Powder from the airbags sent dust flurries in the air. I shoved at the deflating white bag. The driver of the car that had t-boned us was still hidden behind his airbags. I glanced back at the horde of crazies to find them looking in our direction.
I unlatched my seatbelt and tugged on Alan’s arm. “C’mon. We need to get out of here.”
He muttered something, and shook his head as though to clear it.
“Stupid idiot!”
I looked outside to see the other driver climb groggily out of his car, shaking his fist. He stepped up to Alan’s door, and pounded on the window. “Moron! What were you thinking turning around in the middle of the road like that?” he yelled.
“Fuck off!” Alan growled right back.
Alan was not a large man. He was my height and had maybe thirty pounds on me. To see him yelling at a pissed off guy only added fire to a tinderbox. Then I saw them coming our way. “Uh, Alan?”
“What!”
I pointed at several crazies with pallid skin stumbling toward us, their jaundiced sights homed in on the man standing outside our car. Their faces and chests were blood-soaked, and a few sported violent injuries of their own. One hobbled along with a broken leg. Another was missing an arm. Still another looked like half her throat had been ripped out. They moved slowly and jerkily but were relentlessly closing the distance. Alan looked and gasped.
The man outside continued to yell until he realized Alan was no longer paying any attention to him. He followed Alan’s gaze. He cried out and took off running back to his car but was too late. All of the crazies attacked him at once. The driver screamed. It was an awful, bloodcurdling scream, but I couldn’t see what was happening under the pile of writhing flesh and gushing blood. Not that I wanted to.
I glanced at Alan, and then opened the door and ran.
Chapter II
Tires squealed as cars rammed into the bottleneck. Gunshots rang though the air. With Alan at my back, we sprinted away from the crazies and into the oncoming traffic.
I headed straight for the midnight blue eighteen-wheeler just rolling in, with an American flag painted on its trailer, dwarfing the vehicles around it. Even though the truck was still moving, I jumped up on the driver’s side step, pulled on the locked door handle, and pounded on the window. “Please let me in!”
The driver scowled. His eyes were covered by aviator-style sunglasses, and I couldn’t see if he was watching me, the crazies, or something else. His lower lip bulged with chew, and with a wave of his hand he motioned me away.
I tried the handle again. No luck. I risked a quick glance behind me to see that, sure enough, the group of crazies that had been huddled around a small truck was now headed this way. I swung back to the truck driver. “Please!”
After a long second, the window opened, and the barrel of a shotgun pressed against my chest.
I didn’t fall back. I didn’t jump to the side. Instead, I stood there as though waiting for him to shoot me. “I’ve got nowhere else to go,” I said weakly.
He scowled even more, causing lines in his five o’clock shadow. He kept the shotgun level at my chest. “You bit?”
I gave my head a fervent shake. “No.” Then I frowned, confused. “Why?”
He seemed satisfied with my answer, though he also didn’t seem in the mood to elaborate. He cranked his head around mine and nodded toward Alan, who was hanging on right behind me. “How about you? You don’t look so good.”
I glanced back to find a sweaty, pale Alan.
“I’m f-fine,” Alan replied with a stutter. When the trucker didn’t respond, Alan threw up his hands. “I was just in a freaking car accident, man!”
The crazies were less than thirty feet away and quickly closing in. I snapped my gaze back to the trucker, pleading. “Mister, please!”