“Dave’s helping her to the BMW.” Josh reached in. “Can you undue your seat belt?”
I nodded. My hands fumbled for the release. “It’s stuck.”
Josh fell back, out of the car.
A zombie had him by the shoulders. It had been a woman once. She wore jeans and a blue blouse. Could have been a teenager. Might have been a woman in her forties. Her face was so decayed, I couldn’t tell. “Josh,” I said. “Joshua!”
I struggled with the belt, pressing, and pulling. I kept my eyes on Josh, though. He spun on the woman, breaking her hold on his shoulders. He delivered a solid right cross, and then another. She staggered sideways from the blows.
Dave came out of nowhere. Dropped to the pavement and swept the leg. The zombie went down hard. Josh pulled his hand shovels and pummeled the face and head of the zombie until it stopped crying out in that sickening moan and all was silent.
“Nice,” I said.
“He’s stuck,” Josh told Dave. “The seat belt.”
“We got more coming. Sound of the crash called ‘em, I’m guessing. That horn.”
“We need to get Chase out of the car,” Josh said.
“Never seen so many.” Dave spun slowly around in a circle. I just watched him. Josh was across my lap. He tugged on the seat belt.
“Dave. I need help,” Josh said.
“We gotta move, Josh. We gotta get out of here.”
Dave was crisp in my line of vision. Clear. Behind and all around him was fuzzy. Out of focus. If those were zombies, those fuzzy images staggering forward, then we were in trouble.
I grabbed Josh by the arm. “Get Allison out of here. She knows where I live. Go save my kids. Okay? Go save my kids.”
“We are getting you out, buddy. Dave!”
Dave pulled Josh out of the car. He grabbed onto the seat belt, set his feet onto the door frame, so that he was standing on and inside the car, and yanked.
His face went red. He didn’t look like he was breathing. He didn’t grunt. Or groan. Or yell. The pretensioner gave just after the latch exploded out of the latch plate. I was free. And floating. Dave hoisted me out of the car and over his shoulder in a single swoop. “Drive the car, Josh,” Dave said.
“That was close. That was close,” Allison said.
“You okay?” Dave dropped me into the back seat next to my girlfriend. “Are you all right?”
“My head hurts.” Blood wasn’t pouring out of the cut across her forehead, but she was bleeding. I reached for her. Lowered her head into my lap. I combed my fingers through her hair.
“Josh,” Dave said. “Drive.”
Josh threw up an arm over Dave’s seat, checked behind us as he backed away from the totaled Lexus and Malibu. He dropped it into drive and side-swiped two zombies as we continued on south toward my apartment. “We need to get back over to Mt. Read?”
“Might be easiest,” I said. “I live off Stone, at the Ridge. Behind that Rite Aid.”
“I know the complex.”
He maneuvered the BMW onto the sidewalk. The street packed with disabled vehicles, bodies and zombies made it impossible to navigate safely.
“I hate to say this,” Josh said.
“Then maybe now isn’t the time,” I said.
“Things are bad.”
“You hate to say that? That ‘things are bad’? Sorry I’d interjected. Say away,” I said.
“No. I mean bad. Like . . . Jason was the last living person we’ve seen in a while. You guys and Jason. That’s three other people,” he said.
“Most people were vaccinated,” I said. “They pushed that shot at every grocery store and doctor’s office. I know where we work they almost demanded you get it. It’s what made me positive I wouldn’t. Now look at us. Now look where we are.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Look at us. This is life, our life now.”
“You think getting the shot would have been the right thing?” Josh said.
“Sure as shit would have been the easier thing, don’t you think? I mean, seriously. How long are we supposed to go on like this? Let’s say we do make it to Mexico. You and I talked about this. There might not be an un-infected area in the US. In the world. Who knows,” I said.
“I said things were bad. I didn’t say hopeless. I didn’t mean to imply giving up. I’m just apprehensive about moving forward,” Josh said.
“What the fuck are you talking about, moving forward?”
“Mexico, or Canada. Surviving in the elements. Looking for food. Hunting for food. I’m used to cell phones and movies. Driving cars and going out to eat. I never had money, but life wasn’t so bad.”
“We’re going to be okay,” Dave said. He clapped a hand onto his brother’s shoulder.
Dave smiled. “I know we will. Guess I’m just thinking out loud.”
“That’s a fire,” I said.
“I see it,” Josh said. “If it was daytime, we’d of seen the smoke all the way from your ex’s, I’m thinking.”
Allison sat up. “That all from the houses over on Mt. Read. We must be a few miles south still. Has it been burning all this time?”
“No one to put it out. Houses are close together,” I said.
“The rain? That shoulda helped,” Dave said.
“It should have, but--”
A tire blew. Sounded like a gun shot, or an explosion. I knew it was the tire when Josh gripped the steering wheel with both hands and fought for control of the car, turning into the skid as we careened back onto the road, and slammed into, of all things, a black Navigator.
Chapter-Thirty-Three
Josh swore before he climbed out of the car. “I’ll change it. Spare’s gotta be in the trunk.”
There was never a good time for a flat tire. This just seemed like the worst. Allison more than likely had a concussion. If we couldn’t manage the flat, we’d be walking again. She needed rest. Not to be walking. I needed the rest, too. I did not have a concussion, but no point in lying. I felt messed up. My muscles were sore already. I dreaded thinking about the pain my body would feel in the morning. Stiff neck, aching back for sure. The last few days has been nothing but car accidents. Injuries and accidents.
“I’ll help,” I said, and then realized I was right and I was right. The tire had blown. And it had been a gunshot. I realized it when Josh climbed out of the car. I heard it again. That distinct pop. Only, instead of a tire blowing, Josh crumbled to the pavement, his hands over his stomach.
Dave screamed. “Josh!”
“Hold on, Dave,” I said. I jumped up and grabbed his shoulder. He had been about to get out of the car. I held him back. “Someone is out there with a gun. If you get out, you get shot.”
“I gotta get Josh!”
“We’re gonna. Get on your belly. Lay across the front seat. I’m gonna do the same back here. We’ll open our doors and see who’s closer, and we’ll pull him back into the car. Stay low, okay?” I said.
Dave seemed to think over what I’d said. Took a bit longer than I expected. Then he nodded, and did as instructed.
“Stay low,” I reminded him. “You too, Allison.”
She was low. Hidden from view.
I squatted. I pushed open the back door.
I saw Josh’s legs. “I have his feet at my end,” I said.
And they were gone. “Josh,” Dave said.
I looked between the bucket seats.
“He was shot,” Dave said.
He was dead. The bullet must have hit him right in the heart. The pool of blood soaked his shirt, but was thickest, wettest, all around the left chest area. I sat back some, and looked out the window. “Some one’s out there with a gun.”
“We’re not safe just sitting here,” Allison said.
As if to punctuate her statement, another shot was fired. My side window spayed rounded pellets of shattered glass all over me. . . I was not cut. I brushed away the pellets. “You okay?”
“Yes,” Allison said.
“They killed my brother,” Dave said. His face pressed in the space between the front seats. “Josh is dead.”