Ashley sighed. “This isn’t a good idea.”
“I’ll keep an eye out while you’re digging,” I said. “Cooper will run around like lost zombie bait . . .”
“I’ll say a few words,” the reverend said, straightening his tie. He looked more nervous than Ashley. “And then we’re getting the hell back inside.”
“Not before,” Skeeter took in a quick breath, “not before I make sure she doesn’t come back, and we cover her with dirt.”
I nodded. It was a plan. A simple plan. There was no way it was going to work, but at least we had one.
Chapter Thirteen
Scarlet
The background noise of my escape from Anderson was intermittent gunfire as the patrols were likely panicking with the herd of undead roaming the streets. I had retraced my steps back to Tavia’s, planning on persuading Tobin to come with me to the doctor’s ranch.
Just as I crossed the intersection into my grandparents’ front lawn and the streetlight was behind me, I saw a dark form lying on the ground. “Tobin?” I said quietly. I still held out hope that it wasn’t my friend until I saw the cornrows poking out in every direction.
“Tobin?” I said, approaching carefully. He was lying on his side, facing away. I prepared myself to run if he moved toward me. I wasn’t sure what he was.
I glanced at Tavia’s house, noting the spray of bullet holes that had penetrated the siding, the windows, and the storm door. I leaned down, seeing that Tobin’s lifeless body was in the same tattered condition.
I choked back tears and vomit. The same bastards that had gunned down the family on the bridge had done the same to Tobin. I didn’t want to leave him in the yard, but what could I do? Just then a diesel engine gunned several blocks away. “I’m sorry, friend,” I said. Running once again as fast as I could, I raced back the way we came, not knowing which I dreaded more: getting caught, or escaping through the woods alone in the darkness.
Back through town, I had to chance running across the bridge and then down the road. It seemed safer than traveling through the tall grass by the river. The engines of the soldiers’ trucks couldn’t be heard, so I darted back across the highway and through the woods to my vehicle. I slammed the door and locked it, taking one quick glance around before bawling uncontrollably. I hadn’t prepared myself for what it might be like to leave Anderson without my children, or seeing Tobin’s body full of holes, or surviving something that made me feel an unbelievable amount of fear.
The headlights of the Jeep burned through the night as I flew down Highway 11. Less than half an hour after I turned north onto Highway 123, the high-pitched wail of a car alarm could be heard. The noise peaked and fell quickly, like the ray guns in the old science-fiction movies my mother used to watch.
I’m trying to watch a movie, Scarlet. Can’t you find something else to do other than to bug me all day? Can I never have time to myself? Go away! my mother would say.
My desperate, tiny, eight-year-old voice replayed perfectly in my ear. You’ve been working all day.
I’m trying to watch TV!
I’m lonely! I would cry softly. I didn’t want her to hear me. I wanted her to see me.
She would raise the remote in her hand and turn up the volume, a disgusted look on her face. Lost in Space might have been the one piece of happiness she had, between working three part-time jobs and raising me alone. My needing her attention appeared to have ruined her life.
You make me sick, Scarlet. You’re just like your father. One of the most selfish people I’ve ever met, she would say, nearly ruining mine.
The words were an afterthought, an outlet for her residual anger, but they burned through my clothes and charred my skin, leaving a brand so inexorable, it wore me even as I fought to survive the end of the world. Was I selfish for leaving Anderson? Should I have stayed and waited for them? Would that choice sentence me to a life without ever seeing their sweet faces again?
The Jeep’s headlights lit up dozens of shufflers. Like a herd of sheep, they meandered about in the middle of the road. I winced at the sight of children among them. Some with visible bites on their carotids. Some with mouthfuls of their skin and muscle missing; all covered in the blood of their former selves. Jenna’s and Halle’s faces flashed in my mind, and then were projected onto the faces of those children. Tears sizzled down my cheeks.
I slammed on the brake and gripped the steering wheel. If I chose to drive through them and was forced to stop, they could surround the Jeep. On one side was a grassy knoll. A rock with the town’s name, Shallot, carved into the stone sat at the crest of the small, gentle hill. The sun had begun to rise, so I could just barely see the shadows of more shufflers crossing the sign and making their way down to the road toward the noisy car. Noise attracted them.
The left side was field. Acres upon acres of wheat field, still saturated from the downpour that morning. If I wanted to make it to the ranch, I had two choices: drive through the herd, up that knoll and hope if I hit one of those things it didn’t crash through the windshield, or risk getting trapped in the muddy field.
Courage came slowly. Each beat of my heart felt like an explosion as my hand rested against the center of the steering wheel, preparing to press down. I took a breath, and then honked the horn once. Dozens of dead slowly craned their necks in my direction. The explosions in my chest turned into the cadence of a thousand tiny sprinters. Even sitting still, I began to pant with fear.. After a short pause, they began to hobble and limp toward the Jeep. Again, I honked and waited. Despite the shufflers being less than twenty yards away, I pressed the heel of my palm against the center of the steering wheel, holding it there, until every last one of those f**kers were moaning and reaching out for the meal seeming so eager to be had. My fear kept my hand down, waiting, hoping they would move faster so I could drive past them and in the opposite direction of their new path.
When the shufflers were just over an arm length away, I jerked the wheel to the left and headed toward the wheat field.
“Don’t get stuck. Don’t get stuck,” I repeated. My hands jerked the wheel right to make a large circle around the herd, and panicked when the Jeep struggled in the mud. “C’mon!” I yelled, my fingers digging into the padding of the steering wheel.
The Jeep weaved back and forth, fishtailing and threatening to lose control, but the mud tires clawed through the rain-swollen soil, and back onto the road. After turning into the skid more than once, the Jeep straightened out, and I was screaming in victory, barreling toward the white tower.
The sun had just peaked over the horizon when I saw the water tower looming above the trees. With Halle’s sweet singing in my mind, I turned the wheel, never so happy to hit dirt road. By the time I turned left at the cemetery, the night sky had cowered from the clear, bright blue sky. The storm clouds from the day before had moved on. If the world hadn’t gone to shit, it might have been considered a beautiful day. The Jeep took the right at the first mile section hard, but I couldn’t slow down. The closer I came to sanctuary, the more afraid I was. My foot was grinding the gas pedal to the floorboard, but the Jeep’s engine just growled louder instead of going faster. Maybe five minutes had passed since seeing the white tower, but it seemed to be taking an eternity.
Turning into the drive, my foot instinctively pulled away from the accelerator. Dr. Hayes’s truck was in the yard, and a silver Mercedes was parked next to it. He’d made it home.