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JENNA
Humboldt County isn’t known for wealth. Unlike the town where I grew up, there aren’t fancy SUVs and electric cars at every turn. A newish car—meaning anything with a paint job that isn’t scratched or faded—is a reason to be noticed.
Finding an older car with a CD player or a tape deck isn’t hard. The hard part is finding one with keys still in the ignition and not surrounded by zombies. It also needs to be far enough away to draw the zombies from the plaza, but near enough to be heard when we blast the music.
“That one.” I point down the street at a battered brown four-door. It sits in the middle of the street five blocks from the plaza. Only two zombies mill near it.
“I’ll take the one on the left,” Carter says. “Reed, you get the one on the right.”
Color has returned to Reed’s face after our earlier near-misses. He still looks like he might pee his pants, but when he brandishes his spear and kitchen knife, there’s determination behind his eyes.
“I’ll take care of the window.” I heft a small rock out of a front yard.
We advance down the street. Carter and Reed branch off, each of them moving toward their targets.
Carter’s eyes follow me. My throat is tight with worry. I swallow and force myself to give him a small smile. He smiles back. If I wasn’t so tense, I’d probably appreciate his smile even more than I already do.
I pull off my sweat jacket, wrapping it around the rock. There’s a chance the door is unlocked, but I don’t want to waste time checking. The car sits askew in the middle of the road, as though the owners jumped out and fled on foot. Not so different from what we did when we were forced to abandon our bikes. Around the car are a few bodies, all of them felled by headshots.
I smash my rock through the glass, shattering the window. The glass makes soft cracking sounds and tinkles onto the seat inside. I open the door, glass crunching as I rest a knee on the cracked leather.
I glance up long enough to see Carter ram his spear up through the neck and brain of his zombie. A sick squishing sound follows as he pulls the spear free. Our eyes meet through the windshield of the car.
Everything inside me loosens at the sight of him standing safe on the other side of the car. I return my attention to the dashboard.
An old tape deck sits before me. Dangling out of it is a wire that leads to an honest-to-God Disc Man, one of those old-fashioned portable CD players. This is the way my parents used to listen to music back when they were teenagers.
There are no keys in the ignition. Damn. I check the cup holder, glove compartment, and visor. Nothing.
By this time, Reed has also dispatched his zombie. “What are you waiting for?” His eyes flick up and down the street, shoulders hunched. He looks like he’s on the run.
“No keys.” I hurry to the nearest body on the ground near the car. A man in a button-up shirt and blue jeans lies on his stomach. I almost flip him over with my boot, but the number of flies and maggots crawling over his body change my mind. I twist my hand, angling it into his jeans pocket.
Carter, understanding my plan, doesn’t waste time waiting for me to complete my search. He hurries to the next body, a woman in jeans. “Found them,” he says, raising a set of keys in triumph.
“Awesome, babe.” I hold out my hands for him to toss the keys to me before I realize I’ve called him babe.
His expression morphs into a guarded one. I keep a smile on my face, trying to act casual, but my jaw feels stiff. He tosses the keys to me without comment.
Later, I tell myself. Worry about boyfriend stuff later.
When I fire up the engine of the car, I crank the radio to full blast. Michael Jackson’s Beat It thumps out of the speakers. The car may be old, but at some point, someone upgraded the sound system. The bass vibrates against my skin.
A few zombies stagger around a nearby corner, drawn by the sound. We have to get the hell out of here.
Using Kate’s trick from earlier, we duck through a fence into a backyard. It’s dog and zombie free. We hop the fence a second time and exit one street up.
Now we just have to avoid the horde of zombies we’ve drawn from the plaza and get back to Kate and Johnny.
This all seemed like a good idea thirty minutes ago when we hatched the plan. But as I catch sight of the zombies twitching to life up and down the street, I wonder what we’ve gotten ourselves into. When the keening starts up, I wonder if we should hide in one of the houses for a while.
But Kate and Johnny are still out there. We have to get back to them.
The trick is going to be maneuvering around the zombies we’ve drawn. Time to pull out one of Kate’s tried and true methods: I break into a run.
Carter and Reed share my sense of urgency. They huff along on either side of me, pumping their arms as we run through the streets. We kill a few zombies that get too close, choosing to avoid and outrun the rest. Michael Jackson’s voice continues to thump in the distance, growing fainter the farther we go.
We make it several blocks without incident before I pause to look over my shoulder. A stream of zombies clogs the intersection behind us, all of them heading toward the car.
I slow, struggling to catch my breath. Carter and Reed wheeze like asthma patients.
“How does Kate do it?” Reed puffs between gasps for breath. “I feel like I’m going to faint.”
“Training,” Carter replies, also huffing. “She trains her body.”
“We’re past the bulk of them,” I say. “Let’s circle back to the plaza.”
We move at a brisk walk, none of us willing to run now that the immediate threat is out of the way.
We pause one block away from the plaza, surveying the scene. Nearly all the zombies are gone, drawn to the music. The few still present bump into storefronts or abandoned vehicles, hissing and moaning as they try to figure out how to get to the noise.
Something moves in the park. At first, I think it’s more zombies, except the two figures don’t move like zombies. Their movements are curt and efficient, their heads on an axis as they scan their surroundings.
It’s two men in their thirties, clean-shaven with dark hair. They wear sturdy boots, jeans, and leather jackets.
Fear curdles in my gut. Zombies are scary, but after our run-in with the College Creek kids, people scare me more. I’m not eager to be seen by these guys.
Carter backs up, his hand grabbing mine. I only have a second to wonder if the act is a conscious one before I see Reed’s face break into a grin. Before I can say anything, he rushes past us—straight toward the two men.