“Guys,” Dorcas whispered. “Guys!” Ken sensed rather than saw the halt of the parade of survivors. “We need to stop.”
Footsteps. Ken felt arms around him, displacing Dorcas’ arm and lifting him a bit higher than she had done. “Can’t,” said a voice. Ken recognized it as Aaron. But he couldn’t actually see the cowboy. Everything seemed far too dark.
“Where’s the light?” Ken said. “Why’d Chris turn off the light?” His voice sounded slurred and distant.
“Shit,” said someone else. And Ken had no idea who had spoken. “What’s wrong with him?”
“What do you think?”
Ken felt his body pulled forward, moved along by the hands that held him up, the arms that held him aloft.
He heard the sounds again. And this time knew it wasn’t just his injury-addled mind. Because someone cursed, and someone else said, “They found the door.”
79
Ken’s vision went from a mixture of sparklers-and-hallucinations to sparklers-and-globby-black-things.
A moment later the globby black things killed the sparklers. All was dark.
He could feel himself being dragged. Could hear sounds.
Growls. The distant – but rapidly approaching – noises of the horde.
Voices.
“Spread out. Look for it.” Sounded like Aaron.
“You kidding? What are the chances it’ll –“ An unfamiliar voice. But whining a bit, so probably Buck.
“With all the different allergies people have, almost one in ten people need it or have a family member that does.” Aaron, farther away.
“Hold on, Ken.” A voice in his ear. Whispering. Dorcas. Or no, not Dorcas. Someone else. Who was that?
“Still bad odds.” Buck’s grumble.
“Add in the mothers who keep one for their kids, the odds go up.”
“Still, I –“
“Found one!”
“Just like I flrpp mrp mpt tpp.”
Even the sounds melted into one another.
Ken felt alone.
So this is what it feels like to die.
“Hold on.”
This voice was clearer. Understandable. And he could place it now. Not Dorcas.
Maggie. Telling him not to die. That he mattered to her.
He couldn’t smile. Couldn’t move a muscle. So he probably was dying.
But he felt better, just the same.
Everything disappeared.
80
Something bit him. A stinging pinch on his outer thigh that rapidly shifted from discomfort to agony.
They found us!
Ken wanted to scream, but couldn’t. His jaw locked up – (This is what it feels like to become one of them.) – and he was paralyzed by terror, pain, and sorrow. The last because he knew the others must be dead. There was no way they would have left him to the zombies. So if he was being bitten, was changing, then they were all gone.
Dorcas, Aaron, Christopher. Even Buck.
And Maggie. Liz. Hope.
Something bit his other leg.
The paralysis broke. Ken’s heart rate seemed to quadruple, and he surged upward, swinging his arms at whatever was eating him.
His right fist connected with something that was both soft and hard. The thing popped, crackled.
“OW! Seriously?”
Ken blinked. The dark blobbies were floating away, trailing the last of the July Fourth sparklers in their wake, leaving behind something that resembled normal vision. Revealing not the expected monsters chomping on his legs, but….
“Christopher?”
The young man was holding his nose, which was spurting blood all over the front of his previously unmarked shirt. “You broge by dose,” he said.
Ken looked down. His right fist was still clenched. It ached. Probably less than Christopher’s nose ached, but enough to verify the young man’s claim.
Aaron was kneeling at Ken’s right. Grinning at Ken, then at Christopher. “You were too pretty anyway,” said the cowboy.
The younger man mumbled something that sounded like “Fug oo,” but probably wasn’t. Aaron chuckled.
Ken blinked. Wiped away a sheet of sweat that had appeared on his forehead. His hand shook as though the movement was a bit too fine for it. His motor control seemed off.
“What… what happened?” said Ken.
Aaron plucked something off the floor by Christopher. Held it in front of Ken, along with a match he held in his own hand. “EpiPens,” said the cowboy.
“Wha?” Ken wasn’t processing this.
“The stuff people use for bee stings and peanut allergies. It’s basically just a shot of adrenaline.” Aaron stood. Held out a hand to Ken. He took it and, surprisingly, managed to stand. “You, sir, are banged up pretty bad. But we bought you some time.”
A scream sounded. Aaron looked up as though trying to pinpoint the source.
Something hit Ken. Wrapped itself around him like a constrictor. He almost panicked, almost swung at the thing. His nerves were pulled tighter than ukulele strings.
It was only at the last second that he recognized the strange shape as that of his wife. With Liz in front of her, between them as she held to him.
“What’s happening?” she sobbed.
He put his arms around her. And for a moment the world was fine again. For just a second, the space between seconds, he felt alive, felt right.
He had lost Derek.