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  Three of the faster ones were converging on her from that direction.

  She swung her arm out, took quick, careful aim.

  Click.

  BOOM.

  Click.

  BOOM.

  Click…

  Shit, goddammit!

  The one clip she’d had was finally empty and suddenly she was a lot more scared. With a loaded gun in her hand, she felt capable of taking on and vanquishing any adversary. Now that her weapon was useless, she was all too aware of how vulnerable she truly was. She turned on the speed instead and soon closed the gap between herself and Jason. But then, as they neared a street corner, he abruptly veered diagonally across an overgrown, trash-strewn yard. She saw him skid to a stop next to an ugly beige-yellow compact car.

  She screamed at him, “The fuck are you going!?”

  For an answer, he peeled off his Slayer shirt and wound it around a fist, which he then slammed repeatedly at the driver’s side window. The glass began to splinter and give way. Then his fist punched through and glass clinked as it tumbled to the seat. He kept the shirt wound around his hand and knocked away more glass fragments before reaching inside to grab the door handle and spring the lock.

  He peeled the shirt off his hand and tossed it into the car.

  Against her better judgment, Brix risked a backward glance.

  Oh, fucking hell…

  There were even more of them now. A virtual sea of rotting flesh advancing on them like a column of drunken soldiers stumbling across a battlefield.

  Brix looked at Jason. “Mind explaining yourself? And make it fast, because we’re about to be fucking dead, man.”

  Jason pulled the screwdriver from his rear pocket, smiled grimly at her, and dropped into the car behind the steering wheel. “This is a trick my dad taught me. Sometimes works with older cars like this ugly-ass piece of shit.”

  Her brow furrowed with doubt as she watched him fit the slotted screwdriver in the car’s ignition. He worked it in as far as he could and then began cranking the thing back and forth. The first few times only yielded dispiriting dead clicks. She was sure it wouldn’t work. No way could it work. Their luck was too bad for that—

  The engine sputtered to life.

  Jason let out a whoop of triumph, which was promptly drowned out by the loud rock and roll rattling the car’s tinny speakers. It was a song she recognized instantly because it was one of her favorites—Wednesday 13’s “I Walked with a Zombie”.

  Even with imminent, teeth-gnashing death bearing down on them at any moment, this was just too much.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  A zombie song? Seriously? What were the fucking odds? And wasn’t this just how it’d be in some low-budget cinematic, walking-dead extravaganza?

  Of course it was.

  So it made a fucked-up, twisted kind of bizarro sense.

  Jason pulled the door shut and leaned over to unlock the door on the other side.

  Brix didn’t need further prompting.

  The front line of zombies was more than halfway across the litter-covered yard at the corner. She hurried to the other side of the car, yanked the door open, and got in just as Jason was putting it in gear.

  A zombie fell across the hood and reached for them with a gnarled, clawing hand. In the same second Jason stomped on the gas pedal and sent them flying backward. The zombie’s twisted brown fingers grasped one of the windshield wipers and it was able to hang on for a long moment.

  The wiper blade peeled away from the windshield and the zombie slid a few inches down the hood, until Jason stomped down on the brake pedal, bringing the car to a wild, fishtailing stop in the middle of the street. The tagalong zombie slalomed sideways across the hood in a violent motion. The wiper blade broke off in its hand as the creature tumbled to the street and rolled a few times before hitting the curb.

  Brix’s gaze remained riveted to the road ahead. The desperate backward flight had put some distance between themselves and the still-advancing zombie horde. The nearest zombies were some twenty yards away. But they were closing fast. Faster than she could ever have imagined. She stared at their dead eyes and their reaching, grasping fingers and the thing she sensed most strongly was desperation. A terrible, gnawing hunger that could simply never be sated. It was consuming them, driving their decaying bodies ever forward in search of warm food, even as rotting pieces of themselves gave way and dropped to the street.

  Closer.

  Fifteen yards.

  That terrible groaning, louder all the time.

  Jason hit the gas again and cranked the wheel hard to the right, causing the car’s rear tires to bounce over the curb. Brix let out a cry of surprise as her head bumped the ceiling. Then Jason was shifting gears and cranking the wheel hard in the other direction. He gave it another burst of gas and the car bounced back over the curb with an alarming scrape of metal. He leaned over the wheel and kept the pedal to the floor with a grim, determined look on his face. They flew through a four-way stop without slowing down and kept on going.

  Brix twisted in her seat and saw the zombies receding in the distance.

  She heaved a sigh of immense relief and turned back around, reaching for the stereo’s volume control to squelch the blaring rock music.

  Jason looked at her, a wild grin that was equal parts relief and lingering terror stretching across his face. “Shit. Shit! Holy shit!” He smacked the steering wheel with a fist. “I can’t believe we got out of there.”

  Brix couldn’t believe it either. They’d had some other close calls, but none quite so narrow as this latest. And yet there was no time to waste in exulting.

  “We have to get out of this town.”

  “Believe me, I know.”

  “It’s like I said. We have to get out to the country, out to the wide open spaces.”

  Jason took a right turn at another four-way stop. Then the engine roared again and they shot down to the end of the next street, pausing only briefly at yet another four-way stop. As they rolled through to the other side, Brix saw a lone zombie standing in the middle of a yard in front of a little house missing its front door. A chain-link fence ringed the yard. The zombie started toward them, its hands stretched outward in the standard I-am-seriously-fucking-hungry-right-now living dead way.

  Brix turned her head and tracked his progress as long as she could, somehow unaccountably mesmerized by the lone creature. She thought maybe it was because the zombies seemed more pathetic observed individually, rather than as part of some overwhelming, mindless force. And more sad, too. The zombie hit the chain-link fence and stopped in its tracks, unable to go any farther. Its head turned in their direction and it stared dumbly after them.

  Brix faced the front again. “Poor fucking things.”

  She expected reflexive anger from Jason. But instead he nodded and said, “Yeah. It’s fucked up.”

  They rolled up to another stop sign. This time it was a three-way stop. They could go left or right. Brix had a vague idea where they were now. A left would take them deeper into the old part of town. A right would eventually take them out toward the university.

  Jason cranked the wheel to the right and went that way.

  He looked at her. “Quicker way to the interstate.”

  Brix grunted. “Suits me.”

  They rode on in relative silence for a time. Another mile or so up the street and they began to reach the outskirts of campus. The streets were crowded on each side with beer and tobacco stores, bars, and restaurants. There weren’t too many zombies visible, but Brix did spot several lone ones staggering around in the streets and on the sidewalks. They hardly constituted a horde, but then again, she’d thought the same thing earlier, during their flight from the accident scene. And somehow a horde had eventually formed anyway. There were enough of them around to warrant concern, at least.

  She looked at Jason. “How much farther to the—”

  There was a loud BANG!, and the steering wheel went spinning o
ut of Jason’s hands as the car fishtailed across lanes of dead traffic, clipping the fender of an ancient Buick en route to the opposite side of the street. Brix screeched in fright as the car bounced up over a curb and careened into the parking lot of a convenience store. The car crashed to a halt as it collided with a gas pump, resulting in a rending screech of shredded metal.

  Brix lurched forward then rocked backward into her seat.

  She glanced in numb shock at Jason. “The fuck happened?”

  He looked stunned, too, and could only shake his head. “Dunno. Blew out a tire, I guess. We’re just lucky—”

  There was another loud, cracking sound.

  Something smashed into the dash between them, destroying the stereo.

  They both glanced backward and saw the splintered glass of the rear window. The truth of what was happening hit them simultaneously. There was no time to discuss or debate the obvious. Someone was shooting at them and they were sitting ducks.

  Jason threw his door open and scrambled out of the car. Brix quickly followed suit. Jason dashed across the parking lot and climbed over a small, landscaped hill lined with bushes. Again, no time for debate and one direction was as good as another under the circumstances, so Brix followed him up the hill and into the parking lot of the bar next to the convenience store. Yet another shot rang out and sparks flew up from the asphalt near Jason as he raced at high speed toward the bar, which the marquee on the sign above the parking lot told her was called the Boro Bar and Grill. Beneath the establishment’s name, spelled out in changeable block letters:

  TONIGHT ONLY! THE LIKES OF US & STALLION.

  Local bands, probably.

  She doubted either of them would actually be here tonight.

  Show cancelled due to zombie apocalypse.

  Three more loud rifle reports in rapid succession drove the thought from her mind.

  A slug creased Jason across the right bicep, but he kept going. Brix felt like she was about to come out of her skin as she continued to follow him. Knowing a bullet from the unknown, unseen assailant could take her down any second was unbearable. She felt more helpless and scared and vulnerable than ever. And she knew one thing with absolute clarity—despite everything that had happened, despite the loss of her great love, she wanted to go on living. More than anything, she wanted that.

  The front door of the bar came open as Jason reached it.

  Actually, an instant before he reached it.

  There was no time to ponder this new mystery. And no doubt at all as to the only path available to her now.

  She followed Jason through the open door into the Boro Bar and Grill.

  And then the door slammed shut.

  Chapter Twenty

  He wished they would hurry up and kill him. And not just because the things they were doing to him were causing wave upon endless wave of mind-shattering agony. No, the real reason he craved death was because the memories were coming back. Previously they had hidden away in some remote, impenetrable corner of his mind, thanks to an alcoholic blackout. But the intense pain had brought them screaming back to the surface, searing his consciousness with images so vividly lurid in their obscene sickness he would give anything to stop seeing them. Anything, including his life. Maybe even especially that.

  Because how could he ever live with the knowledge that he had butchered Marie?

  He should have guessed it from the beginning. He saw that now. How obvious it was. It was tragically absurd that he’d ever managed to convince himself some stranger had come into their apartment and done those awful things to Marie while leaving him completely unscathed. He had blinded himself to the truth. The massive quantity of alcohol he’d consumed was largely to thank for that, but now he was as sober as he had ever been and there would never again be any hiding from what he had done.

  The only solace available now was the sweet oblivion of death. He had no doubt these sick bastards would grant him that release eventually. But they clearly intended to stretch the process out as long as possible.

  He sat at a round kitchen table. Long, thick nails had been hammered through his hands, pinning them to the table’s surface. The flat heads of the nails rested flush with his bloody flesh. He was missing three fingers at this point, two from the left hand and one from the right. The stumps of his severed fingers were sickening blackened lumps. One of the guys, a tall blond guy the others called Rob, had cauterized the wounds with a welder’s torch. A gorgeous young woman with hair an even brighter shade of blonde sat in the chair next to him. She was scantily clad, wearing only tight denim cutoffs and a bikini top. Her skin was flawless and her hair looked like she was freshly emerged from an expensive Hollywood salon. Except for the meat cleaver grasped lightly in her slender right hand, she looked like the poster child for the American youth’s beauty ideal.

  Sometimes the others called her Mercedes, but mostly they called her Heidi. It was strange how they randomly alternated between the names. John supposed Heidi was her real name. Not that he cared. By any name, she was a sadistic bitch.

  Heidi, smiling, lifted the cleaver and placed the sharp edge against the pinky finger on his right hand. “Ready to say goodbye to another little piggy, Johnny?”

  John sniffled. “Please…just kill me.”

  His crying earned their mocking laughter. Little did they know the primary source of his emotional misery was something other than their heartless cruelty.

  In reality, he was no better than them.

  The way her flesh yielded so easily to each thrust of the heavy butcher’s knife had come as a revelation. The first time he had rammed it into Marie’s body he’d been consumed with a storm of emotions. Rage, first and foremost. He had been out of work for so long. All he did was sit around the house and drink beer. He was drinking too much and getting too fat. He wouldn’t easily be able to find another job if he kept on being a fat, drunken pig.

  These were some of the things she told him prior to her death. Normally she was so quiet, and so prone to keep things to herself. But not that day. That day she finally let it out. All her frustrations. All her disappointments. She’d had enough. She was thinking of leaving him. She couldn’t go on living with someone so lazy.

  And so he had snapped. He was stronger than her. And she was so tiny. She never had any kind of chance. Despite his rage, he felt a great sickness at what he was doing in the beginning. But that subsided as the assault continued. It got easier each time he thrust the knife inside her. And easier still each time he ripped it from her body and saw the blood leap from the rents in her flesh. An unfamiliar, strange kind of madness rode roughshod over him for the duration of the assault. He’d never felt anything like it. And it allowed him to glory—to gloat—over the savaging of his wife’s body, which concluded via the pulping of her head with the heavy lamp base.

  After it was over, he’d thrown the knife under the bed. And had changed clothes. Somehow, despite the madness and savagery of it all, he’d the presence of mind to do that. He recalled thinking he might concoct some kind of cover story, but realized the forensic evidence would show the truth plainly enough. That was when the wild elation of what he’d done gave way to reality and despair. He sobbed and sobbed, truly regretful for what he’d done. Not knowing what else to do, he drank until he passed out.

  Until he couldn’t remember having done that awful, unforgivable thing.

  Heidi abruptly raised the cleaver and slammed it to the table. John howled in agony yet again as the sharp blade punched easily through his little finger, separating it from the rest of his hand with a terrible ease that seemed fundamentally wrong. She swept the blade away from his hand, sending the severed digit spinning toward the center of the table. John’s whole body shook from the pain. Then he convulsed again, harder this time, as Rob leaned in with the torch and applied the flame to his bleeding flesh. The agony was searing and for long moments made him forget all about what he’d done to Marie.

  The aroma of sizzling meat assailed hi
s nostrils and stung his eyes. But the smell had more than one source. His singed wounds were one, of course. His stomach churned as he watched another girl pluck the pinky finger from the center of the table and carry it over to the stove, where she dropped it in a pan with the rest of his missing fingers. He heard the snap and spark of spattered cooking oil, a sound repeated when she dumped in some seasonings.

  Heidi smiled. “Six little piggies left. Why don’t you pick the next one to go, Johnny?”

  He glared at her. “Go…to…hell.”

  Heidi tossed her long blonde locks and laughed as if she’d never heard anything so funny. “That’s a riot, Johnny. Wanna know why?” She leaned closer to him, her big, leering grin twisting in a way that conveyed a gleeful sadism and savagery. “Because I’ve got a long life ahead of me. I’m young and I’m gonna have a lot more fucking fun before I’m done. But you, Johnny…” she rapped the edge of the cleaver blade against the table, laughing at the wince this elicited from him, “…you’re the one who just bought a one-way ticket to hell, you fat bag of shit. Because you know what, Johnny? I do believe in heaven and hell, Lord Satan and God above, and all the rest of that shit, too. But I don’t fear damnation because I know Satan watches over me and sees that I serve him well. I’ll have an exalted place in hell when my time finally comes.

  “You, though, you’re just a blubbering blob, a fucking waste of humanity. You killed your wife, sure, but Satan sees your regret. Eternal torment awaits ordinary, regretful sinners like you.” Her eyes sparkled with a malign hatefulness. “An eternity that’ll be beginning in just about, oh, five more minutes.”

  Despite the enormous pain still gripping him, John listened to the girl’s speech with an increasing fascination of the morbid variety. He couldn’t recall confessing to the murder of his wife out loud, but there’d been many moments of intense, agony-induced delirium, so it was hardly surprising. Also, he’d understood from the outset that he was dealing with a group of uniquely deranged and cruel individuals, but now it was clear they were far more unhinged than he’d even imagined.