“Zeke,” I growled, gazing down the road. Zeke’s gaze followed mine, and he went perfectly still.
A spindly, emaciated creature crouched atop a dead car about a hundred yards away, its white skin pale in the moonlight. It hadn’t seen us yet, but I saw another rabid skitter behind a truck, and the one atop the car snarled and hopped down after it, vanishing into the sea of vehicles.
“Let’s get out of here,” Zeke murmured, and we hurried back toward the van. Grimly, Zeke poured the gas into the fuel tank, while I scanned the darkness and ocean of cars for rabids. Nothing moved, but I heard scuttling noises between the vehicles, and knew they were out there. It was only a matter of time before they saw us.
“Done,” he muttered, slamming the lid shut. Tossing me the gas can, we moved toward the front, but suddenly, the side door slid open and Caleb stumbled out, rubbing his eyes.
“I’m tired of sitting,” he announced. “When can we stop to eat?”
“Caleb, get inside,” Zeke ordered, but at that moment, a piercing shriek rent the air as a rabid hurled itself over a nearby car and lunged for him.
I dived forward, grabbed Caleb around the waist and spun, hugging him to my body. The rabid hit me hard, ripping at me with its claws, sinking jagged fangs into my neck. I hissed in pain, hunching my shoulders to protect Caleb as the rabid clawed frantically at my back.
Ruth suddenly shot out of the van, screaming, clutching a rusty tire iron. She swung it wildly, striking the rabid in the arm, and the monster whirled on her with a hiss.
“Get away from my brother!” Ruth shrieked and hit its cheek with a satisfying crack. The rabid staggered, roared and lashed out, curved talons catching the girl in the stomach, ripping through cloth and skin, tearing her open. Blood spattered the side of the van. As she fell back, gasping, Zeke lunged over the hood of the van, swung his machete and buried it in the rabid’s neck.
The monster collapsed, mouth working frantically, as howls and wails began to rise around us. I tossed Caleb in the van, ignoring his frantic cries, as Zeke scooped up Ruth and dived inside with her. Slamming the side door, I leaped over the hood and swung into the driver’s seat, yanking the door shut just as a rabid bounced off the glass, leaving a bloody spiderweb of cracks.
Another rabid leaped on the hood, hissing, as I turned the keys Zeke had left in the ignition and threw the van into Drive. The rabid smacked into the windshield, rolled off, and suddenly I had a clear shot at the open road. As I slammed my foot onto the pedal, the van leaped forward and screeched away down the sidewalk, striking a few rabids, as we escaped the city and fled into the night.
*
WE BURIED RUTH just before dawn, on a small strip of farmland about an hour outside the city. She was conscious up until the end, surrounded by her family, cradled gently in Zeke’s arms the whole time. I concentrated on driving the van, trying to ignore the smell of blood soaking everything, and the soft, hopeless sobs coming from the back. Sometime near the end, I heard her whisper to Zeke that she loved him, and I listened to her heartbeat as it grew softer and softer, and finally stopped altogether.
“Allison,” Zeke called a few minutes later, over Caleb’s hysterical sobbing and pleas for his sister to wake up, “it’ll be dawn soon. Look for a place to stop.”
I pulled to a stop in front of an abandoned farmhouse, and even though dawn was close, I helped Zeke dig the grave in the hard clay outside the building. And with everyone gathered silently, Zeke said a few words for everyone we’d lost: Ruth and Dorothy, Darren and Jeb. His voice broke a few times, but he remained calm and matter-of-fact, even with the tears streaming down his face.
I couldn’t stay for the whole thing. With the sun threatening to peek over the horizon, I met Zeke’s eyes over the mound of earth, and he nodded. Drawing away from the much smaller group, I found a bare patch of soil behind the farmhouse and sank into the earth as Zeke’s quiet, grief-stricken voice followed me down into the darkness.
Chapter 25
Blissfully, my sleep was free of nightmares this time. But that didn’t quell my sense of urgency as I pushed myself free of the earth the next night, shaking dust from my hair and clothes. Kanin was still out there, somewhere. In trouble. Maybe he couldn’t be saved. Maybe the eerie silence in my dreams meant he was already dead. But I couldn’t leave him. I had to try to find him, at least.
Soon.
Picking a clump of clay from my hair, I turned and found Caleb staring up at me.
His eyes were red and swollen, his face dirty and streaked with old tears, smudges where he’d wiped at his face. But he stood there, watching me with dry, hooded eyes, solemn and unafraid.
“They put Ruth in the ground,” he said at last, as a faint growl of thunder echoed somewhere in the distance. Behind him, lightning flickered, showing a storm was on its way.