They rode in silence for a long while, the only sound coming from the steady grunt of the engine underneath them and the wind in her ears, like soothing music. It was a comfortable feeling, something she hadn’t allowed herself to indulge in for days. A part of her had thought they wouldn’t make it out of the city, that as soon as they chose the wrong place to hide for the night, the creatures would discover them and it would be over.
Out here in the countryside, things seemed possible again. She didn’t delude herself, though. It wouldn’t be easy, but she did accept that it would be possible. That was new and exciting and exhilarating.
After a while, she sensed the bike starting to slow and looked up. Tony hadn’t lifted his hand, so they weren’t running low on gas. And besides, they had just filled up at Teddy’s parking lot, so gas wasn’t the issue.
She leaned to one side, far enough to see around him.
And saw what he was seeing: cars, including a big 18-wheel truck, strewn about the road ahead of them. The obstacle came out of nowhere and caught her off guard, like a wall sprouting from the ground.
Tony came to a complete stop on the road. He flipped the kickstand and climbed off, Lara doing the same. She still had the backpack on, so she had to move slowly, wary of quick or sudden movements that would topple her like a top.
He glanced back at her worried eyes. “Stay here for a moment.”
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
He hesitated. “I don’t know. Just stay here for a moment.”
“Be careful.”
He nodded and flashed that boyish smile she had become increasingly fond on in recent days.
He slid the golf club from the dirt bike and took a few tentative steps up the road. She wondered how useful the golf club really was, and how absurd it was that he still clung to it like a favorite toy.
There were more than a dozen vehicles altogether, with the big 18-wheeler—‘Kroger’ was written on its side — taking up most of the space, the head of its tractor unit spilling onto the grass divider between the north and southbound lanes. The trailer part of the massive vehicle alone took up the entire northbound lane. Smaller cars and trucks were scattered about, taking up the rest of the space.
This isn’t right. A pileup doesn’t look like this.
The only way past the pileup was to go around, which meant driving off the main road and onto the grass. But there was a problem there, too. The flat highway was flanked by five-foot ditches on both sides. Even on a dirt bike, it would be rough going.
Tony was walking back toward her now. “I guess we’ll have to go around it.”
“You can’t see a way through?”
He shook his head. “Too many cars. I don’t know what the hell happened, but they somehow managed to block both lanes.”
She thought about what he had just said and tried to wrap her mind around the pileup and why there were suddenly cars all over the road when previously there’d only been the occasional vehicle ever since they’d left Humble behind. She was just thinking how it didn’t make sense when she heard a loud crack! shatter the morning air.
She glanced to her right, where she thought the sound had come from.
The woods. It had come from the woods.
“Tony, what was that?”
He didn’t answer her.
She looked back at him, but he wasn’t there. At first she thought he had run off and left her behind, scared away by the noise, but then realized how silly that was. Not Tony. He wouldn’t leave her. Not after all they had been through.
Something flickered in the sun, drawing her eyes. Tony’s golf club was lying on the road, the sunlight glinting off the long, steel length. He had wrapped black duct tape around the handle to get a better grip, and a piece of the tape looked as if it had come loose.
She saw bright red liquid flowing toward the golf club. Horrified, she traced it to its source…
…and found Tony on the road.
He was lying on his side, a pool of blood growing, widening underneath his head. He stared back up at her with hollow, lifeless eyes.
BOOK TWO
‡
THE ROAD
CHAPTER 19
KATE
Kate watched the ghoul through the rifle’s sight, lining the bright red dot directly on the creature’s forehead, which looked like a lump of mashed potatoes left out in the sun too long…then painted black.
Not that she needed to shoot it in the forehead to kill it, but it was more challenging than going for the chest. That was the easy shot, and she had taken too many easy shots already.
She felt Will’s breath against the back of her neck. He was close enough that she could smell his scent, a combination of dust, dirt, and sweat. Baths had been hard to come by the last few weeks. She had learned to get used to a lot of things these days, like shooting an M4A1 rifle without feeling as if someone was hitting her in the shoulder blade with a sledgehammer.
A month ago the M4A1 would have been just a “rifle.” Now it was an “M4A1.”
Oh, how times have changed.
This particular M4A1 was one of a half-dozen Will and Danny liberated that first day. There was a suppressor at the end of the barrel, making the rifle a foot longer. It also added extra weight, but they only used suppressors at night to keep the sound down. Not that it really made things completely silent. Kate discovered, much to her chagrin, that real gun suppressors didn’t magically silence weapons the way movies had led her to believe.
She continued watching the ghoul, its shifting dark black eyes oblivious to the red dot she had placed on its forehead. The ghoul was a scout, one of many scouring the land for signs of survivors. Maybe even for them. Will had theories.
From the size of the ghoul, she guessed it was once a teenage boy. Or a girl. It could once have been a full-grown adult. It was hard to tell with them, even up close. They all looked the same, with dark, wrinkled skin, hairless bodies, black eyes, and rotted, yellow and brown crooked teeth.
She slowed down her breathing. It wasn’t a particularly hard shot, but from her vantage point — perched on the metal walkway of the water tower in the darkness, the big globe-shaped water container behind her — it was going to be a bit tricky. Next to her, Will sat silently; the only sound coming from him was his soft, unhurried breathing.
Softly, ever so softly, she tightened her forefinger against the trigger and squeezed. The M4A1 leaped slightly in her hands as expected. The bullet was away, the shot marked by a muffled noise — not completely inaudible, but hard to locate in wide-open country.
There was a slight wind, but not enough to deter the bullet’s trajectory. The silver and lead projectile hit the ghoul just below its forehead, almost exactly between its eyes, and it simply fell over into the grass.
She pulled her eye away from the reticle. “How was that, boss?”
Will was looking through night-vision binoculars. “Not bad, for a beginner.”
She smiled. It was a high compliment coming from him. “What now?”
“Let’s see if any more show up. If we’re lucky, you’ll get multiple targets.”
“What happens if I’m unlucky?”
“We’ll sit here in silence for thirty minutes getting sore butts and nothing to show for it.”
“Fingers crossed, then.”
She sat up, laying the M4A1 across her lap.
Three weeks ago she would have cringed at the rifle’s cold, hard aluminum and alloy parts pressed against her skin, but those days were long gone. Like Will, she was decked out in black thermal pants, shirt, sweater, and socks. A black wool cap covered the top of her head, leaving her face mostly exposed to the chilly December night. She blew little clouds of mist whenever she breathed or talked.