{"id":202,"date":"2013-07-21T13:06:28","date_gmt":"2013-07-21T13:06:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/?page_id=202"},"modified":"2013-07-21T13:06:28","modified_gmt":"2013-07-21T13:06:28","slug":"chapter-33","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/story\/chapter-33\/","title":{"rendered":"Chapter 33"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chapter 33<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

There\u2019s not a lot that scares me, or so I thought.\u00a0 I\u2019m not afraid of many of the usual, silly things \u2013 spiders, storms, heights, enclosed spaces, the dark\u2026\u00a0 My biggest fears, aside from public speaking, are \u2013 or were \u2013 sickness and death.\u00a0 Ironic, considering I married a man who worked around deadly diseases.\u00a0 Almost as ironic as someone who hates speaking in front a room of people becoming a teacher, I guess.\u00a0 But I digress\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n

I considered myself pretty brave and pretty rational.\u00a0 I was afraid of the things that made sense to fear, the things that could, or were likely to, actually kill me.\u00a0 I was afraid of death itself.<\/i><\/p>\n

Now, it\u2019s the undead I fear.<\/i><\/p>\n

In some ways, death \u2013 real, old-fashioned death, without reanimation \u2013 seems a luxury.\u00a0 Eternal rest\u2026 wouldn\u2019t that be nice?\u00a0 Don\u2019t get me wrong:\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to die.\u00a0 I can\u2019t die.\u00a0 My life is too important now.\u00a0 If I die \u2013 if any one of us dies \u2013 one more shred of hope for humanity will die with us.\u00a0 We are all that\u2019s left.\u00a0 We must live, in order to keep humanity alive.\u00a0 At least I have a reason, now, to fear death.<\/i><\/p>\n

I used to think I\u2019d die of cancer or a car accident, something typical like that.\u00a0 Maybe old age, if I were lucky.\u00a0 Hopefully nothing too horrific or freakish.\u00a0 I worried plenty about the typical things; I didn\u2019t dwell too much on all the OTHER ways there are to die.\u00a0 But now?\u00a0 I have a new fear\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n

Phagophobia:\u00a0 the fear of being eaten.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Sunday, April 15, 2012<\/b>
\n4:00 a.m.<\/b><\/p>\n

Like the others before her, Gretchen awoke suddenly, but could not figure out why.<\/p>\n

A noise?\u00a0 Lying still in her bed to listen, she could only hear the sound of her own breathing.\u00a0 The night was incredibly quiet.\u00a0 Even the crickets had gone silent.<\/p>\n

A dream, then?\u00a0 She tried to remember it, but the images floating around in her head were too fuzzy to make any sense of.<\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t know what had woken her up, only that it was still night \u2013 judging by the light, too early for her to be up \u2013 and yet, she was suddenly wide awake.\u00a0 Her first thought went, naturally, to Shawn, and so she reached for the cell phone on her nightstand.\u00a0 After checking the time \u2013 four a.m\u2026 too early, indeed, to be awake \u2013 she tried, again, to call him.\u00a0 But there were still no bars on her phone, no signal, and the call did not go through.\u00a0 Sighing, Gretchen snapped the phone shut.<\/p>\n

She sat up in bed, pushing back the top sheet.\u00a0 It felt stuffy in the room, with the windows shut tight and the air conditioning off, and she was warm from sleeping.\u00a0 She felt sweaty, even, which made her wonder again if she\u2019d had a bad dream in the midst of her restless sleep.\u00a0 In any case, she didn\u2019t feel like lying down again.\u00a0 She wished she could turn on the TV or, at the very least, go outside and cool off on the front porch for a few minutes.\u00a0 She was sure it was beautiful night, what with the full moon and the mild spring air.\u00a0 But she didn\u2019t dare:\u00a0 Shawn had told her to keep the house shut up against the virus and stay inside.<\/p>\n

Sighing, she flopped back against her pillows and kicked her legs straight out in front of her.\u00a0 She\u2019d never fall back to sleep stretched out on her back like this, but she didn\u2019t think she\u2019d be able to sleep anymore, anyway.\u00a0 She stared up at the dark ceiling and wondered what Shawn was doing then.\u00a0 Was he sleeping, or still up, having worked through the night?\u00a0 Had his team made the breakthrough he\u2019d been hoping for, or was he already on his way home to her?<\/p>\n

That thought gave her hope and made her feel a little better.\u00a0 She stretched her arm out and patted the other side of the mattress, imagining Shawn\u2019s body nestled there, close to hers.\u00a0 She wished he was there now.\u00a0 Gretchen wasn\u2019t normally a clingy wife; she was used to Shawn\u2019s being away, fulfilling his obligations to the CDC and, before that, the army.\u00a0 As much as she loved him, she usually enjoyed the time alone.\u00a0 But now she wanted nothing more than to have him safe at home.<\/p>\n

After two days of being cooped up in the house on her own, unable to reach her family and friends, she felt edgy, anxious, and desperately lonely.\u00a0 She wished there was someone \u2013 anyone, anything \u2013 there to provide some comfort or, at the very least, companionship.\u00a0 Even a pet would have been nice.\u00a0 She imagined a cat curled up at the foot of bed, a soft, warm body that would purr as she pet it in the middle of the night.\u00a0 She\u2019d had cats growing up and would have liked to have one now, but Shawn was allergic.\u00a0 They\u2019d planned to get a dog, maybe in a few years, after the baby was born and old enough to be taught how to treat one.\u00a0 But there was no baby, not anymore, and no dog either.\u00a0 Just Gretchen, emotional Gretchen.<\/p>\n

She got up from the bed before the tears could start, figuring maybe it would help to walk around.\u00a0 Her eyes had adjusted enough to the darkness that she could make out the shapes of the furniture, and she managed to get out of the room without tripping on anything.\u00a0 In the living room, she found her Bic candle lighter and lit a few candles.\u00a0 Shadows danced among the flickering flames.<\/p>\n

Moving to the large front window, she drew back the drapes, letting the faint blue glow of the moon mix with the golden candlelight.\u00a0 Then she leaned into the windowsill and brought her face up close to the glass, peering out into the moonlit night.<\/p>\n

The houses across the street were as dark and lifeless as ever, windows shut, shades drawn.\u00a0 Then again, she supposed they always looked like that at this time of night.\u00a0 Her eyes panned lower, to the street.\u00a0 She remembered the man, the nameless neighbor, slumped on the sidewalk.\u00a0 She expected to see him lying there still, but when she looked, he wasn\u2019t there.\u00a0 She blinked in surprise and squinted, looking closer.\u00a0 It was dark, but the white concrete of the sidewalk was visible enough.\u00a0 She should still be able to make out the shadowy form stretched across it.\u00a0 But there was no mistake:\u00a0 the patch of sidewalk in front of her house was undeniably bare.\u00a0 The man was gone.<\/p>\n

Mystified, Gretchen\u2019s mind began to whir, as she contemplated what could have happened to him.\u00a0 Maybe he hadn\u2019t been dead, after all \u2013 just unconscious.\u00a0 If that was the case, he might have just woken up and walked home.\u00a0 Or maybe someone had moved him.\u00a0 That would have been the proper thing to do:\u00a0 leave the man with a shred of dignity and not just let him lie there to rot.\u00a0 She wanted to believe she would have done so herself, if she hadn\u2019t been afraid to leave the house, but then she imagined how he might feel to touch \u2013 heavy and limp\u2026 and stiff \u2013 and how he might smell, after lying out in the sun for at least a full day, and she honestly wasn\u2019t sure.\u00a0 Ashamed, she turned away from the window.<\/p>\n

But there were still unanswered questions.\u00a0 If someone had moved him, that meant there was someone else alive, someone out and about.\u00a0 But who<\/i>?\u00a0 She hadn\u2019t seen a living soul since Friday.\u00a0 Who was there to come along and drag a dead man out of the street in the middle of the night?<\/p>\n

She contemplated this as she wandered into the kitchen, with the idea of getting something to drink.\u00a0 Her throat was dry from sleeping, most likely with her mouth open.\u00a0 Ice water sounded heavenly\u2026 until she realized the ice cubes in the freezer would be melted by now.\u00a0 Maybe something hot to sip on, then.\u00a0 Who said you couldn\u2019t fix hot chocolate in the spring?\u00a0 The microwave would be useless, of course, but she could always make it the old-fashioned way, by boiling water on the gas stove.\u00a0 She padded back into the living room for her lighter and ignited the flame under one of the stove burners.\u00a0 On top, she added a small pot of water.\u00a0 She settled for tap water to wet her throat while she waited for it to heat, and once she\u2019d filled her glass, she stood at the sink, drinking it in long, slow swallows.<\/p>\n

Her glass in one hand, she reached with the other up to the kitchen window and flipped open the mini-blinds.\u00a0 As soon as she did, she screamed and jumped back, her heart leaping into her throat, her glass falling from her hand.\u00a0 She vaguely heard the breaking of glass as it hit the floor and felt the splash of water against her ankles, but she didn\u2019t look down as she reeled backwards in fright.<\/p>\n

There was a face in the window.<\/p>\n

Looming out of the shadows, it was the most horrific face she\u2019d ever seen:\u00a0 bloated and discolored, its features distorted, the mouth agape, murky eyes wide and staring.\u00a0 It was the face of death, the face of her worst nightmares, and yet it was alive.\u00a0 The mouth moved soundlessly.\u00a0 The eyes seemed to bulge from their sockets when they saw her.\u00a0 Hands appeared suddenly, pressing against the window pane.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you want?\u201d she shouted, and when there was no reaction from the face outside, no sign that he\u2019d heard her at all, she lunged forward, jerked the blinds shut, and sank to the floor.\u00a0 She sat down in a puddle of spilled water from the remnants of her glass, her back pressed against the cupboards, and shook.\u00a0 Her mind raced.\u00a0 Who was he?\u00a0 What was he doing?\u00a0 Why had he come?<\/p>\n

The latter two questions seemed answered when she heard a tapping \u2013 no, a slapping<\/i> sound on the window, the sound of palms beating against the glass.\u00a0 This was no neighborly knock; whoever he was, the would-be intruder wanted in.\u00a0 The window was locked, but how long would the glass hold against the barrage of his hands?\u00a0 Gretchen was not willing to sit there and find out.<\/p>\n

With a burst of adrenaline, she scrambled up and scuttled out of the kitchen, half on her hands and knees, trying to stay low and out of sight.\u00a0 In the living room, she released a breath, then looked up and gasped.\u00a0 There were more bodies pressed up against the front window, their awful faces leering in at her.\u00a0 The glass squeaked as their hands swiped down it and groaned with the force of their weight.<\/p>\n

Caught in a circle of candlelight, Gretchen froze in terror for a second, wondering what to do.\u00a0 Then, quickly making up her mind, she ran a lap around the living room, dousing the candle flames and plunging the room into darkness.\u00a0 From inside the dark room, she had a better view out into the moonlit night, and the beings outside would have a harder time seeing in.\u00a0 Counting on this hope and praying the latches on her doors and windows were sturdy, she retreated to her bedroom.<\/p>\n

She closed the bedroom door and locked it, throwing the room into total darkness.\u00a0 The only weak source of light came from the window, but she didn\u2019t dare open the blinds to let more of the moonlight in.\u00a0 She was afraid of what else might try to get in, too.<\/p>\n

Relying on her other senses, she crept about the room, straining her ears to listen for signs that they had broken in, groping around for the possessions she sought.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t want to leave the house, but if they got in, she would have to escape, and quickly.\u00a0 She had no idea where she would go or what she would need, but she felt around the back of her closet until she found an old backpack, and she started throwing things in:\u00a0 a change of clothes, tennis shoes, her cell phone.\u00a0 The rest of what she would want to take \u2013 the flashlight, her purse with her wallet and keys \u2013 was in the front of the house, and unless she planned to escape through the window, the doors were there, too.<\/p>\n

She\u2019d have to chance it, but not without some reassurance.\u00a0 Heart pounding, she crawled to Shawn\u2019s dresser and eased open the bottom drawer.\u00a0 She felt around for the shoebox she knew he kept in the back corner, under a pile of grungy college sweatshirts and old army fatigues.\u00a0 She pulled it out carefully and set it in her lap.\u00a0 Daring, for the first time, to use her only source of light, she took out her phone and flipped it open.\u00a0 She tipped the lid off the shoebox and held her phone up over it, using its bright screen as a flashlight.\u00a0 Reflecting the glow of the weak, blue-white light, the metal of the gun inside seemed to gleam.\u00a0 It was beautifully frightening, and it sent a shudder through Gretchen as she reached in and gingerly picked it up.\u00a0 It was the first time she\u2019d ever held a gun, a real gun.<\/p>\n

She hadn\u2019t wanted a gun in the house at all, and it was something she and Shawn had argued about when she\u2019d gotten pregnant.\u00a0 But this was not just any handgun, Shawn insisted; it was an antique, the very pistol his grandfather had carried on his person in World War II and, later, the Korean War.\u00a0 It had been handed down the family to his father, who\u2019d taken part in Desert Storm, and then on to him.\u00a0 It was not only an antique, he protested; it was an heirloom.\u00a0 It was not there to be used, but to be cherished.<\/p>\n

And suddenly, for the first time, Gretchen did cherish it.\u00a0 She couldn\u2019t fathom actually using it, but as she took it from its box and wrapped her fingers around the grip, she imagined she might soon be glad she had the pistol with her.<\/p>\n

She kept the gun in her hand as she rose, slowly, and slung the backpack over her shoulder.\u00a0 Creeping to the bedroom door, she cracked it open soundlessly and peeked out.\u00a0 The hallway was dark.\u00a0 She could still hear the muffled pounding of hands and bodies against the windows, along with a low, guttural sort of moaning, but there was no indication that they\u2019d broken in.\u00a0 Yet.<\/p>\n

Who are they?<\/i> she wondered again, but she dared not stop to think.\u00a0 Everything about them felt threatening, and instinct told her she didn\u2019t want to wait around to find out.\u00a0 She wanted to get away, as soon as possible.\u00a0 If she could make it to her car, she could floor the gas and leave them all behind.<\/p>\n

But what if they followed her?<\/p>\n

They wouldn\u2019t, she argued with herself.\u00a0 These people were sick.\u00a0 They weren\u2019t acting normal; they weren\u2019t acting human.\u00a0 If they had cars, if they were up to driving, they\u2019d be doing it, not beating against her windows.\u00a0 They were out of their minds.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the virus<\/i>, she thought, and remembered Shawn\u2019s warning to stay inside.<\/p>\n

As she hesitated at the threshold of the kitchen, a sudden crash made her jump.\u00a0 Horrorstruck, she looked to see the living room window shatter inward.\u00a0 That was enough to make up her mind.\u00a0 She barely caught a glimpse of the first shadowy figure clawing its way over the windowsill before she bolted, snatching her purse and keys from their hook by the back door on her way through it.<\/p>\n

There were more of them outside the back door.\u00a0 Gretchen screamed as a woman lumbered toward her, reaching out with fingers hooked like talons.\u00a0 She dodged out of the way of the woman\u2019s grasp, only to nearly collide with a man in a dirty, gray tracksuit.\u00a0 Her eyes widened with dawning horror as she recognized the man from the street, the neighbor with whom she\u2019d exchanged smiles, but never a formal introduction.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re alive?\u201d she gasped, but she didn\u2019t wait for an answer, backpedaling in fright.\u00a0 This man looked like he wanted to grab her, to hurt her, as much as any of them.\u00a0 It was all in his body language, though; his face was expressionless, the mouth slack, the eyes blank and cloudy, completely\u2026<\/p>\n

Dead.<\/p>\n

His face was the mask of death, his eyes nothing more than two, cold marbles rolling around their sockets.\u00a0 His limbs moved with the stiffness of rigor mortis, and her nostrils could already detect the faint stench of earthy decay rising from his body.<\/p>\n

Yet, he was<\/i> moving.\u00a0 They were all moving toward her, arms outstretched, seeming frenzied and hungry despite their blank, dead faces.<\/p>\n

Dead.<\/p>\n

Undead?<\/p>\n

Gretchen began to shake violently and feared her quivering knees wouldn\u2019t support her if she tried to run.\u00a0 But just as they began to close in on her, cornering her against the house, she acted on one last burst of adrenaline and blind courage.\u00a0 Shrieking, she ran, using the butt of her gun like a club, hitting and pushing through their stiff, grabbing arms, shoving them aside.\u00a0 She heard a crack as she barreled through the woman\u2019s thin arm and nearly gagged when she realized she\u2019d broken her bone.\u00a0 Insanely, she thought of Red Rover, a game she\u2019d played as a child.\u00a0 The kids at her school were no longer allowed to play it at recess, not since a boy had fractured a little girl\u2019s arm, trying to get through the line.<\/p>\n

Red Rover, Red Rover\u2026<\/i> childish voices chanted in her mind as she ran, her eyes fixed on her car, imagining herself yanking open the door, leaping in, and shutting it immediately.\u00a0 Send Gretchen right over\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n

Her body slammed against the car, and she reached quickly for the door handle.\u00a0 A quick tug revealed what she should have already known \u2013 it was locked.\u00a0 She never left her car sitting out under the carport unlocked.\u00a0 The keys were in her hand, and she fumbled with him, trying to fit the right key into the lock with trembling fingers in near darkness.\u00a0 She could sense the undead encroaching on her, could hear the scrape of their clumsy feet on the driveway and the low, grunting groans from deep in their throats.\u00a0 When the door came unlocked with a faint pop, she knew, without looking, that they were right behind her.<\/p>\n

She clutched at the door handle again, and this time, the door flew open, slamming into a couple of the… well, whatever they were, and knocking them over.\u00a0 She jumped in and wrenched the door shut again, nearly catching the fingers of the man in the tracksuit.\u00a0 He banged his hands against her window as she jammed the key into the ignition and started the car.<\/p>\n

The headlights came on automatically, illuminating the alley between her house and the next.\u00a0 She thought it might deter the undead, but instead, it seemed to act like a beacon, luring them towards her.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t wait to find out how quickly they could climb onto her hood or how strong her windshield might be.\u00a0 She threw the car into reverse and floored the accelerator, whipping backwards out of her driveway faster than she ever had, with no thought to what might be behind her.\u00a0 She felt a massive thump beneath her tires as she mowed down one of them, and then another bump as she hit the curb.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t care.\u00a0 As long as she didn\u2019t blow out the tires of her little, blue Cobalt, she was good.<\/p>\n

She spun out onto the street, braked just enough to shift into drive, and gunned the engine again, speeding past clusters of the undead on both sides of the road now.\u00a0 My God, they\u2019re everywhere<\/i>, she thought with despair.\u00a0 All the people who had contracted the virus\u2026 all the people who had died\u2026 had they all become these creatures?\u00a0 These\u2026 zombies?<\/p>\n

Zombies \u2013 what am I thinking?<\/i>\u00a0 Behind the wheel, she shook her head, laughing humorlessly.\u00a0 Was she going crazy?\u00a0 This had to be a dream.\u00a0 A nightmare.\u00a0 Maybe she\u2019d never really woken up at all.<\/i><\/p>\n

Come on, wake up!\u00a0 Snap out of it! <\/i>\u00a0she pleaded with herself, but as she navigated through the familiar streets and sights of Atlanta, she realized her surroundings were much too vivid to be part of a dream.\u00a0 This was real.\u00a0 Somehow, it had to be real.<\/p>\n

It all seemed too much, and she started to cry then, shaking violently as she pictured the face leering in at her, the monsters climbing through her living room window, the man in the track suit reaching for her, the woman\u2019s arm snapping with a crack.\u00a0 For a moment, with her vision blurring and her hands trembling, it was difficult to keep her car on the road, and she nearly hit the curb again.\u00a0 Thankfully, she managed to get control again, both of her car and of herself, remembering that she couldn\u2019t afford to blow out a tire.\u00a0 Her little Cobalt was her only protection against the masses of undead roaming the streets of Atlanta.\u00a0 If she crashed the car, she was screwed.<\/p>\n

That realization was enough to calm her down, make her think rationally.\u00a0 I have to get out of the city<\/i>, she decided, assuming that, away from the city, there would be less people\u2026 less zombies\u2026 less to worry about, and more room, more time, to think.\u00a0 She would drive first and figure out the rest later.<\/p>\n

With that decided, she headed for the nearest interstate.\u00a0 She\u2019d thought, foolishly, that it would be relatively easy getting out of Atlanta in the middle of the night, when everyone else seemed to be dead or a zombie.\u00a0 She hadn\u2019t counted on the fact that before they died, those people, those zombies, had owned cars, and some of them had had the same idea about getting out of Atlanta.\u00a0 The roads were strewn with vehicles, and they weren\u2019t just parallel parked neatly along the curb.\u00a0 Some of them were stopped dead in the middle.<\/p>\n

She gaped through the window of the first one of these she encountered, as she eased her Cobalt carefully around it, and saw a dark figure slumped lifelessly over the steering wheel.\u00a0 A shudder ran through her.\u00a0 In the next car, the driver was moving around, smacking her hands against the window, as if she were trying to get out.\u00a0 One look at her bloated face told Gretchen she was not among the living, but the living dead, trapped in her own car, where she\u2019d apparently died and come back.<\/p>\n

After that, Gretchen stopped looking.<\/p>\n

She kept her eyes fixed straight ahead, watching out for cars and zombies in the road.\u00a0 There were lots of both in the heart of the city, and she was both glad she had a small car, because it made it possible to squeeze through obstacles, and worried, because it wouldn\u2019t take too many zombies to total it.\u00a0 Thankfully, once she reached the freeway, there were far less zombies, and after she\u2019d crawled up the on ramp and driven a few, tedious miles, the number of stalled cars thinned too, and she was able to speed up.<\/p>\n

Once it seemed the immediate danger was behind her, her emotions caught up to her again.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t shake this time; she seemed to be past the point of shock.\u00a0 But she did cry.\u00a0 She cried, thinking of the home she\u2019d left behind, the first house she\u2019d ever owned.\u00a0 She couldn\u2019t go back there, but where would she go?\u00a0 She couldn\u2019t imagine stopping anytime soon and wondered how she\u2019d ever feel safe enough to stop driving.\u00a0 She cried, thinking of Shawn, surely on his way home to meet her.\u00a0 How would he find her, now that she\u2019d left without so much as a note?\u00a0 A note\u2026 she should have left a note.\u00a0 But there\u2019d been no time, and what would she have said?\u00a0 She hadn\u2019t a clue where she was headed, so a note wouldn\u2019t have been very helpful.\u00a0 She had her phone, in the backpack alongside Shawn\u2019s gun, but it was useless without service.\u00a0 And so she cried.<\/p>\n

For awhile, she drove in silence, her senses on high alert, eyes focused, ears piqued for sounds of danger.\u00a0 But soon, the silence became too much.\u00a0 Gretchen hated driving in silence; she always had music playing when she was behind the wheel.\u00a0 Longing for something to drown out her thoughts, she turned on the radio.\u00a0 Nothing but static.\u00a0 She pressed the auto-tune button, but as it ran through the stations, static blasted out at her from every one.\u00a0 With a sigh, she switched to her mp3 player, which she\u2019d thankfully left plugged in to her car stereo.\u00a0 Without need for a signal, this worked fine, and within seconds, her music was blaring.<\/p>\n

After a few songs, Gretchen started to feel again that it had all been a dream.\u00a0 Surely, it couldn\u2019t have been real \u2013 dead people reanimating and breaking into her house as zombies, chasing her out of Atlanta?\u00a0 She was just on a road trip, heading South, not a care in the world.\u00a0 Truth be told, she loved driving at night, alone in the car, with the music turned up high.\u00a0 It was her chance to sing along as loudly as she wanted to, and no one could see her or hear her.\u00a0 She was in her own world.<\/p>\n

This was normalcy, and it was comforting.\u00a0 She still had no idea where she was going, but now, she didn\u2019t care.\u00a0 She just didn\u2019t think about it.\u00a0 The sun would be coming up soon, and with her music playing, she could drive all day if she needed to.\u00a0 She started to feel better, the further she got from Atlanta, the further she went without seeing a zombie.\u00a0 There were still abandoned cars here and there, but not nearly as many as before, and most were pulled off to the shoulder, so that she could drive as fast as she wanted without the fear of wrecking her car.<\/p>\n

Then she saw a sight up ahead that made her slow down.<\/p>\n

It was a car, a sedan, not just parked in the median, but crashed there, its front end smashed into the guardrail.\u00a0 She wouldn\u2019t have thought much of it, except that its taillights and one headlight were still on.\u00a0 None of the other cars she\u2019d seen had any lights on.\u00a0 And in the eerie, red glow of the taillights, she could see shadowy figures circling around the car.\u00a0 She swallowed hard, realizing by the way they moved that they were among the undead.\u00a0 This made her want to slam down the accelerator again and leave them in her dust before they could turn their attention on her.\u00a0 But the fact that they seemed so fixated on the other car and had not<\/i> yet turned to approach her gave her another realization.<\/p>\n

There was someone trapped in the car.\u00a0 Someone living.<\/p>\n

That had to be it; there was no other explanation she could think of for a cluster of zombies to be swarming around a single car with its lights still on.\u00a0 If it was abandoned, they would abandon it, too, and come after the car that was moving:\u00a0 hers.\u00a0 But it wasn\u2019t abandoned.<\/p>\n

She turned down her music as she crept up to the scene, her foot poised over the gas pedal, ready to floor it again if she needed to.\u00a0 As the light from her headlights spilled over them, some of the zombies turned to face her, and she nearly did floor it.\u00a0 But thankfully, she paused and looked first, and with her headlights illuminating the other car, she could see that there was a man inside.\u00a0 Frightened as she was by the thought of another encounter with the undead, she couldn\u2019t just drive away and leave him there.\u00a0 His car wasn\u2019t much bigger than hers was.\u00a0 Eventually, they would break in, and\u2026 and what?\u00a0 Kill him?\u00a0 Eat<\/i> him?\u00a0 Everything she knew about zombies came from the movies; she didn\u2019t have a clue what real ones would do to a living person.\u00a0 She was pretty positive she didn\u2019t want to find out.<\/p>\n

Slamming her palm against her steering wheel, she honked her horn.\u00a0 Once, twice, then a long, sustained third time.\u00a0 She thought this would scare the zombies, but it didn\u2019t.\u00a0 It did, however, attract the attention of the man in the car.\u00a0 She couldn\u2019t make out his face in the shadowy interior, but she could see the shape of his arms waving, the universal signal for HELP!<\/p>\n

Her mind quickly formulated a plan.\u00a0 She pulled ahead, then made a U-turn, so that she was now facing his solitary headlight.\u00a0 Then, with the utmost concentration, she revved forward, trying to get as close to his car as she could, as fast as she could, without hitting it.\u00a0 She plowed into several zombies, throwing them out of her path, cringing as their bodies crunched against her fender.\u00a0 Then she slammed on her brakes, stopping her car parallel to his.\u00a0 She reached over to the passenger door to unlock it, only to realize she\u2019d pulled up too close to get the door open.\u00a0 There was no time to correct this; the zombies were regrouping, staggering towards their cars.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe window!\u201d she yelled to the man in the other one, signaling by flapping her hand downward, as she lowered her own passenger window.\u00a0 Thank God for automatic.<\/p>\n

The man understood and did the same on his driver\u2019s side.\u00a0 Without hesitating, he stuck his head and torso through his window and then through hers, climbing awkwardly into the Cobalt.\u00a0 It was a good thing he was a small guy, thought Gretchen, as he struggled into her passenger seat.<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay, drive!\u201d the man shouted, as soon as his legs were free of his car, and Gretchen didn\u2019t hesitate.\u00a0 She whipped the car around in another U-turn, righting her direction on the freeway, and then she plunged her foot down onto the pedal.\u00a0 They raced away, leaving the pack of zombies lumbering in confusion behind them.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter 33 There\u2019s not a lot that scares me, or so I thought.\u00a0 I\u2019m not afraid of many of the usual, silly things \u2013 spiders, storms, heights, enclosed spaces, the dark\u2026\u00a0 My biggest fears, aside from public speaking, are \u2013 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":8,"menu_order":33,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"onecolumn-page.php","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/202"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":203,"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/202\/revisions\/203"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}