because the longer we wait, the greater the chance of those
damn things spreading out and blocking our path."

"Too late." Mort turned from the window and
motioned for Brad to look.

Zombies shambled after people who were
running between the vehicles trying to escape. Most didn’t even
seem to know where they were going. Blind panic. Some people made
it to their vehicles, though, and were trying to get out. It was
happening just like Brad’s dream. Drivers hitting the gas, plowing
into other vehicles, other people, zombies. Some drivers were
yanked back out of their cars before they could get their doors
shut. People climbed onto roofs and into truck beds, swinging bags
and skillets and anything else they could get their hands on. It
only held the dead back for a little while.

A thumping noise came from the staircase. The
small group of people huddled on that end of the room scattered and
ran toward Brad’s group. They cried and pushed and yelled until
Brad and his friends were shoved against the wall and window. Adams
shoved back and made room for himself. He turned and kicked the
window out of its frame, then he grabbed Laura and shoved her
through.

"Go, go, go!"

One by one, they climbed out the window and
dropped to the roof below. The group barely had time to get out of
the way before the frantic strangers started jumping.