Resurrection: A Zombie Novel (17 page)

Kyle and Hughes climbed onto the magazine rack and poured gasoline over the lip while the things outside screamed in unspeakable fury. They were stupid and murderous and relentlessly single-minded, but Hughes wondered if on some level they knew what was going to happen. They still knew what gas smelled like, didn’t they?

Hughes’ shirt was so drenched with the stuff, he didn’t dare fire a weapon. He’d ignite himself instantly. So he pulled the shirt over his head and tossed it on the floor. Then he thought for a second and picked it back up again.

He could light the shirt on fire and throw it onto the horde. Much more effective than using matches. He stood there, now shirtless and ready for war, and said, “Get Carol. We leave in two minutes.”

*   *   *

Parker banged on the cooler door. “Carol!” He banged again, a little harder this time. “We’re leaving!”

“I’m not going out there!” Carol said, her voice muffled.

The store reeked of gasoline. The horde outside screamed. Another sheet of plywood ripped and started to split.

“We’re setting them on fire and running out to the truck. If you stay here, you’ll die.”

The door opened. Her tear-streaked face appeared.

“You’re setting them on fire?” she said and flinched from the sheer volume of sound in the main part of the store. Shrieks and banging and pounding and wet sounds of thwacking followed another awful crack of splitting wood.

“We’re going,” Parker said. He grabbed her hand and yanked her out. “Now.”

“Parker!” Hughes said and ripped his gasoline-soaked shirt in two. “Take this.” He handed Parker half the shirt and a book of matches. “You get the north side. I’ll get the west side.”

Annie—blood- and gore-soaked all over again—took Carol’s hand. “Come with me, honey,” she said.

Parker climbed onto the ladder on the north side of the store, gas rag in hand. Frank and Kyle, each with a pack of supplies strapped to their backs, stood ready at the door with guns in their hands.

Wait, Parker thought. What was the plan exactly?

“Hold on,” Parker said. “Are we running out the door right after we light them on fire?”

“We let them burn as long as we can,” Hughes said. “But we don’t have much time.”

Parker set his fuel-soaked rag on the ladder’s top step. He peeled a match out of the pack and swiped it, but it didn’t light. He swiped it again, and this time it sizzled and popped into flame. He touched it to his ripped half of the shirt, and with a whoosh it was ablaze.

He heard an even louder whooshing sound from Hughes’ direction, following by shrieks from the horde. They were burning.

Parker picked up the burning shirt and pitched it over the gap.

Flames erupted outside the store. Parker felt the heat on his face.

He also felt heat on his back.

The western side of the store was on fire. The
inside
of the store was on fire. The spilled gas had ignited and would burn right through the plywood. And when the fire spread to the ceiling, their sanctuary would turn into a death trap.

The air filled with smoke.

“Are they burning?” Frank shouted.

“They’re burning,” Hughes said. “We’re going to burn too if we don’t get out of here.”

“We’re going to have to run through them,” Parker said.

Carol looked like a cornered prey animal.

The flames licked the ceiling now, and the whole western side of the store was on fire. Those things would be able to bust through at any second.

“We open the door,” Hughes said, “and run for the truck. Jump in back. Don’t bother with the passenger door. That will just slow us down. I’ll drive.”

Parker gripped the crowbar like it was a handhold on the edge of a cliff.

“Okay,” Hughes said. “Let’s do it.”

Frank unlocked and opened the door.

They ran. Parker and Hughes took the lead.

At first Parker thought they might be okay. At least half of those things were on fire. Some were already dead, either from fire or gunshots. Most of those left alive were still heaving themselves onto the walls of the store even though the walls of the store were on fire.

Not one of them noticed that the people they wanted to kill had just run out the door and were on their way to the truck.

Not at first, anyway.

Some of the infected on the fringe seemed dazed and disoriented by the flames. They had lost focus and were shifting around aimlessly in random directions. A sickening stench of coppery blood, burnt hair, charred meat, and rot made Parker want to throw up, but he breathed through his mouth and ran for the truck.

But first one and then another spotted him. They screamed.

And they screamed in a certain way, different from those screaming from pain and from rage. This sound, a more urgent one, was a sound Parker understood perfectly. It said,
I see them
.

Others turned.

“Go!” Hughes said. “Don’t stop!”

The Chevy was thirty feet ahead. A half-dozen of those things stood in their way.

Parker opened fire. He did his best to shoot at their center of mass, but he didn’t aim down the sights. No time. He just fired and hit maybe two of them, and then he was empty.

Hughes opened fire and took out some more.

But there were still at least two dozen left who hadn’t been burned, maimed, or shot. And they were charging from both sides and converged like a vise made of meat, hands, and teeth.

Parker’s gun was empty, so he jumped in the back of the truck. Kyle and Annie took up the rear. Each had a crowbar. They swung in wild arcs, breaking hands, arms, and skulls. Frank swung at one with his hammer, but he swung too early and missed.

Hughes was out front ahead of everyone, including the horde. He took cover behind the truck and—
crack
—dropped one and then another with the rifle.

And then Carol screamed. One of those things grabbed her.

Hughes pointed his rifle at it, but he didn’t have a clear shot. He might hit Carol.

Frank swung his hammer and hit the thing in its back and probably caved in its spine, but it was too late.

It had already sunk in its teeth.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Annie spun around when she heard the scream. One of the infected had thrown itself onto Carol and she went down. The infected bit right into her shoulder.

Carol screamed again. For a brief and terrible second, she sounded like one of them.

Which was perhaps fitting because that’s exactly what Carol was about to turn into.

The one that bit Carol was a man. He had short brown hair and a long mustache. No beard. That meant he had turned recently, and he had kept up appearances by shaving before he was bitten.

And now he was biting Carol.

Frank broke his back with a hammer. He released Carol from his jaws and rolled onto his broken back, his face turned up at the sky and contorted in agony.

More were coming. Hughes shot one clean through the head with his rifle. Kyle swung his crowbar and broke one of their arms. Annie swung her crowbar and hit one in the ear. It went down instantly.

Frank hit one right in the nose with his hammer.

Hughes shot another one through the chest.

They were almost finished. Only a handful remained.

They’d make it. They’d be okay.

Everyone except Carol.

Annie swung her crowbar at one of the last three remaining—this one also a man—but she swung too early. Her blow connected with nothing. She felt her shoulder go out.

And he was upon her.

He knocked her right over and onto her back. She damn near cracked her own skull open on the pavement. He was right on top of her, his mouth open wide and baring his teeth as if they were fangs.

“Annie!” Kyle shouted.

And then something happened. Something she did not expect, something she did not intend, something she did not even think about. It just happened. As if someone or something else was in control of her body and mind.

She bared her own teeth and lunged for the infected man’s throat.

The next two things happened at precisely the same instant. Kyle said, “Jesus Christ!” and Hughes put a round through the infected man’s head.

He went limp and collapsed on top of her.

Kyle pulled him off.

Hughes came running, rifle in hand. “Jesus, girl. Did you try to
bite
that thing?”

She had indeed tried to bite him.

*   *   *

Annie watched as Hughes and Kyle set Carol down in the flatbed. Everyone else piled in after, except Frank, who climbed into the passenger seat. He said he did it so Hughes wouldn’t have to sit up front by himself, but Annie assumed Frank just didn’t want to ride next to Carol. He looked at her like she was leaking virus, which wasn’t far from the truth.

Annie didn’t worry about that at all. It wouldn’t matter if she recontracted the virus. Her body knew how to fight it, so she sat next to Carol and held the poor woman’s hand and didn’t care if the others thought she was reckless.

Hughes started the engine. “We’re just going a couple of blocks down the street for right now,” he said as he lightly stepped on the accelerator.

“Finally,” Parker said as they started to move, “we’re clear.” Then he punched Kyle hard in the mouth.

*   *   *

He shouldn’t have done it. He knew he shouldn’t have done it, and he regretted it instantly, but goddamnit Kyle had to be the dumbest person he’d met since all this shit started.

“Parker!” Annie said.

“The fuck was that for?” Kyle said and wiped his mouth.

Frank turned around in the passenger seat.

“S’going on back there?” Hughes said from the front.

Parker ignored everybody but Kyle. “You know damn well what that was for.”

Kyle pulled his hand away from his mouth and licked blood off his lips. “What’s to stop me from bashing your head in with this crowbar right now?” Kyle said, his face twisted.

Parker pointed his gun at him. He wasn’t going to shoot Kyle, and the weapon was empty anyway, but he wasn’t going to just sit there and take a death threat over a punch in the mouth.

“For God’s sake, you guys!” Annie said.

Parker lowered his gun. Kyle lowered his eyes.

“You damn near got us all killed back there,” Parker said. “You
did
get Carol here killed.”

“All right!” Annie said.

Carol groaned.

Parker knew he should have apologized, to Carol as well as to Kyle, and he should have done so at once, but he didn’t.

“I got Lane and his boys to stand down when they were ready to throw us all out,” Kyle said in his whiny little voice. “And I’m about to take us to an island where we’ll be safe and where we can start over.”

“You disarmed me,” Parker said, “when I stood our ground against Lane. And you refused to kill Roland or Robby or whatever the fuck his name was when you had the chance.”

“Okay!” Annie said. “Can you guys do this later? Right now we need to take care of Carol.”

Hughes slowed the truck. Parker hadn’t paid the slightest bit of attention to where they were or where they were going. They’d stopped in the middle of an intersection. On one corner was a mini-mart, on another an ex–Chinese restaurant with its windows smashed in. Two gas stations took up the other corners.

“We stopping for gas?” Parker said.

“We’re stopping for Carol,” Hughes said. He turned off the engine and stepped out of the truck.

A hush fell over the world. All Parker could hear was a slight breeze in his ears and a ticking sound from the engine. The air smelled decent and fresh. Nothing dead was anywhere near them.

Hughes put his hands on his hips and stared hard at Parker. “You guys want to go at each other later, that’s fine, but right now you save it. Frank, we have any water?”

Frank hopped out of the front and unzipped one of the backpacks. “Just gear in this one. But, hey, we still have the night vision.”

Thank heaven for small mercies, Parker thought to himself. He didn’t care about Carol. Not really. He knew he should. He just didn’t. She’d been a burden all along and would have continued being a burden if she hadn’t been bitten. He felt a small twinge of sympathy for what she was going through, but he wouldn’t miss her. Not really.

He would have felt differently about it a month ago. Hell, he’d have felt differently about it two weeks ago. He didn’t know if the old Parker or the new Parker had it right. The old Parker was more humane, but the new Parker would last longer.

Frank fished a bottle of water out of the backpack and set it down next to Carol.

Annie held Carol’s hand and stroked her forehead. The girl was reckless.

“Careful,” Parker said.

“Shut up,” Annie said. She wouldn’t look at him.

She’d have to vigorously wash her hands with soap and hot water, and where would she find any hot water? Parker made a mental note not to touch her until she was clean. Not that he had any intention of touching her. He could only imagine her reaction, especially if he touched her right now.

“So what do we do?” Kyle said and wiped his mouth again. He wasn’t bleeding much. Parker hadn’t hit him that hard.

“Let’s just sit here a while,” Annie said. She stroked Carol’s face with one hand and held Carol’s hand with the other.

“I’m sorry,” Parker said to Carol. “About what I said a minute ago.” It was true that Kyle had gotten her killed, but he shouldn’t have said it out loud. She wasn’t dead yet.

Kyle glared at him. He wasn’t getting his apology. Not now, anyway. Probably not later, either.

“It’s okay,” Carol said. She sounded weaker already. Maybe she was just tired or resigned or numb with shock over what happened.

“How you holding up?” Parker said.

God, what a stupid fucking question that was.

Annie glared at him.

“I’m sorry—”

“Just shut up,” Annie said. “Go walk around the truck or something.”

He sort of liked Annie. She was a tough kid, and she wasn’t stupid. He’d need to behave a bit better now that she was around. He didn’t care if Kyle hated his guts, but he didn’t want any more rebukes from Annie.