Lane closed her eyes and took shallow breaths, trying to hide. Would they know anyway? It seemed likely that a being who could shoot blue flames out of its mouth could also tell she was alive.
And then there was Wendy. What if she came to, just as the zombies got to them? If they knew she was alive, it would stand to reason they’d check to see if Lane was too.
At least Meg got away. Lane wasn’t proud of much in her life, but convincing Meg to leave when she’d been desperate for Meg to stay and help her get out of the car was something. Selfish and self-centred her whole life, she’d finally thought of someone else instead of herself. She’d hold on to that.
The sound of moaning and groaning got louder. Another great boom. Beside her, Wendy stirred. Lane prayed she’d stay quiet.
Past Wendy, through the window, Lane could see feet passing. None of the zombies seemed inclined to stop and investigate the car their leader had kicked up the road like a can. As they streamed past her, she tried to keep a rough count. Looked like about a hundred. A hundred people turned into God knew what by God knew what.
If Wendy came to—and Lane prayed she did—she’d have some explaining to do. Wendy definitely knew something. The cut on her head had stopped bleeding, and Lane hoped she was only knocked out. If she was properly comatose or whatever, there was no way Lane would be able to take her with her. She reckoned she could drag her as far as the Squealing Pig, but not much further.
Suddenly, the chief zombie was right beside the car. Lane held her breath as it stopped. She could see his bony grey legs. The remnants of what could be boots clung to them in scraps. What the fuck was he?
The seconds ticked by, and he didn’t move.
Then, the screeching of metal as something—she guessed him—pushed down on the car. Lane closed her eyes and prayed she wouldn’t be crushed to death.
A crack as the remaining glass in the windscreen popped and shattered. Still the car was pushed down, and Lane felt her panic build. She wouldn’t scream—couldn’t scream. She’d wait this out. He didn’t know she was here. And being crushed to death was better than the alternative.
Another boom, and then he called out in some foreign and ancient-sounding language. The car rocked as he let go. The zombies began to stream back up the road towards her. He knew she was there. They were going to drag her out and devour her. Just like Barb. Just like Ella.
Lane squeezed her eyes shut. She thought about Meg. Brought her lovely face to mind. Lane imagined her as she had looked that first time they met. When Lane saw her on the stairs. Long dark hair. Beautiful. Meg was beautiful. Lane tried to let that memory be enough as she braced herself to be dragged from the car.
* * *
Meg groaned and opened her eyes. Too bright. She squeezed them shut again and pulled the blanket up over her head. Her throat was on fire, and her nose felt like someone had stuffed it full of cement.
There were no two ways about it. She was sick, and it pissed her off. She never got sick—or at least never admitted to it. But there was no way of hiding this. Not even to herself. Her head throbbed, and just the thought of getting up made her want to cry.
She would have to call in sick to work. She hated that because it would mean admitting this thing had her beat. She wasn’t due in for a few hours, so she’d sleep a little longer.
Her phone buzzed. She sighed and opened her eyes again. Reached for it off the bedside table. A message from Lane. She shot back a quick reply about being sick and lay back down.
When she woke next, she felt just as terrible but could tell she’d been asleep for hours. Shit. Work would be wondering where she was. She reached for her phone again with her eyes still squeezed shut.
“Hey.”
A soft voice and a cool hand on her head.
“Lane? What are you doing here?”
“You said you were sick, in your text,” Lane said.
“I didn’t mean you had to come over.” Meg struggled to sit, and Lane gently held her down.
“I wanted to. I brought medicine and stuff. Soup. And Mountain Dew. I remember you said you liked that when you were sick.”
Despite feeling like someone had run her down and backed up over her, Meg felt something warm inside her. She wasn’t used to being taken care of. Usually would have railed against it. But with Lane, being cared for was welcome. She liked it. It made her feel safe.
Meg started to drift off to sleep again.
“I’ll be here when you wake up. I bought chicken soup.”
Meg felt a smile ghost onto her lips as she fell asleep.
* * *
Meg tried to ignore the sounds coming from down the street. She tried not to think about Lane and Wendy trapped in the car or what might be happening to them. She also tried not to think about how badly she’d misjudged Lane. She’d forgotten about the time Lane took care of her when she’d been sick. Maybe she’d blocked out a lot of the good things Lane had done. She didn’t want to think about why that might be, either.
Meg pushed on Joanne’s front door, and it swung open. Not locked. Not good. She didn’t want to risk calling out in case there was one of those people inside. She prayed Lois was with her aunt and well out of Provincetown. There was a chance Joanne had done as she’d promised and called her sister.
Meg walked down the hall trying not to make a sound. She couldn’t help the floorboards that squeaked and hoped if there was someone in here, they wouldn’t notice. From her experience in the library, the zombies—or whatever they were—didn’t seem to notice you until you were on top of them. She doubted one would be standing there waiting to ambush her, but you never knew.
Meg stuck her head round the living room door. A sofa was overturned, and a vase of flowers lay crushed into the carpet. There’d been a struggle—or maybe a chase. She followed the trail of flower gunk into the bathroom at the back. It ended abruptly by the bath. No one lurked behind the door.
In Lois’s bedroom, things lay undisturbed, and Meg was relieved. Either the little girl was gone, or the struggle hadn’t happened in here. Joanne’s bedroom was another story altogether. The stink was like a wall. Meg imagined it seeping into her clothes and her pores, and she started to gag.
The bed was soiled—soaked in gore, more like. Sheets pushed back and pillows tossed to the floor. A sticky stain spread out from the bed to the door. Meg didn’t want to think about what that might be. She thought maybe Joanne had died and come back to life in here. Jesus, she hoped Lois had been gone by the time Joanne died.
The sound of scraping came from the hallway, and Meg’s heart rate kicked up. What the hell was that? She turned around in time to see legs dangling from the loft. Then someone dropped down. She’d forgotten about the loft. Easy place to hide. Too late, she’d realized her mistake.
* * *
Lane felt the vibration before she heard it. It came as a quiet rumble and then built in volume until it was a roar. At first, she thought it was him, the chief zombie. Then she realized the sound was coming from further up the road, and that the other zombies were ignoring their car completely and shuffling towards the noise.
Beside her, Wendy groaned again and opened her eyes. Lane tried to turn her head towards where the noise was coming from, but the seat headrest was in the way. Outside the car, the chief zombie moved away from them. Lane took a chance.
“Wendy,” she whispered. “Keep still. He’s right outside the car.”
Wendy groaned once more and nodded.
Lane watched as the chief zombie followed his minions down the road. She guessed they could see where the noise was coming from. It sounded like an engine. A big one. Lane hoped it was a bloody great tank.
“Wendy, do you think you can climb out of the car? Out the window by you?” Lane whispered.
Wendy nodded. “I think so. My head hurts.”
“I know it does. But we need to go before they come back.”
“Okay.” Wendy unclipped her seat belt and pushed herself up. She held on to the frame of the car and dragged herself out.
Lane followed quickly. In the distance, she could see the zombies shuffling towards something. It was shiny and getting closer. What the fuck was it?
“Come on, we need to get out of here. Meg’s going to meet us at the Squealing Pig.” Lane watched as Wendy reached back into the car and pulled at her bag. It was caught on something inside the car. Lane kept looking back up the road. “Wendy, hurry.”
“One second.”
“Wendy, now.”
Up ahead, Lane could see the vehicle attracting the zombies was a bus in blue and chrome. It knocked zombies out of the way like skittles.
“One second,” Wendy repeated, just as she pulled her bag clear. She stumbled slightly.
“Shit, look at that.” Lane watched as the bus got closer. It had to be doing forty, and it was splattering zombies like bugs. For a moment, Lane thought it was going to make it through the horde. The bus weaved back and forth across the road. It’s trying to hit them, Lane realized and gave a silent cheer. It was almost through the horde, almost clear.
Then, much like their car had been manipulated, the bus rose up from Commercial Street, flipped over, and shot along the road on its side like a toy. It spun around, taking out cars and porches and shop windows in a deafening, screeching, crashing roar.
“Wendy, run!” Lane shouted as the bus careened towards them.
Lane took off at a sprint. She ran into one of the narrow side streets and headed to the beach. When she looked back and saw Wendy struggling to keep up, she slowed down. Behind them, Lane heard the terrible sound of metal twisting and grinding. There was a loud bang, then the acrid smell of smoke. It didn’t take a genius to work out what had happened.
Lane pulled up short, and Wendy crashed into her back. Wendy’s bag hit Lane in the side. “What the bloody hell have you got in there?” Lane asked and rubbed her bruised ribs, which stung. Wendy didn’t answer. From the weight, Lane would have said bricks, but things inside the bag clinked and clanked like cutlery.
The tide was in, leaving barely three feet of beach. “We’ll have to wade through it. Cut around back, to the Pig,” Wendy said.
The freezing water took Lane’s breath away. But this was better than being eaten alive. The water came up to her knees, and pretty soon her teeth were chattering.
“How are you doing, Wendy?” Lane asked.
“Fine. My head’s stopped bleeding,” Wendy answered.
Lane looked back at Wendy, who was doing her best to stay upright with her bag held above her head.
“Wendy, why don’t you lose the bag? It’ll make life easier,” Lane said.
“No, I can’t. It has my purse and keys in it,” Wendy replied.
Lane opened her mouth to point out Wendy probably wouldn’t be needing either for a while. She changed her mind. Maybe hanging on to the bag was helping Wendy hold on to something normal. God knew Lane was struggling to process the situation herself.
And how was Meg coping? Had she made it to Joanne’s? No, she couldn’t think about it. Meg would be fine. She was probably already in the Squealing Pig waiting for them. The thought of anything else made Lane want to throw up.
“Hey, you guys zombies?”
Lane looked up at the sound of the voice. They’d made it to the alley by the hardware store, Lands End Marine Supply, and a woman was now standing at the top of the alley.
The woman wielded a rifle slung over one shoulder and a baseball bat in each hand.
“No. We aren’t,” Lane said.
“That’s what I figured. You aren’t missing any body parts. Wendy, that you?” The woman looked past Lane to Wendy, who was squeezing water out of the top of her tights.
“Hi, Teensy. It’s good to see you,” Wendy said, barely glancing up.
Teensy? One thing this woman mountain was not was teensy, Lane thought.
“Who’s this?” Teensy asked, pointing a bat at Lane.
“That’s Lane. My bag is wet. How did my bag get so wet?” Wendy asked.
“Just you two?” Teensy asked.
“And Meg. She’s meeting us at the Squealing Pig,” Lane said.
Teensy frowned. “You left her by herself?”
“Not exactly. It’s a long story.” Lane started walking up the alley again. “We should get inside. I’ll tell you there.”
“I guess I could use a beer.” Teensy slung a bat over each shoulder and led them up the alley.
Lane shrugged and followed her. A beer sounded good to her as well.
“You coming, Wendy?” Lane asked.
“I need a new bag.”
Wendy’s obsession was starting to worry Lane. Maybe she’d really hit her head hard and lost her mind.
“We can deal with that later,” Lane said.
“No, now. I’ll drop into Marine Supply real quick,” Wendy said.
“Wendy, for fuck’s sake.” Lane threw up her hands.
“Hey, don’t speak to Wendy like that,” Teensy said. “She wants a new bag—we can make a quick trip. Besides, you two are soaked. You should change into some dry clothes.”
Lane couldn’t deny Teensy’s logic. “Fine, but I don’t think we should be long. Those zombies seem to like staying up on the main road.”
“I just need a new bag is all. And some dry clothes,” Wendy said.
“Wendy wants a bag, so a bag she shall have. Those zombies show up, I’ll pop their heads like grapefruits. The big one shows up, though, and we run,” Teensy said.
“Fine. Let’s get Wendy a new bag. Then after, once we get to the Squealing Pig, Wendy can tell us what’s going on here.”
Lane saw Wendy’s head come up sharply. “I don’t know any more than you do.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” Lane said. “You seemed to know quite a bit at the library.”
Wendy shook her head. “That was common sense. That other…man was huge. Anybody with any sense would have known to run away.”
Again, Lane couldn’t deny the logic, but something was bothering her. She couldn’t explain it, but she just had a feeling Wendy knew more than she was saying. The fact she was denying it left Lane with even more questions. Once they were in the Squealing Pig, she and Meg would discuss what to do. If Meg made it. If they made it.
“You coming?” Teensy asked Lane.
“Yeah, sorry. I’m coming,” Lane said and followed the other two up to Lands End Marine Supply.
* * *
Meg regarded the little girl in front of her. She looked scared but not traumatized. She was dirty but didn’t have any injuries that Meg could see.
“You could have hurt yourself jumping from up there, Lois,” Meg said.
Lois shrugged. “Could have hurt myself being eaten by zombies too.”
The kid had a point. “What happened?” Meg asked.
“My mommy got real sick. She didn’t call a doctor like she promised. I got scared from all the groaning, so I hid in the attic,” Lois said.
“How did you get up there?”
“On there.” Lois pointed to a dresser against the wall. “I climbed up and then pushed the hatch open. It’s real easy. Want me to show you?”
“No, that’s okay. Lois, you need to come with me. I’m going to get you out of here,” Meg said and reached for the little girl’s hand.
“But there’s zombies out there. I’ve seen them. Can’t we stay here? In the attic?” Lois clutched Meg’s hand but wouldn’t move.
“I know, honey. But I promise I won’t let them get you. We can’t stay here. I have friends waiting for us,” Meg said and hoped she wouldn’t be proved a liar.
“What friends?” Lois asked, still not moving. She was pretty strong for a small kid.
“Well, you met one of them today. Her name is Lane. And there’s Wendy.”
“You’re all that’s left? There’s nobody else?” Lois asked.
“I’m sure there are others. Maybe they’re lying low, or maybe they got out of Provincetown already.” Meg prayed Lois wouldn’t bring up her mom. What would she say to her?
“It’s okay, I know about my mom,” Lois said as if reading her mind. She glanced down at her feet. “She’s one of them now, isn’t she?”
Meg pulled Lois into a hug. “I’m sorry, honey. I’m so sorry.”
She felt Lois’s small arms reach around her back. They had a little time, Meg guessed. She could give Lois a little time to grieve her mother.
Meg was all Lois had now. The thought hit her like a ton of bricks. The kid was totally reliant on Meg to get her out of this alive.
The truth was she couldn’t protect Lois, not really, not any more than she could protect herself. Her mind went to Lane, trapped in that car with Wendy. Was Lane a zombie now? Shuffling around Provincetown? Meg prayed not. Just thinking about it made things tear loose inside her. And now she had Lois to take care of. She couldn’t think about it. She had to believe Lane was waiting with Wendy in the Pig for her.
Meg crouched down in front of Lois. “Honey, we have to go now. Do you trust me?”
Lois looked right in her eyes and nodded. “Yes. I trust you.”
Meg could see she did. The way most little kids trusted adults to take care of them, completely and totally. And just like that, Meg knew that whatever happened, she would get Lois out of here. Or die trying.