No one replied; we simply took off running down the road, eventually splitting into two groups—Joe, Willow and I ran in the direction of our truck, while Davey and Britta headed toward theirs.
“Logan!” Willow was slashing wildly at three converging Creepers, panic causing her to miss her marks. With a heaving grunt, I shoved away the one I’d just killed and grabbed one of her attackers, sending a blade into the base of its skull. Grabbing another around its neck, I dragged it away from Willow while she kicked the third in the knees, sending it sprawling to the ground. Finishing them off, we took off running again, soon closing in on the truck. Joe was already there, shoving Creepers out of his way as he wrestled to open the tailgate.
“Keep ‘em off me!” he shouted, crawling inside the cage, kicking frantically at the mottled hands grasping for him. Willow and I dragged his attackers off him, killing them quickly, and then attempting to keep the rest at bay. It was a futile effort—there were just too many of them.
“Willow, get in the truck!” I shouted, shoving her behind me as I took a shot at an approaching Creeper. Shouts arose; somewhere someone was screaming. Distracted, my aim was off; the bullet clipped the Creeper’s shoulder, sending it stumbling back. I aimed again, this time the shot found purchase between its eyes.
“Get down!” Joe bellowed from inside the cage. “Get the fuck down!”
I dropped down just as gunfire exploded above me, a steady stream of bullets flying overhead into the approaching mass of bodies. I rolled beneath the truck, shouting Willow’s name. If she answered me, I didn’t hear her. All I could hear was the sound of the rapid-fire machine gun above me, loud enough to hurt my ears. From my hiding place beneath the truck, I watched as Creepers dropped in mass numbers, only to be replaced by new ones.
I heard the snarl too late; having crawled beneath the truck, the Creeper was already upon me by the time I noticed it. I grabbed its fast-approaching face, digging my fingers into the rotted skin around its mouth, forcing its snapping maw away from me. I released it with just enough time to shoot it straight through its open mouth; the back of its head exploding, blood and brain matter spraying like confetti. Rolling out from beneath the truck, I found myself face to face with another Creeper.Bang—I sent it flying backward with a bullet to its face.
Someone was shouting—it was Britta, I realized. She was standing on the top of her truck, a shotgun in hand, shouting as she fired. Meanwhile, Davey’s bloodied form was half slumped over the truck’s windshield, slowly sinking down to the hood.
“Come and get it, motherfuckers!” Britta stomped her feet on the roof of the truck. “I’ll kill every last one of you, ya hear me! I’ll kill all y’all!”
The world was madness. Nothing but noise and death and more death.
“Logan!”
I whirled around at the sound of Willow’s voice, relieved to find her inside the truck, beckoning me through the partially open door. “I’ve got Joe’s keys!”
“Move over,” I demanded, climbing into the driver’s seat as she scrambled to get out of my way. “And tell Joe to hang on to something.”
Jamming the key into the ignition, I stepped on the gas, making a sharp U-turn in the center of the road and plowing down Creepers as I pulled up alongside Britta’s truck. “Get on!” I shouted. Only Britta was oblivious—she was still screaming, still brandishing her weapon despite having run out of ammunition. Creepers were quickly converging on both vehicles, grasping at Davey’s prone body. Sprawled on the hood of the truck, Davey’s eyes were wide and unseeing, a mouth-sized gash in his neck, blood still spurting from the wound.
“Britta—get on the fucking truck!” I barked. “Get on the goddamn truck right now!”
Britta’s bloodshot eyes dropped in my direction, a grin on her dirt-streaked face. “I’m not goin’ anywhere, Eddie! Those motherfuckers killed Davey—then they went and bit me!” She pointed to her ankle, where the cuff of her jeans were ripped and dotted with blood.
Even over the gunfire in the back, I heard Willow’s sharp intake of air. “Britta!” she screamed, leaning over me. “Get on the truck—get on the fucking truck right now!”
The shooting abruptly stopped; the groans and growls of the dead rose in earnest. “I’m out!” Joe shouted. “It’s time to get the hell outta dodge, folks.”
“You heard Joey,” Britta proclaimed to the sky. “Time for y’all to get a move on.”
“Britta!” Willow was verging on hysterical—it was all I could do to keep her from climbing over me and out the window. “Please get on the truck!Logan, make her get on the truck!”
“Britta,” I spat through clenched teeth. “If you don’t get your ass on this truck, we’re going to get mobbed and we’re all going to die. Is that what you want—you want all our deaths on your hands?”
Britta’s wild-eyed gaze landed on me, still bizarrely smiling. “Well, dang, Eddie, you sure know how to hit a girl where it hurts, dontcha?”
With a resigned sigh, she tossed her shotgun in the air, catching it and twirling it around. Holding it like a golf club, she sent the grip of the gun slamming into the head of a Creeper crawling up the windshield. “That’s for Davey,” she snarled. Another toss of her weapon, another twirl, too, and then Britta sent the battered tip of her boot straight into the face of a Creeper dangling from the side of the truck. “And that one’s for me, you goddamn, stupid, ugly fuckers!”
“Britta!” Willow continued to scream. “Get on the fucking truck!”
“Christ on a goddang cracker, Willow,” Britta said. “I’m fuckin’ comin’.” Leaping across vehicles, she landed with an audible thud on the roof above me.
“Hang on to something!” I shouted, stomping on the gas once more. The tires spun, kicking up gore as the truck blasted forward, the plow swiping oncoming Creepers off their feet and out of the way.
“We’ve got to stop!” Willow cried. “We’ve got to stop and help her!”
Swerving sharply right, clipping the corner of a cluster of Creepers, I ground out, “I can’t stop here—they’ll be on us again in minutes.”
Flying at top speed down the interstate, I took the first exit, pulling into an abandoned strip mall. Willow had thrown open the door before the truck was fully stopped, clambering out onto the pavement with a yelp. Cursing, I threw the truck into PARK and rushed outside to help her. Joe, too, had flown from the back of the truck, climbing up the cage toward the roof. Meanwhile, Britta was seated between the two racks of floodlights on the roof, her legs dangling over the windshield, looking substantially less stricken than the rest of us.
“Where’s the bite, Brit?” Joe was frantic, hauling Britta off the truck. Depositing her onto the pavement, he quickly sliced open the leg of her jeans, revealing a very red and angry imprint of teeth just above her ankle. There wasn’t much blood; it was mostly a surface wound. But in the end that wouldn’t matter. The bite had pierced the skin and once the infection spread to the bloodstream, no one lasted very long.
