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At first, only a few undead stumble out of the dark. One drags itself from the doorway of a pharmacy, jaw hanging loose and one eye missing. Another turns from the middle of the street, gray hands lifting toward the sound. Then more appear from alleys, smashed shop windows, between cars, and from the shadows under the elevated tracks. They come in jerks and sways, heads snapping toward the noise like flowers turning toward the sun.
If flowers were rotten and wanted to eat our faces.
One of them shuffles out from behind a stalled minivan wearing the most aggressively Dad outfit I have ever seen. Grass-stained New Balances. Cargo shorts. A tucked-in polo stretched over a bloated stomach. A cracked cell phone still clipped to his belt like he might need to answer a work email after gnawing on someone’s tibia.
“Wow,” I mutter. “Suburban dads really did survive everything.”
Leon’s mouth twitches again, but he presses the accelerator.
Our car surges forward, music blasting from the portable speaker duct-taped to the roof. The bass rattles through the car’s frame. The rearview mirror trembles. Every beat feels like a dare.
The first infected hits the back bumper with both hands.
THUD.
Another slams into the passenger side, fingers scraping across the glass. Its mouth smears black gore over the window before it slips away, leaving a streak of teeth marks and stringy saliva behind.
“Gross,” I mutter.
Leon lifts my hand and kisses my knuckles without looking away from the road.
There should be rules that a man can’t be terrifying, sexy, sweet, and deadly at the same time.
The walkie crackles.
“Status,” Lyla says.
Jacob answers first. “We have a conga line of corpses, and Earl is judging my driving.”
“I am not judging,” Earl says. “I am fearing for my life.”
“Same thing.”
Trish comes next, breathless. “I’ve got at least forty behind me and one stuck in the grille. It keeps flopping around every time I hit a bump.”
A wet thump echoes faintly through her transmission.
Trish adds, “Correction. Half of one stuck in the grille.”
Joanie whoops in the background of Carlos’s transmission as a car horn blasts. “Horn of justice!”
A long, furious blast cuts through the city.
Carlos’s voice follows, strained. “Joanie, stop leaning out the window.”
“I’m inspiring them!”
I grip the walkie and glance into the rearview mirror. The street behind us is filling fast. “We’ve got at least thirty behind us.”
Leon guides our car around an overturned bus, tires crunching over glass, plastic, and brittle bone. Behind us, the horde thickens in the rearview mirror, a lurching mass of blue-gray skin, torn clothes, dragging limbs, and open mouths. Some are missing cheeks. Some have ribs exposed through shredded shirts. One wears a stained purple shirt that reads I made it to the end of the world and all I got was this stupid t-shirt.
I chuckle at that one.
One of them slams into the trunk hard enough to jolt the car. Another hooks its fingers under the cracked rear window seal and hangs on, face bouncing against the glass as its teeth snap over and over. Its lips have rotted back from its gums, making it look like it’s grinning at us. The window rattles under its weight, and a thin crack starts in one corner.
I twist in my seat. “Leon.”
He glances in the mirror.
