I smiled. Snapped my fingers. “Now you got it. Now you get it.” I gave her a kiss, a quick hug.  “We’re going to figure something out. I just need my kids,” I spoke softly. I knew, regardless, that I’d been a dick. “Okay? I need your help to get there, to get them. And then we’re out of here.”

“To Mexico?”

“Right. As of now, it’s what I’m thinking.”

“And we’re going to be okay?”

I squeezed her hand. “We have to be strong. Right now, we’ve got to be like, I don’t know, warriors. Can you do that?”

She nodded. “I can.”

“Us. Together,” I said, used the back of my hand to brush the tears off her cheeks.

“We got this. Let’s get your . . . What was that?”

I’d heard it. From off the shoulder. Something climbing up the sloped embankment. Street lights lit the road. Anything off the road was shrouded in darkness. Mostly.

I saw it. Them. Faces.

“Allison, run! Run, Allison!”

Chapter Eleven

The keys were in the ignition. It was no SUV, but the Chrysler at least looked like it had balls. Big tires and a solid frame. It was better than walking. Except, it didn’t start. Key turned; something spun and churned, but failed to connect. I need that something to kick over and the engine to rev into life.

“They’re getting closer.” Allison sat next to me, on her knees. She stared out windows—not just one, all of them—looking for zombies. Since ditching the SUV at the start of the expressway ramp, we’d been stuck, working to find a vehicle ahead of the disabled and abandoned cars that clogged the road leading toward Lyell Avenue.

“Think it’s flooded,” I said. I wanted to punch the dash. It wouldn’t do a thing to help, except make me feel better.

“How long until it’s not flooded.”

Time was always the best way to fix such a problem. “A few more seconds before I try again.”

“I don’t think we’ve got that. They’re right outside the car.” Allison held her tire iron in two hands. Not like a ball player up to bat. More like a child clutching a blankie after a nightmare.

“How many you see?” My dad had showed me a way to beat a flooded engine. Thing was, if it didn’t work, then I’d be guaranteed to have flooded it more.

“Three. No,” she said, “four. I see four. All coming up behind the car.”

“That it? Just four?” Four was plenty. Too many. But four was better than ten, or even five.

“It’s all I see. So far. Just them, just four.”

“I’m going to try something. If the car doesn’t start, you slide over. You get ready to try it again,” I said.

“And where will you be?”

“I’m going to get rid of those things. I don’t know how this works. If they smell us, or each other. Know what I mean? All I’ve got is what I’ve seen in movies. How fucked up is that?” The call I’d taken at work, from the scientist, he’d said the things were hungry, and could only be killed for good if the head—the brain—was destroyed. I mean, that was as zombie as you get. Walking Dead shit right here.

“You’re not getting out of the car,” she said.

“We don’t have time to argue.”

“Try it,” she said, “just do it.”

Cars were all fuel injection. This thing shouldn’t happen. Might not even be flooded. Might just be broken. I pushed the accelerator to the floor. All the way. I didn’t pump the pedal. Just held it all the way down. I turned the key.

Realized I was holding my breath when nothing happened, and I exhaled. “Shit.”

I reached for the door handle. I didn’t think it was flooded. Didn’t think it was going to start. Ever. Effectively, Allison and I were trapped.

“Where are you going?”

“This car isn’t going to work.” I gripped my tire iron. “Wait here.”

I looked out the back windshield. Four fucking zombies. One. Two. Three. Four.

When I opened the door, I climbed out quickly, feet on loose gravel, my balance shot to shit, my right foot slid, leg extended and I went down. I didn’t scream when I banged my elbow on the pavement, but I winced.

Allison screamed.

If surprise had been in our favor, maybe I’d of had the upper hand. On my ass outside the car with Allison calling out asking if I’m okay, no, nah. The element of surprise was wasted. Gone.

One of the things stumbled around toward me. It seemed slow moving. Not fast. I was trying to learn, to figure out what kind of enemy we were up against. It was like anything else. Some were fast, others slow. I’d bet some smart and some dumb as all get out. The only thing in common that I’d noticed across the board, was that they were ugly, horrendously ugly.

I took a swipe with the iron at the thing’s leg. The thunk against bone felt hollow, and did little to slow the zombie. As it dropped to its knees, and brought its face close to mine, I tried again. Think I screamed as I swung the iron at its head. The way it had me pinned, the open car door, I had no room to angle, no way to gain momentum. I tried punching him with my weapon. It did little.

He opened his mouth. Did I see flesh wedged and flapping between the small gap in his front teeth?

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to die. It was that I couldn’t. My kids were out there. Scared shitless. Alone. Their fucking mother was trying to eat them. I couldn’t die now, not like this – not just hours into this nightmare. I’ve been fighting against shit all my life, more so since the divorce. I wasn’t giving up here, going to die here, let this drool-faced beast eat me!

When his head shot forward, I thought it was over. Thought I was wrong, that I was going to die. When I saw the tire iron sticking out of a split skull, I let my eyes look up.

Allison breathed heavy. She’d let go of her iron, perhaps because it looked wedged in place.

That was one down, out. Three to go.

“Behind you,” I said, rolling the dead thing off me.

I got to my feet told Allison to duck, and swung my iron, full swing. The lug nut end slammed like a piston into the woman’s ear. The zombie cried out, shrieked. It backed up, backed away. Hands covered the ear. Blood poured, spewed from between fingers. I didn’t give it time to rebound.

“I can’t get mine out of his head,” Allison said. She grunted. I envisioned her foot on the back of its neck as she attempted to dislodge the weapon, as if she was Arthur retrieving her Excalibur.

I swung again. The woman, already badly injured, didn’t do anything except take it. In the temple. Bone shattered. Flattened. She went down. Hands no longer over her ear, but with arms straight out at her side. If that brain still pumped activity or energy through the body, I’d clunk myself in the fucking head next time.

Two down.

I spun around, expecting to have to help Allison. She chopped through the air with her iron. With a large arch that started at the spine of her back, up over her head and finished by smashing down onto the crown of the third zombie.

Stepping around my woman, I used the pointed end of my iron like a dagger. The man looked young. Early twenties. I saw nothing human in his facial expression. He didn’t come at me. He stayed by the car behind the Chrysler. Like he’d been watching it all. As if he’d just seen three of his friends pummeled to death, but didn’t have the balls to jump in and help. It was almost like if he wasn’t hungry, craving a bite out of me and Allison, that he might be tempted to turn and run.

I didn’t know how to handle that.

“Alley,” I said.

She stood next to me. “What’s it doing?”

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

“Kill it?”

“Let’s back away. See what it does.” I put my arm out. It didn’t do a thing to protect Allison. The gesture made me feel better. I’d used it hundreds of times when driving. Threw my arm out in front of Charlene—even Julie when we were married—whenever I had to stop faster than normal. Of course, they’d worn seat belts. Again, it wouldn’t do a thing to protect either one of them if we’d been involved in a collision. It was about the gesture.