Impassable Read online

  Bird song despite the chill.

  Her feet will be terribly loud in the snow, but she has wrapped them with a couple shirts each and hopes it’s enough to muffle her movements. Everything on her pack and body has been tied down to keep from clinking, clanking, swishing, or otherwise making noise.

  She pulls her knife and eases out the door, going slow, murmuring the boys’ names over and over again in her head. Like the countdown, saying their names helps bolster her courage, helps her move forward when all the terror and teeth threaten to keep her crouched and hiding.

  The world is quiet. No cars going by, no distant crashes of train cars banging together. No shouts, calls, no music. A few brave winter birds and the swish of her feet in the snow.

  The silence is terrifying.

  She pauses at the edge of the fence banding the property, searching for movement, for peculiar shadows, for people standing stock still waiting for their next meal to stumble by. She doesn’t want to be anything’s next meal and so she watches long after her feet go cold and numb in her boots. When she is finally satisfied she isn’t being observed, she runs across the wide-open field, heart hammering in her throat. There are houses about half a mile away and a row of trees on their southern side. She will hide in the trees to scope things out, look for a car.

  God, she’s so exposed right now.

  When she gets to the trees, she struggles to keep her panting quiet as she scans her surroundings for danger. The knife in her hand trembles. She’s used it before. It still haunts her. The sounds. The feel.

  Tucker. Jackson. “Remember why you’re doing this,” she whispers under her breath.

  Another ten minutes of watching reveals nothing, no movement, no silent watchers. She ghosts through the trees to the closest house, sliding along the outer wall to the back door. A careful check of the doorknob tells her it’s locked. She goes to the next house and the next until she finds one with an open window. More waiting, more watching and then she uses her knife to slice the screen.

  “Ten, nine, eight, seven …” When she gets to one, she eases her backpack into the house and follows it, grunting when her coat slides up and her belly scrapes along the metal. She checks her skin, thanking the gods that don’t exist she isn’t bleeding.

  Nothing brings them faster than fresh, warm blood.

  She checks the house methodically, room by room, listening, stepping carefully, making sure she is as quiet as she can be. An old brown stain in the upstairs bathroom tells a grim tale about happened to the people who used to live here. The fact that there’s blood but not a body says even more.

  Downstairs, she looks through the kitchen, pulling out cans of tuna, chicken, veggies and fruit, packing what fits into her backpack, making sure the cans are wrapped so they won’t make a sound if she has to run. She finds keys on a hook by the garage door and she eases her way inside the dark room less cautiously than she should have.

  One of them has been waiting in this garage for who knows how long and the second her boot hits the concrete, it attacks. It slams her into the door, teeth snapping. “Hung, hung, hung!” it howls, trying to say hungry but unable to form the word with its rotting brain. An old one, she tells herself. She can kill it if she can just get her knife—

  It smells so bad. Rotted flesh, decaying teeth, a pitted tongue that snakes out when it can’t quite reach her face to bite, to rend, to chew.

  You’re going to die, going to die, going to die, chants her mind.

  As the zombie presses tight against her, she wonders if it may be right.

  5

  Then

  We ran through backyards, hiding whenever we heard them singing. They’d become them now in my head, things, creatures that chased us and threatened us and sang to us.

  The singing was the worst. The singing made everything worse.

  Rod’s breathing was ragged and loud. I kept biting my tongue to keep from telling him to shut the hell up. I’d do it, but that would make noise too and those things, whatever they were, were attracted to noise. They were also attracted to the scent of blood and Rod’s bite was a problem.

  We pressed ourselves against the house and I crept forward, peering around the corner to see if the road was clear, if there was a car we could take, anything to make this shitty night less shitty.

  A group of them surrounded a car, chanting at the terrified people inside. One of them was a child of about three, a little girl in a snowsuit with mittens hanging from her wrists. Part of her scalp hung from her head and dangled there just like her mittens as she slapped her hands on the car door, making the kids inside scream.

  “Not safe,” I muttered, pushing Lana and Rod back, my trembling finger pressed tight to my lips. “We keep going behind the houses for now.”

  Lana gripped my arm. “What did you see?”

  I shook my head. “You don’t want to know. Really,” I said when she looked like she was going to push it. “It was bad.”

  “All of this is bad,” she said and before I could stop her, she moved away toward the front. Her gasp was too loud in the black, awful night but either the monsters in the street didn’t care or didn’t hear.

  With a silent curse, I dragged her toward the back, my grip too hard, my anger white-hot. “Do you want to die?” I whispered, my face in hers. “Because that’s how you fucking die.”

  “Back off, Deena. I’m sorry I made a sound but you don’t get to treat me like I’m an idiot.”

  Rod, leaning against the house, his wrist held gently against his chest, said, “Girls, now’s not the time.”

  “Not girls, Rod. But you’re right.” I never thought I’d say those particular words to Rod, but I supposed anything was possible when the dead roamed the earth, eh? To Lana, I said, “I’m sorry. I’m just terrified out of my gourd that something bad is going to happen to you, that they’ll attack and I won’t be able to save you.” Even now, tucked away in the darkness I felt exposed, vulnerable in a way I’d never felt before. It was terrifying, like standing on the edge of a skyscraper with the wind blowing.

  She put her hands on either side of my face, pulling me back from the precipice where she somehow knew I was standing. “We save each other. You hear me? I’m not your damsel in distress. It’s always been us against the world, not you between me and the world.”

  She didn’t understand that I would always do whatever it took to protect her, that she was my heart and soul, and without her I wouldn’t want to live. But now wasn’t the time to argue that point. “Right, okay, yeah. I’m sorry.”

  She didn’t answer, just kissed me hard. “Let’s get out of here. Come on.”

  We had to weave our way in and out of fenced yards, around hedges, hiding when we heard them shuffling around, hooting, barking, laughing. On every zombie show or movie, the undead moaned. They didn’t sing, they didn’t call out, they didn’t act like anything but mindless eating machines. They were safe, I now realized, because they were stupid. Sure, if you got caught out by a mob or had one crawl out from under the table in a surprise ankle attack, you were screwed, but I’d always bet on the living to win out over the brainless, walking dead.

  These things?

  “Deena?”

  “Coming,” I whispered.

  We made it four streets before we ran into a large mob of them swarming a house lit up like a beacon. Cars lined the block bumper to bumper and toilet paper waved from tree branches. They were everywhere, walking drunkenly on the sidewalks, tripping off the curbs, crowded around bodies sprawled on the street. The house wasn’t enough to keep them all occupied, and we couldn’t risk being heard sneaking past. Even if we were as quiet as we could be, there still was the little matter of Rod’s wound.

  We worked our way back only to run up against another mob between us and the way we’d come. We were running out of options and sooner rather than later we’d come up on one in the dark and end up dead.

  They called to each other, we were discovering. If one found a vic
tim, it would scream, alerting others.

  The screams were disconcerting.

  Terrifying.

  “Maybe we should break into one of these houses. Hide out just for tonight.” Rod looked worse than he did earlier, his skin waxy and bloodless.

  “How? If we break a window, break a door, they’ll hear us.” Lana took Rod’s arm and studied his wrist, her hiss all the info I needed to know it was bad.

  A scream—a human one—was abruptly cut off. Another scream, one of theirs cut through the night. The hoots followed and I shivered. “Okay. Let’s start checking doors.”

  “What about security systems?” Rod pulled his hand away from Lana. “If we open a door and it goes off, they’ll all know where we are.”

  “We have to do something. We’re sitting ducks out here. Dee?”

  They were looking at me to make the decision, but it had to be obvious who I would side with. Instead of answering, I walked up the porch steps and peered in the windows. No blinking box at the front door or anywhere near the back door that I could see. I twisted the knob—locked.

  The hoots and shouts street-side grew louder. Would they hear breaking glass if I muffled it with my coat? I took it off and wadded it up, then shut my eyes long enough to hope and pray nothing heard what came next.

  “What are you doing? You’re going to get us all killed.”

  “We need shelter. Shut up, Rod, you’re too loud.”

  “Too loud?” His voice cracked, then he coughed, and that was loud.

  “Fuck. Run. Run,” I whispered, and we raced between a swing set and sandbox, spilling out of the back gate into the alley. One of them stood at the far end, their back turned to us. “There,” I mouthed, pointing at the half-open gate across the way. We didn’t get more than three steps before Rod stumbled into a tipped over trashcan. The sound was loud.

  The scream from the end of the alley was louder.

  “Go, go, go!” I whisper-yelled, and we ran full out, bypassing the house, charging across the street into another yard.

  The thing screamed again, and I heard them calling to each other, the howls rising as they gave chase.

  “Hungry!”

  “Food!”

  “I need you, Mommy!”

  And above all, the sound of a young woman singing a lullaby, her voice high and sweet and terrifying amidst the chaos.

  Lana tripped over a discarded tricycle and fell, sprawling. I yanked her up as the first of them spilled into view. There was no hesitation, no confusion. Had Lana not gotten her shit together fast they would have gotten us.

  Instead, they got Rod.

  He screamed as they took him, but I didn’t let her stop, didn’t allow her to look back or mourn or think she could save him. He was lost but we weren’t, and I wasn’t going to waste the small window of opportunity we had. “Over there, look!”

  An SUV idled in the street, door hanging open. Whoever owned it had left half their blood spattered on the windows and spilled across the concrete. I didn’t think too hard about what had happened to the previous occupant, just waved Lana in and scrambled after her, slamming the door on one of their fingers.

  The man roared and slapped at the window. “Screw you, asshole,” I said and jerked the shifter into drive. When I stomped on the gas, his finger tore off, leaving him screaming in our wake. “Put on your seatbelt,” I snapped, glancing over at Lana when she didn’t move. “Lana!”

  “He was the boys’ father, Dee. He was their dad even if he was a shit and I let him—”

  “He was fucked already and you know it. He was bitten, Lana. Like April was bitten. He was sick. He was dying.” I jerked my gaze back to the road when she shrieked, slamming on the brakes when a man stumbled into the road clutching his belly. His expression was horrified, twisted in pain. He wasn’t one of them, not yet, but he knew he was headed that direction.

  He stepped in front of the car. I couldn’t stop in time. He did it deliberately.

  The sound his body made when I hit him …

  The car idled. I heard nothing but the crunch of his body, the scream of the tires on the street as I tried to stop in time.

  “We have to go.”

  I gripped the wheel tight. “He’s not dead.” He was sprawled a few feet away, the impact having knocked him back several feet. His legs moved as if he were trying to crawl but of course there wasn’t any way he’d be up and moving again. His guts were all over …

  Gorge rose and I slapped my hands over my mouth to keep from vomiting all over myself.

  “Go! You didn’t let me stop for Rod, now I’m telling you we have to go. Keep your shit together, Dee!”

  I yanked the wheel hard right and stomped the gas as they started to surround us. They could do little more than slap the car as we peeled away, jumping a curb before I managed to right us again.

  The roads were thick with abandoned cars and people. Twice I had to drive across someone’s lawn and hit more people than I wanted to remember—though they had all been monsters as far as I could tell. Later I would think about what I did tonight to save us, but now I had to concentrate on keeping us alive. “Where do we go now?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t even know where we are.” She opened the glove box and rummaged through it. “No maps, shit.” She slammed it, then twisted to look in the back. When she faced front again, she said, “Let’s keep going west. Head toward the boys.”

  I glanced at her and away. The boys. Shit. “Have they texted?”

  She fished through her purse and yanked out her phone. Her voiced relief eased something inside me. “They’re all right. They’re locked down. An emergency broadcast went out an hour ago, they said. Oh god, Dee. We have to get home.”

  I nodded. “We will. We’ll get to them. I swear it, we’ll get to them.”

  A half a block later the road was impassable with cars piled up in a steaming mass of metal. I put us in reverse,but stopped when Lana touched my shoulder. “Look.”

  A woman stood on a balcony waving a white shirt. Behind her, back lit by lights inside, we saw figures pressed against French doors. The glass wouldn’t hold forever, not if they figured out they could break it and go right through. The woman saw us and her mouth moved frantically as if she were screaming for us to help her.

  “Oh god.” Lana twisted in her seat. “They’re coming.” Her eyes go to mine, pleading, terrified. “We have to help her.”

  “We can’t. How?” I couldn’t see how, not without putting ourselves in danger. I could pull the car up and she could jump down to the roof, but she’d probably break something, or roll off into the freaks that were starting to mass below. “How?” I whispered as behind the woman, the glass cracked. I saw the crawling fault line as it spread out from the arm of one of them. The woman’s head whipped around and then she was scrambling over the railing to hang from it. Without a thought, I gunned our vehicle and jumped the curb, pulling us as close to directly under her as I could. I honked.

  Seconds later there was a thud and a scream. I rolled my window down an inch and yelled, “Hang on! They’re everywhere. I’ll drive carefully but I need to get us away from them before we can let you in.”

  “Okay!” the woman yelled, her voice high and thready with pain. The car had a roof rack, so I hoped she could use the bars to hang on as we jounced back down to the street and plowed—slowly—through the freaks that surrounded us. There weren’t enough of them to stop the car, at least not yet, and I forced myself not to look in the rear view.

  “We have to stop,” Lana said in a small voice.

  “Not yet.” They were everywhere, standing on porches, on the sidewalks. The woman wouldn’t have a chance to get in without getting grabbed and there was no way in hell I’d risk Lana for a stranger. “Soon. I promise.”

  I wasn’t sure when soon would come, but I had to hope, for Lana’s sake, if not for the poor woman on top, that we’d get her safely inside.

  What if she was bitten? I didn’t want a repeat
of April.

  At the next intersection, I slowed. “Anyone? Anything? Lana?”

  She swiveled her head all directions, as I did. “Nothing. Okay one, way down the block.”

  I opened my door and straightened to see the woman’s face inches from mine. I leaped back, heart thudding wildly, ready to hit her but she wasn’t crazed, just terrified. “Can you get down?”

  She nodded, her tear-streaked face waxy in the streetlights. “I think I twisted my ankle. Or broke it. It hurts.”

  “Swing your legs over and I’ll ease you down. Do it quick.” I glanced over my shoulder and saw that one of them was making its way toward us, singing a nightmare version of the Smurf song. “Hurry,” I snapped, and she dropped, crying out when her foot smacked concrete. I jerked open the back door and stuffed her in, slamming it before she had a chance to do more than cry out.

  I hit the locks and got it into gear before the thing slapped at the back window. “Fuck off, asswipe.”

  Lana was leaning over the seat to check on the woman’s ankle. “Just twisted, I think. No protruding bones, anyway. Do you have any bites?”

  The woman shook her head, her dark brown eyes haunted. “Not me. My boyfriend. He—he let a couple in who were being chased. They said they was running from those monsters. Said they’d stay for just a bit. Then one of them just started seizing. Jerking around, foaming at the mouth. Darius, he went to put his wallet in they mouth and that’s when he got bit.” Her sob cut through me. “My little boy, he’s … he’s four. He got bit too. He got bit too and he … and he—” Her face went into her hands and she cried and cried.

  Dread, sorrow, horror all knotted up in the pit of my stomach. I couldn’t imagine losing a kid, period, and to lose one in such a horrific fashion …

  I wanted to talk to the boys. Now. But I kept my hands on the wheel and my eyes on the road, knowing that my inattention could cost us so much. Anyway, their text had said they were locked up tight. They were fine. We just had to get to them and if we ever managed to get out of this damned city, we’d be doing all right.