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A shriek came from the hospital. Nancy couldn’t tear her eyes away from the hoard, but she soon heard several more screams and the air around her became filled with gun shots. It was chaos. Most of the zombies broke off from the street and ran straight for the gates blocking the front entrance to the building. The rest continued toward the parking lot, their rotting hands shaking at the handmade fences and barricades. A few undead heads exploded as Aria’s gang fought back to the best of their ability. Regardless of her feelings toward the people in that hospital, Nancy found herself hoping that they had more ammo than she suspected they had. She grabbed Greg by the collar of his shirt and hauled him toward the back seat to give Ken more room to work. As an afterthought she reached up and flicked the switch on the driver’s side door that locked the doors. She didn’t know if the zombies had gotten smarter when they’d gotten faster, but she wasn’t taking any chances.

“Hurry!” Greg cried at Ken. His face was pale as a ghost. “They’re coming! Hurry!”

Several sections of fence fell under the sheer force of the wave of bodies. The clatter of metal hitting the asphalt rang out. The mass moved forward.

“I’m trying! I’m trying!” Ken screamed. Another spark, and the smell of burnt flesh accompanied his cries.

The light from the moon disappeared as the car was overrun. Nancy and Greg screamed and the baby wailed, confused and miserable. They were surrounded on all sides by blood and decomposing flesh. Bony hands with the muscles hanging off the fingers grabbed and pounded at the windows. Tongues lolled at them and rotting black teeth tried to bite their way through the vehicle. Bodily fluids ran down the body of the car like a disgusting, macabre car wash. Gary grabbed the katana and held it pointed at the windows. It was a gesture of fear alone; the only way he could fight back was by breaking a window and thus destroying the only barrier they had between life and death.

The windows began to groan under the pressure of the combined bodies. Nancy found herself sobbing, gripping the baby a little too tightly. She prayed. Though she’d never in her life believed in God, she prayed.

“Got it!” Ken’s scream was pitched high in both panic and relief as the engine suddenly revved to life. He was off the floor and in the driver’s seat in less than two seconds. He shoved the gear shift to drive and pushed the pedal right to the floor.

For one terrible moment it didn’t seem that the car was even going to move, but then a few bodies stumbled out of the way. The zombies clinging to the rear tripped as the bumper moved from beneath them. Just as the car was starting to pick up a bit of speed, another car appeared through the mass and they crashed. Two groaning bodies were pinned between the two vehicles. Ken cursed, put the car in reverse, and ran over a line of zombies before shifting into drive and taking off again.

It was like driving through a fog made of monsters. They could barely see where they were going for the crowds of clawing, screaming zombies trying to smash into their car. Ken lost a side mirror against a van and almost totaled them when a half-ton truck seemed to appear out of nowhere. They knocked down zombies as they went and the car, which wasn’t meant for this kind of abuse, struggled to move over top of them. Just as Nancy spotted a glimpse of fence that indicated they’d made it to the road, a crash made her heart leap into her throat. A zombie who had been a man on the edge of obesity had leaped at their front window and landed with a sickening, wet-sounding thud. A large spiderweb crack appeared in the middle of the window. Greg moved to aim the katana at the point of weakness, but when the fat zombie moved to smash the window in Ken turned hard to the right and it went toppling to the side. The second the obstruction was gone, Ken aimed for the road and pushed the engine as hard as it could go.

As they smashed through the edges of the hoard, leaving pools of blood and body parts all over the road, Nancy looked back at the hospital. Aria’s gang members were shooting from every window they could cover. There were lots of good shots, but they only had a modest pile of kills mounting on their step while hundreds more stormed onward, relentless. With a wave of pity Nancy realized that they weren’t going to survive this attack. They’d amassed a large group of people and a good supply of weapons, but their ammo was limited and only a head shot was worth making. The zombies knew where they were now, they would get in, and everyone inside was going to die. She couldn’t help but see the face of the old woman who had assured Nancy that God would save her.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that the figure on the wall was still just standing there, still just watching...

“Nancy? Nancy?”

She looked for the person calling her name. Zombies were still leaping at the car, but with wide eyes that refused to blink Ken was managing to weave between them, making his way down to clear road. It was Greg who had spoken to Nancy.

“Nancy,” he said quietly. His lips were dry and his hands were shaking violently. “Nancy, the baby is crying.”

He was in shock, Nancy realized. Hell, so was she.

She slowly looked down at the wailing child in her arms. She stared at the fussing, wet face for a moment before forcing a strange, twitchy smile. With tears running down her face and a waver in her voice, she began to sing.

“H-hush little b-baby...don’t s-say a word...M-mama’s gonna buy you a m-mockingb-bird...and if t-that mockingb-bird won’t sing...”

Chapter Ten

Nancy lay with her eyes closed and smiled. The warm sun was on her face, the cool wind whipping her hair. It was a beautiful day. The trees and grass were green and lush and the sky was a clear blue.

“Are you okay, my dear?”

Nancy opened her eyes and turned her head. Her grandmother Sarah sat beside her. Her gray hair was up in a tight bun atop her head and a pair of spectacles rested on her beautifully wrinkled nose. She was wearing a light blue sun dress, the one Nancy had given her for her 70th birthday.

“I’m fine, Gramma,” Nancy replied with a smile. “Why do you ask?”

Gramma Sarah smiled a sad smile and looked down at Nancy over the top of her spectacles. “I thought I heard you singing a sad song, my dear,” she explained. “Perhaps I was mistaken?”

Nancy thought for a moment and then frowned. “No, Gramma, you’re right. I was singing...”

Gramma Sarah nodded. “Would you like to talk about it, my love?”

Nancy shook her head. “No,” she cried, suddenly panicked. “No, I don’t want to talk about it. It- It never happened! No, it never happened!” She jumped to her feet and grabbed Gramma Sarah by the shoulders. “It never happened, right Gramma?!”

Gramma Sarah shook her head and sighed a sad sigh. “I’m so sorry, my little baby girl.” Her voice was full of sorrow. “I’m so sorry that you’ve had to go through all this.”

The sky began to turn gray as the sun disappeared behind a wall of clouds. Gramma Sarah’s eyes seemed to go glassy and her skin became pale.

“Gramma?” Nancy cried. “Gramma, what’s going on?”

“I’m sorry, Nancy. I’m so sorry.”

Nancy jumped back in alarm as Gramma Sarah’s arms began to shrink and shrivel. Her hair dried and cracked and the sun dress turned black and moldy. “Gramma!” Nancy screamed. “Gramma, don’t leave me! Don’t leave me here in this world!”

The sky was red. The world lit up under an enormous bolt of lighting and a crash of thunder shook the ground. Nancy screamed and dropped to her knees. She threw her arms over her head but she couldn’t escape the light or the noise. A hand touched her shoulder and she looked up with tear-filled eyes. Gramma Sarah, shriveled and crawling with all manner of insects, set a pair of blood-filled eyes toward her, and opened her mouth in a blood-curdling shriek.

“Nancy! Nancy, wake up!”

Nancy opened her eyes. Greg’s concerned face was looking down at her.

A dream. A nightmare, and a horrible one. She pushed herself into a sitting position. Her back cracked and popped painfully. She’d fallen asleep at an awful angle.

“You didn’t look like you were having an enjoyable dream, so I thought I’d better wake you,” Greg told her. He was awkwardly balancing Sarah in his arms while carefully tipping small sips of formula in her mouth.

“You probably did me a favor,” Nancy admitted. She yawned and stretched while taking a look around. Ken was still driving, his eyes bloodshot but wide open. The sun was high in the sky; Nancy estimated that they’d been driving for a good twelve hours. They were on a long stretch of empty road, with a relatively small-looking town approaching in the distance. The highway was spattered with abandoned vehicles, some of them totaled, some simply dropped in the middle of the road with the doors wide open. Amongst the bloodied bodies that Nancy had become accustomed to seeing, there was also a large assortment of dead animals. Raccoons, foxes, and even one wolf. Nancy found herself imagining zombie wolves and gave herself a mental slap across the face.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“Not sure,” Ken replied honestly. “I’ve just been taking the highways. Figured if we just keep driving-” He gripped the steering wheel and didn’t finish his sentence.

“We already stopped once and siphoned some gas out of two other cars,” Greg admitted. “We let you sleep because you looked exhausted and there was no one around, so no big deal.”

Nancy nodded.

“You want some food?” Ken asked. He rummaged through the bags they’d dropped on the passenger side seat and tossed back a bag of Doritos and a king-sized Mars bar. They’d taken mostly junk food with them from the hospital since it would keep, and though she knew they would eventually have to find something more nourishing, she accepted the food gratefully.

“The baby nibbled on a few Cheesies,” Greg said sheepishly. “She kept grabbing them out of my hand, so I thought she could try them.”

Nancy raised her eyebrows as she chewed a too-big bite of her bar. She supposed it was okay as long as he was careful to make sure she didn’t choke... And speaking of choking; Greg hurriedly shoved a bottle of Coke at her as she realized she’d overestimated the size of her mouth. A few moments of coughing and sputtering and almost making an embarrassing mess of herself, and she managed to force down the bite of bar. She took a few deep breaths before she resumed taking smaller bites. She was just so hungry all of a sudden that she wanted to inhale the candy.

“What were you dreaming about?” Greg asked.

Nancy thought for a moment about lying, but couldn’t think of a good reason to do so. She swallowed, took another bite, and spoke between chewing. “I was dreaming about my grandmother Sarah,” she told Greg. He raised his eyes when he realized how she’d chosen the orphan baby’s name. “She raised me because my parents died in a car crash when I was really young,” Nancy continued. “She was a sweet woman who treated me like I was her own daughter. She was even helping me save for college.” Here she stopped, smiled a bit, and then sighed. “But apparently she wasn’t up on things like insurance.”

“What do you mean?” Ken asked with a furrowed brow.

“She died of heart failure the year I would have gone away for college,” Nancy shared in a quiet voice. “Even though she left me everything, it was barely enough to pay for the funeral and get me through a few months of rent. I’ve been working at the bar ever since, just to keep the apartment while going to school.”

The men were silent for a few moments before Greg piped up again. “What were you taking?” he asked. “In college, I mean.”

“A little bit of everything,” Nancy told him with a half-smile. “I originally thought that I’d go into Sciences, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to major in, and I couldn’t afford a full course load anyway, so I aimed broad. I figured that eventually I’d come across something that made sense, even if it took me twice as long as normal to get there.” Her smile turned to a frown as she looked around at the quiet landscape full of dead wildlife and rotting human corpses. “That doesn’t seem very important anymore, though, does it?”

Greg hung his head at that and noticed that the baby was pulling at his shirt collar again. He couldn’t help but crack a grin. “You want her?” he asked Nancy. She graciously accepted and let the baby girl poke and prod her face with the curiosity of the young.

They were coming closer to the town now. Ken’s knuckles were turning white from having gripped the steering wheel for so long. “What do you think?” he asked no one in particular. “Should we try hitting the local supermarket?”

Nancy frowned, then nodded.

The mood was subdued as they rolled into town. They’d expected to see zombies roaming the streets, but there were none. They could see proof of the plague everywhere - splatters of blood on anything and everything, a few cars flipped in ditches and smashed into trees - but there wasn’t a single person, dead or alive, to be seen. Ken drove in circles around town a few times to prove to himself that the place was abandoned before pulling in front of a supermarket that had a set of gas pumps off to the side.

“Do you think there’s any power?” Greg wondered allowed. “We could fill ‘er up if the pumps work...”

Ken glanced at the fuel gage. “Why don’t you check it out while Nancy and I check out the store,” he suggested.

Somewhat reluctantly, Nancy handed the baby back to Greg. It would be easier to gather supplies without her hands full. “I’ll try to find something yummy for you, sweetie,” she told the child as she trotted away.

The supermarket was locked, but it had the typical large glass window-doors. Ken smashed one to pieces with a large rock. Nancy helped clear away the shards of glass before he reached through and undid the locks. They couldn’t seem to find the lights, but the building had a number of skylights so it wasn’t too dark. Ken reached over a cash register and grabbed a fistful of plastic bags, of which he handed half to Nancy. They set off cautiously.

Most of the produce was black and stinking, having been sitting out for several weeks, but Nancy painstakingly picked through it and managed to find a bag of potatoes, two small bags of onions, and a couple of oranges that were still holding up. From there she went to the baby aisle, where she grabbed a few bottles, and swept as much of the powdered formula and glass jars of baby food into the bags as she could carry. After hauling everything out to the trunk of the car, she returned and grabbed several packs of diapers. While she was on the way out with this pile she met up with Ken, who was struggling with several bags filled with canned foods. When she asked if he needed help he handed her a separate bag filled with a dozen can openers. Nancy gave him a funny look and he simply said, “Backups.”

They spent twenty minutes piling whatever they could into every spare inch of the car. They grabbed as much bottled water as they could without weighing the vehicle down too much, and reluctantly passed over the delicious-looking frozen entrees. Everything in the freezers had melted when the power gave out, and even if it hadn’t, they had no way to store or cook the food anyway. While Nancy and Ken were busy with the food and baby supplies, Greg had managed to find the backup generator in the gas station, got a pump running, and filled up the car. He’d also grabbed flashlights, batteries, a road safety kit, and a large carton of cigarettes. When Nancy saw the cigarettes she gave him a very hard look. He tried to defend his choice for a moment, with a look of amusement from Ken, but Nancy gestured toward the baby and made it very clear that if he wanted to smoke he was staying behind. With a huff of defeat, Greg tossed the cigs out the car window.

“Maybe we should stay here for a while,” he suggested then, surveying the town. “It’s so quiet, and we seem to have the supermarket all to ourselves.”

“I don’t know about settling in,” Ken disagreed. “But we could certainly find somewhere to sleep for a while. Get our strength back, you know?” He certainly looked like he needed it.

Nancy wasn’t sure herself how she wanted to weigh in on the subject, so she changed it. “I’m just going to go use the washroom before we leave,” she told them, and headed into the gas station before they could object.

Because Greg had started the generator, Nancy was able to turn the lights on in the washroom, for which she was terribly thankful. She chose a stall and laid a few strips of toilet paper along the seat, chuckling to herself a little for the old habit that seemed so much less significant these days. She was just zipping her jeans up after relieving herself when a moan echoed through the room, the sound bouncing off the cheap ceramic tile. Nancy froze, her breath caught in her throat, as she realized that she hadn’t brought a weapon with her.

There was a second moan. Nancy judged that it was coming from another stall. Slowly, and as silently as she could manage, she pushed the stall door. It squeaked. She cringed and stood stone still, but there was no further noise for a full thirty seconds, so she continued. As she tiptoed through the tiniest crack in the door that she could fit through, she silently cursed her habit of using the furthest stall from the door. Whichever of the five stalls the zombie was in, she was going to have to walk past it to get out.

She walked on the very tips of her toes to keep her sneakers from squeaking. She eyed each stall door; they were closed, but none appeared to be locked. The zombie could be in any of them. She damned her luck of stumbling in the only public restroom she’d ever seen in which the stall doors ran all the way to the floor.

She made it to the middle of the room when one of the doors began to move. With wide eyes and an audible heartbeat, Nancy watched as the zombie pushed its way out of the stall. The creature had once been a teenage girl in a very pretty skirt and a floral blouse. A large chunk of hair was missing and part of her collarbone had been snapped and torn off. When she saw Nancy standing there, her vacant eyes went huge and she lunged forward.

Nancy screamed and dove without looking, jamming her leg against a sink in the process. She stumbled to the floor and scrambled in the direction of the door. She was just reaching for the door handle to pull herself up when a searing pain tore through her leg. It was so intense that she couldn’t even scream. She turned her head and found that the zombie girl had grabbed her by the calf of her left leg and pushed all five fingers clean through the skin and into the muscle. As the creature’s teeth sunk into the flesh of her leg, Nancy hauled back with her right foot and kicked as hard as she could. She caught the zombie girl in the chin and heard a sickening snap as her neck broke. For half a second Nancy reveled, thinking that surely that must have been a killing blow, but the zombie only released her leg for half a second as it stumbled back with its head lolling sideways. Nancy could barely tear her eyes away from the horrible sight, but she managed to pull herself to her feet, throw open the door, and hobble away with a shriek on her lips.