Atlanta Bound Page 14

  Unfulfilled Dreams

  The Motel 6’s lobby was dim and dank, but alive with movement. It was a beautiful morning, even if she was in Pennsylvania; Phyllis stretched to one side, then the other, and accepted a travel mug of hot cocoa from Steph. The girl put three Swiss Miss packets in where one would do, but Phyl had to admit it tasted really good. Not as good as coffee, but the thick black brew the guys made was simply tar in a cup, no substitute for a decent macchiato.

  “Flooding,” Juju said again, and shook his head mournfully. His hair was growing out, beginning to halo with a vengeance, and it looked good when he wasn’t crushing it with that pompom hat. “Goddammit.”

  “Well, better than snow. Or that sleet.” Duncan peered out the wide glass doors, a thoughtful cast to his tight mouth. His cheeks were pretty rosy this morning, and his forehead gleamed damply. He was probably warm—a blue knitted scarf dangled on either side of his chest, a nice wide one. “Looks messy out there. Rained all night.”

  That was the good news. The parking lot past the shade of a metal awning was full of shining hillocks of soggy snow and widening patches of wet concrete under a migraine attack of morning sunshine. The less snow, the better—but this soggy stuff would probably break the plywood plows, given half a chance.

  “We won’t be able to see them as easy,” Phyl said, and took a scalding sip of chocolate. Zombies showed up far better against snow.

  “Yeah.” Ginny, still hollow-eyed but with her hair braided and sturdily pinned down, held a mug of tea in both graceful hands. A thin gold bracelet glittered, peeking from under her coat cuff. “But if they’re following the tire tracks…I don’t know. There’s just not enough data.”

  “They can hear, but not see.” Phyl sighed. Her imagination was working overtime, and each prospect it dug up was worse than the last. “Engine noise?”

  “Maybe, or maybe the vibrations. Or like bats.” Ginny’s shudder made her teabag-tag sway. “Echolocation. But maybe not smell, since they’re so…I mean, they’re juicy anyway. Mucus production might interfere, unless there’s been changes in the nasal receptors.”

  “Let’s just assume they’ve got super-hearing, for now.” Phyllis gave her a small sidelong look, inhaling the cocoa-heat gratefully. “Med school, huh?”

  “Yeah.” The other woman stared somberly into her tea. Her hair looked heavy, wrapped and pinned down like that. “Some days I wish I’d stayed in.”

  It sounded like a lot of bodily fluids, harassment, and sleep deprivation to Phyllis. Still, medical knowledge was damn useful now. “My grandma wanted me to be a lawyer.”

  Ginny’s sympathetic glance spoke volumes. “Living out unfulfilled dreams?”

  That was one way to put it, though it was more likely Granny wanted safety and a good salary for her little Philly-bear. “You bet. She was so pissed when I wanted to model. I told her I could strip to get through law school, too.” Phyl shook her head, an unwilling smile cracking the corners of her lips. That conversation had been a barrel of monkey fun.

  Ginny’s laugh was thin, tired, and completely genuine. “I’ll bet that went over well.”

  “Yeah, well. I’m just glad she went before…all this.” Great. Good one, Phyl. She glanced at the other woman, but Ginny didn’t take offense.

  “I understand.” Ginny tried a sip of her tea and grimaced a little. “Ouch.”

  “What I wouldn’t give for a Starbucks.” I wouldn’t even mind sharing a table.

  Ginny sighed, a companionable sound. “A hot shower.”

  “Central heating.” Phyllis decided the other woman needed just a touch of smoky eyeliner, and some nice neutral shadow. The big star would be her mouth, a slightly darker shade of lipstick than Ginny would likely be comfortable with.

  It would be nice to get out her makeup kit and give it a try. On Steph, too. They could do it in the RV, make the guys go somewhere else for the night. She wondered if the girls would go for it.

  “A salad,” Ginny said.

  Oh, man, that was a good one. “Sushi.”

  “A functioning classical music station.” The librarian stared into the parking lot. “Uh-oh.”

  Phyl followed her gaze. There was something stirring across the parking lot, winter-denuded bushes shaking. “Could be an animal.”

  “Yeah.” But Ginny didn’t look away, and neither did Phyllis, now. “I just…huh.”

  Phyl’s jaw threatened to drop. Two zombies boiled out of the bushes, one in a strappy bright red dress that swirled around wasted, blue-veined legs. On hands and feet, with that quick scuttering sideways motion, both streaked across the lot, going straight through piles of snow, their palms slapping on bare wet concrete. The second zombie was in wet jeans, bare-chested, wasted breasts flapping against ribs as it scuttled.

  “What are they…oh. Oh, my God.” Ginny sucked in a small, wounded breath. “No.”

  They were after, of all things, a cat. An orange and white feline, its tail bottle-brushed up and ears flattened, streaked low and quick from the shelter of a round concrete divider, making for another row of bushes. “Keep going,” Phyllis found herself saying. “Oh, Lord, keep going.” It was a good thing the dog was nose-down in his food bowl, or he’d probably be barking his idiot head off.

  “What is it?” Lee’s hand closed around Ginny’s shoulder, and the other woman leaned back on her heels a little. Leaning into him. Must be nice. “Shit. Critters.”

  “They’re after—” Ginny stopped, her tea-mug sloshing. “No, not that way.” As if the cat could hear and understand.

  Another zombie—a balding one in overalls and wet workboots—rose from a screen of bushes on the left side of the lot and lolloped forward, amazingly quick. The one in the red dress put on a burst of speed, but the cat veered away, darting past two cars that had been merely humps of snow last night. One, a nice red Dodge, hung open on the driver’s side. The cat scurried underneath it, and the red-dress zombie went down, trying to squirm-wriggle under the vehicle as well, blue-tinged bare-flayed feet kicking.

  “Good thing we parked around the side,” Lee muttered. “Come on, ladies. Let’s not give em any ideas, huh?”

  “They’re chasing cats.” Ginny sounded horrified. “And working together.”

  “Can’t we do something?” Phyl disliked cats on principle—oh, they were okay as other people’s pets, but clawing and the peeing was not for her.

  Still, the poor thing didn’t deserve to be…eaten.

  “We got all we can handle.” Lee, ruthless, drew Ginny back. “Come on. Get outa the door.”

  The red-dress zombie kicked again, struggling under the car. The cat shot away from the front end, making for the side of the building, and the other two zombies had thrown themselves down and were trying to wriggle under the Dodge as well.

  “Come on.” Lee drew Ginny back, and after a few moments, Phyllis followed.

  At least the cat had gotten away. But the zombies had been working together, even if they weren’t very bright and would probably get stuck under the car.

  Phyl didn’t like the way this looked.

  She didn’t like it at all.

  Liftoff

  The roads were clearer, and they kept the stops to a minimum. No more shooting practice, just getting into a gas station or convenience store, using a bathroom, stripping what they could from shelves, and getting out. A big blue and yellow Bargain Zone just over the Maryland border gave them more walkie-talkies; Duncan could fiddle them into talking to the ones they already had. Ginny went through the pharmacy with a list in one of her little notebooks, Steph and Mark pillaged the grocery and frozen section, Phyllis gathered spare clothing, wool blankets, and replenished their bottled water stocks.

  The front of the store was smashed, a big old half-ton Dodge crumpled against large concrete pylons meant to stop folks from drivin’ right on in, and one of the side doors along an ugly, unpainted side of the building had been jimmied too. Whoever had come through had taken some of the water,
plenty of paper products, and about cleaned out the sodapop aisle.

  It took a few trips to get everything loaded, in a thin driving rain warmer than snow but still miserable. Lee and Juju, standing on guard, were both soaked by the time Duncan came through carrying a load of bottled water and Traveller barked, weaving between ankles and generally making a nuisance of himself.

  “In with you,” Ginny said, and boosted the dog into the truck. She was about to swing the door closed, her hand on his scruff to keep him from popping back out like a jack-in-the-box, when Juju let out a yell.

  “Incoming!”

  Lee’s head jerked up, his gaze snagging on movement milling at the far end of an empty expanse of parking spaces, deep in a forest of lot-lights marching in regimented rows. This Bargain Zone was set near a dead, darkened mini-mall, and it looked like they were coming from the buffet restaurant at the end.

  There was no time to be grimly amused at that little detail; he merely noted it and exhaled sharply, alternatives clicking through his head lightning-fast.

  Duncan hefted the case into the back of the truck, pushing it past Steph’s ankles as the girl worked her magic on sorting and tying supplies down. “Get in the four-by,” he snapped, running the back of his hand under his nose to clear the drips, and she gave him an I know look that could have cut right through him.

  Juju yelled again, and his rifle barked. “Lee!”

  Lee swung around. Shit. Those weren’t the critters Juju had been warning of; a tight-knit group of five was staggering from the front of the building, probably drawn by the damn dog’s yapping. One stumbled and went down hard, curling around Juju’s shot to its midriff. “Got em,” he said. “Others at our five o’clock, too.”

  “Shit.” Juju drew another bead, exhaled, and fired again. Another critter dropped, its head a splattered mess. The rest of the group didn’t seem to notice, but the biggest one shifted to hands-and-feet, and they began lolloping. “Shit.”

  At first, Lee thought Juju’s shots were echoing strangely, some trick of acoustics without snow dragging the noises down. Then he realized it wasn’t that.

  The other shots were coming from inside the Bargain Zone.

  Ginny slammed the truck’s passenger door to trap Traveller, and had the presence of mind to grab her baseball bat, too. She realized where the noises were coming from the same moment he did, and her eyes widened. She broke into a run, heading for the door, and Lee swore again.

  Mark and Phyllis were still inside.

  It happened so fast.

  “Get down!” Mark yelled, and Phyllis threw herself full-length. A bright-white muzzleflash in the crazy, flashlight-stabbed darkness, and the zombie’s head splattered. Cold droplets touched Phyllis’s hair, and she let out a furious sound interrupted halfway when Mark leaned down, grabbed her arm with surprising strength, and hauled her up. Her bat was dripping—she’d taken down the two that almost got him, and now he was returning the favor.

  Nice of him; she forgave him every damn bit of irritation he’d ever caused in that one moment.

  Jesus, they’re everywhere. The growling had warned her—the bastards just couldn’t be quiet when there was a meal in sight. It was kind of funny, how the one at the end of the Housewares aisle scuttled forward, then crashed into a display of dishes when Mark shot it. Brittle, heat-tortured clay shattered. Phyl pushed past, her shoulder hitting his, and double-tapped one in a leather motorcycle jacket, half its jaw hanging free but the other half working with that awful metronomic regularity. The teeth were still white, even if the rest of the bone was discolored, and two popped out when she brought the pink bat down the second time, tinkling across linoleum.

  “Cleanup on aisle three,” she husked.

  A short, high-pitched laugh escaped Mark. He gulped in a deep breath afterward, and leaned his slim young weight against her back. “Which way?”

  Well, he was thinking, at least, and had the sense to ask. She pointed her bat. “This way, then right near the hardware section. Got to get to the door. Warn the others.”

  “Yes ma’am.” Either he was shaking, or she was. Or both of them, democratically. This place was a giant warehouse, every shadowed aisle holding danger. “I’m ready.”

  Phyllis’s ribs heaved. “Okay. Go.” She took off, darting across a long walkway leading past housewares, and he staggered after her, shooting a zombie leaping from an aisle of trashcans and liners. It dropped but kept scrabbling, and another bullet whined down the aisle, exploding a high-end silvery step-can.

  “Be careful!” Phyllis yelled.

  “I am!” he yelled back, right behind her. “Run!”

  She jagged left, cutting down an aisle full of laundry hampers and the weird chemical scent of holiday sachets, swelling in the damp but still fragrant. We missed Thanksgiving, she realized, and was grateful she wasn’t wearing heels. Running away from these bastards in wedges would be awful.

  A shadow loomed to her right, she swung the bat with a jolt and more weird, goopy non-blood sprayed. Mark shot the thing, too, and there were dancing shadows in front of her now.

  “They’re in front of us,” he yelled, and Phyllis shook her bat as she ran, a deep guttural warcry rising from the pit of her belly.

  Splatboomcrunch, her boots skidding in sudden fetid slickness, Mark hauling her aside and shooting in one motion, the flashlight’s glow bouncing, they made it to the hardware section and turned hard right, her heels leaving black streaks on the linoleum—probably buffed nightly by a guy named Jerry who had gotten bit by his wife at home, good God, why would her brain not stop serving up hilarious inconsequentials—and there was the door, black shadows against bright yellow sunshine, and she was screaming her fool head off while she ran.

  “Keep going!” Mark howled. “Keep going keep going keep going!”

  She did. She was prepared for liftoff, she had her afterburners on, she didn’t even bother to hit the zombie coming from the left because that would slow her down, dear God and sonny Jesus as her Granny used to say—

  Sunlight. A burst of cold air. She almost dropped the flashlight, meaning to skip sideways and see if Mark cleared the door...

  …when something hit her from behind, and Phyllis went down, hard. Her forehead bounced against concrete, her hands unable to stop her fall, and she was unconscious when the zombies spilling from the door swarmed her.

  Blackberry Tangle

  “Nooooo!” Steph almost broke free of Duncan, who dragged her back and grimly shoved her towards the 4x4.

  Juju, his cheeks ashy under their melanin, took careful aim. The critters swarmed like ants—growling, snapping ants—and he was hoping the woman was out cold. He squeezed the trigger and one of them fell crumpled, its head a mess like a punkin with a firecracker shoved inside.

  Mark Kasprak staggered, trying to throw off the critter hugging his back. Its head tipped back, then it struck snake-quick, nuzzling under his ear. The boy’s high, breaking scream was lost in a hideous crunch as his legs tangled and he went down too. They clustered him like a high-school health movie of immune cells attacking an invader.

  “Nooooooo!” Steph howled again, and Duncan, a fine sheen of sweat on his reddened face, bundled her into the back of the four-by like she was a suitcase. He got her knees in, slammed the door, and snapped a glance over his shoulder at Juju.

  “Come on!” Harris bellowed. “Come the fuck on, Thurgood!”

  Juju backed up, a fast, light shuffle. Lee’s rifle cracked, and one of the things that wasn’t clustering the fallen went down in a mess of shattered head and flying black blood. The rest didn’t look up from their meal, and the ones spilling from the side door went down on all fours and started to worm their way into the scrum.

  “Load up!” Lee called.

  Juju broke and ran for the four-by. Duncan was already piling in on the driver’s side, and Steph’s hands were white starfish against the back driver’s-side window. Her mouth was open, and he couldn’t hear her screaming, but he did
hear the crunch-slurping, the groandeep, grinding growls.

  Neither Mark nor Phyllis made another noise. And Lord help him, Juju wanted to go back and give them a cleaner end, because thinking of Mark Kasprak shuffling around with chunks of him gone and his eyes collapsing and the flesh drippin’ off his hands wasn’t right. None of this was right but dear Lord and sonny Jesus, not the boy, not the goddamn boy.

  Lee shot again, downing another one taking more of an interest in ambulatory prey than the downed ones. Juju’s Lieutenant was backing up nice and easy, working the rifle, and his face was as white as Juju had ever seen it.

  Which was saying something.

  The rain intensified, sweeping across the filthy bastards and their meal. Must’ve come in through the front door, got that truck there. It didn’t matter now, but he was wiling to bet money that was what happened. Juju almost ran into his four-by. Duncan was in the driver’s seat, so he had to get around the car, and Juju’s legs were working through the clotted syrup of nightmares.

  Ginny had Lee’s truck running. The back was closed up, thank Jesus, and the dog’s frantic barks barely made it out of a sliver-lowered window. There were more shuffling, scooching, wetly crunching sounds, and Juju wrenched at the passenger door of the black four-by, threw himself in. “Go! Go, for God’s sake, go!”

  Lee squeezed off a shot, standing on the passenger-side runnin’ board of his truck. The rifle worked again and another bullet cracked air. Some of the critters were losing interest in the downed meat. Why the fuck was Lee still shootin?

  Juju peered around Duncan, his ribs heaving, the rest of him occupied stowing the rifle with the ease of long habit. Out of the seething mass of critters, Mark Kasprak’s upflung hand was a bird trying to flee a blackberry tangle, and another shot crackled.

  Mark’s hand jerked, fingers spread wide, before falling.