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KATE
Carter and Johnny wedge a sofa against the door. Outside come several thumps as the undead barrel into it.
We lean over our knees, breathing hard. My hand is covered up to the elbow in blood. More of it spatters my clothing.
“Everyone okay?” I ask between gulps for air. “Anyone bit?”
They shake their heads, casting wide-eyed looks of fear in the direction of the door.
“We go on foot from here,” I say. “We won’t make as much noise and we’ll be more nimble.”
“We’ll also be slower,” Johnny points out.
“Slower is okay if we aren’t running for our lives,” I reply. “I made my way on foot through Arcata without attracting any attention.”
A glance out the window shows me more and more of the undead pouring into the street. We can’t linger. If we don’t move now, we risk getting trapped inside the bungalow.
“Out the back.” I spin, ushering Carter and the others toward the rear of the house.
We pass through rooms with shag carpet and flowered wallpaper in hues of green, orange, and metallic gold. Gaudy light fixtures of black wrought iron with bulging glass bowls of olive green hang from the walls and ceiling. The house looks like it was transported from the set of That 70s Show.
The air smells like decades of nicotine. I sniff, trying to discern the smell of death over the cigarette residue. I detect none, though there is a smear of blood across the wall. Other than that, the place looks like it’s been undisturbed for forty years.
We enter the kitchen at the back of the house. I snatch a serrated knife out of the butcher block, knowing my screwdriver might not be enough to get us through this. I’m a fan of having plan Bs. Speaking of which, we all need some backup.
“Hold up,” I whisper. I pull out the longest knives, passing them around to the others. They take them from me with tense expressions, each of them sliding the knives into the belts they wear.
Jenna ends up with a giant cleaver. She grimaces, but slides it into her belt without complaint. She looks like a Buffy the Vampire Slayer caricature.
I lead the way out the aluminum porch door. The backyard is quiet and empty. The moans and keening of the undead pepper the air. They bang on the front door and rattle against the windows.
We need to get off this street and around the hoard. At this point, the best way to do that is by moving through the backyards.
This yard is surrounded with a cheap bamboo fence, the type you get at Walmart. I peek through the slats to make sure we aren’t going to blunder into a barbecue gone bad. When I see nothing but a rusted old car and a cracked fountain, I push against the bamboo.
It gives way beneath the pressure. I trample over it. The others follow me, Carter bringing up the rear.
“We’re going to go through the backyards and circle around the zombies,” I whisper. “Stay alert. There’s no telling what we might encounter.”
They nod at me in grim-faced understanding. I can see they’re scared.
Scared is good. I’m fucking terrified, though I do my best to hide it.
The next fence is made of wood, but it’s old and rotting and lists to one side. Once we determine there are no undead on the other side of it, Carter yanks two boards free to create an opening we can pass through. I notice him staying close to Jenna, his stance alert and protective. Maybe after this near-death experience, they’ll get over themselves and make up completely.
We pass through the next two yards without incident. The moaning and keening from the street haven’t let up. The sound of shattering glass tells me when they’ve broken through the front window of the house we escaped into.
This knowledge hits me with a shockwave of urgency. There are four houses between us and them, but what if they bash their way into the backyard? Did we close the back door or just the screen? Shit, I can’t remember.
I hurry to the next fence which, as luck would have it, is the first sturdy fence we’ve encountered. Sturdy and tall. Carter hauls himself up to peer over the side.
No sooner has he popped his head over the side than a dog lets loose a string of frantic barks. The animal throws itself against the fence as Carter leaps backward. It barks and claws at the planks.
The barking is like a beacon to the blind zombies. Out on the street and back in the house, their keening goes off like a jumble of alarm clocks.
“Back fence,” I hiss.
Carter checks over the top of this one, then drops down and nods.
The dog is still going nuts, barking and growling and throwing himself at the fence. Where is his owner? There must be an owner if the dog has survived, right?
Carter grabs Jenna around the waist and heaves her up. She grabs the top of the fence, hauling herself up and over.
“Your turn.” I jump in surprise when Johnny grabs me and hoists me up. He’s not a strapping kid by any sense of the imagination, but he lifts me like I weigh nothing more than an oversized stuffed animal. Bits of blood and gore are spattered in his sideburns.
I drop down beside Jenna on the other side. She crouches and scans the yard. It’s overgrown with weeds and faded lawn ornaments. To the left is a deer with a broken antler. Hiding in the grass near my feet is a garden gnome that looks like it tangled with a weed whacker and lost.
The boys follow us over the fence. Carter is the last one to drop into the weed-choked yard with us. As he does, I hear the sound of splintering wood, frantic barks, and the crescendo of moaning zombies.
“They’ve broken through the fence into the yard with the dog,” Carter whispers.
Poor animal. I might not have a warm fuzzy spot for dogs who attack my son, but I wouldn’t wish the zombies on it. Hearing its pain also brings back memories of Stout, the sweet dog who ran with Frederico and me before some assholes thought it would be fun to shoot her.
I take our group toward the gate that leads onto the next street. I pause, straining my ears and peering through the gap in the fence boards. I can’t be certain, but it sounds like all the zombie commotion is behind us, not on the neighboring street.
The barking of the dog rises in pitch. It yelps then barks some more.
I suck in a breath and ease open the gate. It creaks on rusted hinges, but the sound is lost in the keening of the zombies in the dog’s yard. The poor animal gives two more pitiful cries before going silent. I try not to think of its fate.
We creep onto a street lined with more colorful bungalows. There are only a few zombies in sight, all of them bumping against houses and cars as they try to figure out how to get to the keening pack one street over.
It’s with a sense of relief that I set out on foot. If it’s one thing I know how to do, it’s how to maneuver on my own two feet.
I resolve to do something about the fitness levels of the kids if—when—we make it back to Creekside. They won’t survive in this world if they insist on being couch potatoes.
We hurry to the end of the block, pausing as a zombie lumbers into our path. Jenna takes an experimental swing with her cleaver, pursing her lips in satisfaction when the blade sinks deep into the skull and the undead drops to the ground.
Carter stands nearby, hovering as he watches the operation. Jenna, putting one boot on the shoulder of the monster and yanking the cleaver free, doesn’t notice.
“I could get used to this thing,” she whispers to me.
At the end of the block, we drop behind a hedgerow that hasn’t been trimmed in months. The runners grow wild in all directions, creating a decent barrier for us to hide behind. The blind zombies can’t see us regardless, but it’s still comforting to have something between us and them.
I peer through the foliage, gauging the threat from the street we just escaped. A mob of zombies is congregating, so large it balloons out into the intersecting street.
“We have to get around the horde,” I tell the others. “Stay light on your feet and we should be fine.”
We make it another block without incident, only having to dispatch another few zombies. The horde behind us still makes a ruckus, drawing the attention of every undead within earshot.
We pass two zombies who claw at a fence, trying to reach the sound of their keening brethren. Neither notices our passing.
“Much better on foot,” Jenna whispers to me as we hurry along.
“No more bikes,” I reply. She nods in agreement.
The next intersection is passable, but instead of turning left and heading toward downtown, I hurry up another block.
“Kate,” Reed says, “that street was clear. Trading Post is that way.” He gestures to the street I bypassed.
The poor kid is panting, sweat dripping down his temples and saturating his shirt. Some of that must be fear induced, but I decide Reed needs to smoke less pot and start running. They all need to start running.
“We don’t know how far the mob stretches,” I reply. “I want to make sure we have at least another block between us.”
He swallows, nodding in understanding, chest heaving as he sucks in air. “I can’t believe you ran two hundred miles to get here. I can barely run two blocks.”
I squeeze his shoulder in sympathy, but don’t slow down.
The next connecting street is also clear, except for a few stray undead. I lead our group down it. At the following cross street, we see a thick knot of zombies. Luckily, they’re gathered around a cluster of cars that blocks the road and all their attention is away from us.
Most of the keening has died down, but the moaning hasn’t subsided. The crowd shoves at one another and the cars, all of them trying to move in the same direction. Several zombies are on the ground, trampled by their brethren.
Our group makes little noise as we continue through the streets of Arcata, eliminating zombies as needed. It takes us another thirty minutes to maneuver into the center of town.
The Arcata plaza is a quaint grass area divided like a compass with cement walkways. In the center is a circular area with a statue of a United States president. I can’t remember which one.
The plaza throngs with zombies. Two wrecked Hummers are there, one tipped on its side, the other smashed through a storefront. The zombies are a mixture of college kids, locals, and tourists, with a handful of homeless mixed in.
“There’s Trading Post.” Carter raises a finger, pointing across the plaza to a blue Victorian storefront. Between us and the shop are several hundred zombies.
“We could try and go around the back,” Jenna says, crouching beside us. “Maybe it’s clear behind the shop.”
I nod. It’s our only option.
We fall back, working our way around the plaza. We’re forced to drop back several more blocks when the subsequent ones have more zombies than we’re comfortable taking on. Many are in military uniform. I even spot a few rifles strewn among the undead.
I consider trying to snag a few of them but dismiss the idea. We have a mission today, and it’s not gun retrieval. Besides that, the few guns I do see are not easy to retrieve, thanks to the undead wandering around the streets.
There are more real dead in this part of town, too, people killed during the chaos that exploded here. The bodies I see are riddled with gunshot wounds. How many were killed because they were zombies, and how many were unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time?
It takes us nearly an hour to work our way around the plaza to the backside of Trading Post. And though it’s slow going, we don’t attract any attention.
“Damn,” Carter swears as the alleyway behind Trading Post comes into view.
It’s crammed with zombies.