“They don’t deadbolt or anything,” Charlene said. “Just a simple lock on the handle.”

“Push everything we can up against the doors,” Megan said. She and Kia moved about the kitchen.

“There really isn’t anything. The counters are bolted. The stoves are commercial. There’s nothing we can use to barricade the doors,” Kia said.

The crash was loud. There was no mistaking what had just happened. The glass had shattered. The zombies stormed the cafeteria.

“Dad!” Charlene had her back pressed to the door.

“We’re going to have to make a run for it,” Dave said.

“A run?” Megan said.

“We’ll be trapped in here,” I said.

“There are just as many out there,” Kia said, she was on the sink counter, looking out the window.

I could hear their feet on the gymnasium-like flooring, squeaking and sliding as they pushed against the closed door, and pounded on the wood.

“Not going to be able to hold this closed,” Dave said. He and Melissa pressed against their door.

“We’re going to have to leave all the supplies?” Megan said.

“Yes,” I said. “I don’t see any other way.”

“But Gene’s not back,” Melissa said. “I can’t leave without Gene.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell her, especially right now, that Gene and Andy probably weren’t going to make it back. They’d been gone hours. If they had not returned yet, there was a good chance they were dead, or worse. “They’ll find us,” is what I said. “If you stay, you’re not going to make it. Gene wants you to live, Melissa. He told me so. He told me to protect you when he wasn’t here. That’s what I’m going to do.” I tried not to think about Cash or Alley. I’d sucked at protecting them. “We can’t stay here. Any of us. We have to make a run for it.”

“Run where?” Megan said. “I mean, we throw open that back door, and fight through the zombies back there, and then what? Run where?”

“We’ve got to go to someplace where Gene can find me, find us,” Melissa said.

“And where is that?” I said.

The door Charlene was backed up to budged. I heard wood split. “Dad!”

Kia ran at the door, arms out. She pressed her weight against it. We needed to move. Now we had a bigger problem. Charlene’s door was busted. If we ran, if Kia and she moved, the zombies would be on us fast. The time to run, to get out the back door safely, had passed. Now we had zombies waiting outside, and zombies about to bust into the kitchen.

“Megan, Melissa, get by the back door,” I said. This was going to have to be fast. Real fast. “Everyone have your weapons ready.”

There was another crashing sound. Dave grunted. “They’re getting in, Chase. We can’t hold them.”

Melissa turned, and like Kia, stood with her hands pressed against the door--pushing her weight to hold it closed.

“It’s going to be on three. The four of you, let go of your doors and run for the exit, I’m going to cover you,” I said, pointing at Dave, Melissa and Charlene and Kia. I held my sword in both hands, ready. “Megan, when I say open that door, you throw it open, and then you and Michelle start clearing a path for us.”

It was not a lot of space to cover. From where Dave and Melissa stood to the back door, it was about twenty-five feet. They had to skirt around counters. Charlene and Kia had a more direct path from point A to point B. Still had some skirting around things, but less of it.

And there would be me, running interference. I nodded at Dave. We’d known each other long enough, been through enough, that he knew I was going to make sure they made it out of the school, that if anything happened to me, Charlene was his responsibility. “On three,” I said.

There was no counting.

The door Charlene and Kia blocked split at the hinges.

“Run,” I said. “Just run!”

As Charlene and Kia ran, the door fell. It slammed to the floor. Zombies clogged the doorway, shoulder to shoulder. It was almost comical. “Go, Dave, go!”

The door he and Melissa guarded remained closed.

I swung my sword at the first zombie into the kitchen. My blade decapitated the thing. It took several more steps toward me and fell. The two behind it stumbled over the corpse, tripped and fell.

The other four were out the door. I heard something honk. Had to be a horn. It just sounded out of place.

The bus.

I turned and fled. I left the kitchen, pulling closed that door. It was steel. It should hold them for a moment. The fire safety bar across the middle of the door did not take a genius to operate. Once they pushed on it, the door would open. It was that simple.

Bus was not the right word for what sat parked at the back of the school. I remembered taking Cash and Charlene to see the Monster Truck Show at the War Memorial one winter. Beefed up Pick-up trucks with giant wheels and tires rolled over and crushed lined of cars. This…bus, easily fit into the monster category. Cash could have stood inside the wheels. The thing was painted a flat black. The windows were reinforced with black painted steel. The front end was the best part. Gene had mentioned a cattle scoop, like those found on the front of a train. But what I was looking at was an industrial size plow. It wasn’t for snow removal, though. The “V” blade sat six inches off the parking lot, and went as high as the front windshield.  Overall, it had to be almost six feet tall. Gene was right. It should cut through traffic without as much as a hiccup.

The bus passenger door swooshed open. Gene smiled behind the wheel. “Climb on board, Chase.”

The cafeteria door kicked open. The hungry zombies growled as they filed out of the school. I ran and followed everyone up and into the bus. Gene pulled the handle and closed the doors. A gate unrolled, like one you’d see at a mall department store at closing time.

“Just lock those in place by your feet.” Gene pointed. I bent and secured the locks as zombies beat at the closed door. “They can’t get in, but even if they broke down that door, with this gate down, they still can’t get in.”

I stood up. Gene could not wipe that grin away if I’d begged him. “You like it?”

“This is the shit,” I said.

“I rigged the tank. It holds nearly 200 gallons of gas. Gets about 10 miles per gallon. That’s highway. But still, should be enough to get us from here to Mexico, if you can believe that. Andy was able to grab us some maps,” Gene said.

I heard paper ruffle and looked back. Andy unfolded a map. “We’re going to cross through five states. The fifth is Texas. From here to the border, it’s exactly 1,680 miles. Mostly highway,” he said.

“We drive straight through, take turns at the wheel, thirty-five hours or so, we can be there.” Gene put the bus in drive, kept his foot on the break. “What do you say, we done here?”

“Lot of supplies by the door,” Charlene said. “I mean, a lot of supplies.”

“A lot of zombies, too,” Melissa said.

“This bus has everything we could want, I assure you,” Gene said.

Megan shrugged. “Then I say we’re done. Let’s move out.”

Kia and Allison sat in seats one in front of the other. Each had their back pressed to the wall and a knee on the seat so that they weren’t so much sitting, but kind of standing in a way they could face everything on the bus. They both nodded, and Kia flashed a thumbs up.

“I say we roll,” Andy said.

“Charlene?” Gene said.

She looked at the school, at me, and finally at Gene. “Mexico or bust.”

Gene smiled, showed all of his teeth and then cast his eyes on me. “And Chase?”

I hated leaving the food, and the medical supplies. There was nothing we could do about it. We couldn’t risk going back for it. “Mexico. I agree. Let’s move out!”

Chapter Twenty-Two