Twenty

          The next time we stop it’s to look at the map. Jagger looks down at the wide piece of paper, spread out in front of him in the driver’s seat. He took Cole’s spot, Cole took mine and now I’m stuck in the back seat with a tiny child without a name and a silent Jack.

            “There’s no other way around,” Jagger explains, looking back up from the map at the landscape ahead of us. The ground is flat and dusty, desert like, as if all the grass and fields died. And knowing that most of civilization is dead, my best guess as that they did. “We have to go through.”

            “There has to be.” Cole practically rips the map from Jagger’s hands and pulls it in front of his own eyes. I watch his eyes glance back and forth across the paper a few times in the rear view mirror before he punches a spot with the tip of his finger. “If we go around we can get into the city and to the tunnels quicker.”

            “Tunnels?” I interject, thinking about the underground opening we had looked at earlier.

            Jagger sighs, aggravated. He pushes open the driver’s door and jumps out of the car to get some air.

            “We have to take the subway tunnels to get to Fort Saunders,” Cole explains without looking up. “It’s an old military base at the far edge of the city, but the only entrances are the tunnels now because the walls will be infested with zombies trying to break in.”

            “There are subways into the military bases?” Jack asks quietly.

            Cole shakes his head. “Not exactly.”

            “How do you know this?”

            Cole’s expression hardens and his shoulders tense, but he still doesn’t turn around. “My dad used to work there.”

            I stay silent.

            I want to get out of the Hummer, not only to get some air, but also to ask Jagger what he thinks. However, as much as I want to, I also don’t want to speak to him. I still don’t know how I feel about him or how to tell him I know. This whole situation seems crazy to me.

            “What’s the plan?” Jagger asks when he climbs back into the Hummer. He still sounds agitated.

            “There’s a special subway we can take to get to the fort,” Cole explains, folding the map. “I know the code to get into it, if it’s still running. It will take us right to the underground entrance. We’ll have to go to the other side of the city to reach it through. So we should drive there now.” Jagger exhales sharply through his teeth and Cole glares at him. “What?”

            “There’s a little problem with that.” Jagger taps the glass on the dashboard with his fingers. It makes a clink sound.

            Jack and I both sit up to look over the seats at what he’s pointing at. It’s the gas gauge, and it’s closer to empty than we want.

            “Let’s get some gas then.” Cole shrugs, oblivious.

            “Not only can we not get around to the other side, Cole,” Jagger says, as if he’s talking to a baby. “But how do you expect to pump gas without electricity?”

            Cole doesn’t speak but instead turns away from Jagger, angry.

            “Then what do we do?” Jack asks.

            Jagger folds his arms across his chest. “We have to go straight into the city.”

            “That’s a death wish.” My tone comes out angrier than it should. “Can you imagine how many zombies are going to be in a city that size?”

            “Can you imagine how many survivors there will be?”

            “What about the tunnels?” I ignore his point completely. “Clearly they’re infested with zombies too.”

            Cole shakes a little.

            “In case you didn’t know, Sloane,” Jagger says through clenched teeth, “the whole world is infested with zombies.”

            To this I keep my mouth shut and despite my concerns, voiced or not, we drive straight into the city.

☣

            Moving through one of the largest cities I’ve ever seen has deemed a tedious task. Haphazardly parked cars line the streets, sidewalks and even some broken store windows. I stare at one as we creep down the street and wonder how it got lodged into the brick and glass.

            So far we’ve been clear moving through the haunted looking buildings. The whole place looks like it’s a ghost town; completely deserted. The creepiness of it all keeps washing over me in waves of what if? And I start to wonder if we’re really going to come out of this alive.

            Cole is driving again, claiming to know the quickest route to the subway station. He said his father used to take him here to play games, which in the end, just turned out to be safety drills in case anything happened like a war.

            We drive at a turtle’s pace because Jagger says the slower we go the more gas we save. Personally I’d be speeding through the city, trying to get the hell out of her as fast as I can. But he said that a study showed that a slower pace lowers the amount of gasoline used.

            Needless to say, I don’t believe him.

            The Hummer creeps up around an empty car, trying to maneuver around it without getting stuck against the curve. The only sounds are the engine grinding and Bullet’s panting behind me in the trunk.

            The silence becomes eerie, causing me to want to shout just to cut the tension. But of course, I don’t.

            I can’t help but wonder what Fort Saunders will be like. Is it really safe? Are there many people there? Is my family there?

            I don’t know if I even want to see my mother so I instantly push away the thought. The only memories I’ve had of her have been unhappy.

            “Guys,” Jack chokes as we turn around a corner.

            I look to my left to see a single zombie limping towards us, appearing to have come from a broken shop. He looks completely decayed, nowhere near the human at some point he used to be. His skin is rotten, allowing his bones to peek through. I wonder how he doesn’t just crumble into a pile of decay.

            “It’s okay, Jack,” I murmur, resting a hand on his shoulder. He seems more on edge lately, and I can’t place exactly how he’s acting, but it still worries me. “We’re in a vehicle. We’re safe.”

            “Should we shoot it?” Cole wonders. He removes his left hand from the steering wheel and lets it hover over the window button.

            “No,” Jagger says in a low tone. “It will attract all the others. Gas isn’t the only reason I wanted you to go slow. It’s also to be quiet.”

            “One shot and we could all be swarmed,” I whisper.

            Jack catches my words and he looks like he might vomit.

            The man continues to limp towards us, easily matching the creeping pace of the Hummer. Once he’s close enough, he releases a high pitched groaning sound. His eyes are just black, shadowy sockets and when his fingers – only bones left with no skin – slam on Jack’s window, I flinch.

            Jack moves into my as the zombie scratches on the window, trying to get as far away from it as possible. It starts pounding its fist and instantly its bones crumble, too fragile to handle the impact.

            This doesn’t seem the phase the zombie. Without fingers or hands, he continues to pound on the window with dead skinned wrists. Each time they bang against the glass the bone at the end of its sleeve creates a thump.

            Even though I should be used to it by now, the zombie is seriously creeping me out.

            “Can we go any faster?” I ask Cole desperately. My right hand lingers on my shotgun in the empty seat and I clench it tightly as more knocks rattle the Hummer.

            “No,” Jagger says without turning around. “Just ignore it.”

            The rapping continues and soon the toddler starts to wail. I cover his mouth, trying to silence him but it’s no use.

            Thump. Thump. Thump.

            Jack cringes into me and I move across the back seat to the far window. Jack follows and soon the three of us are pressed against the door.

            The little boy continues to cry and I desperately try to hush him, growing agitated.

            Thump.

            My hands clench the shotgun tightly and I do my best not to scream. I feel like my head is going to explode. Maybe I’m going crazy. Maybe I’m insane. Perhaps I’m already dead. But I don’t care. The noises, Emily, Jagger, the whole damn zombie apocalypse is getting to me.

            Thump-Thump.

            I shove the crying infant into Jack’s lap, clutch my shot gun between white fingers and climb over Jack’s knees. In a moment I’m at the other window, aiming my shotgun precisely for the zombie’s neck to decapitate him. With my knee, I flick the window to roll down and pull the trigger.

            “What the hell?” Jagger roars.

            The zombie’s head rolls left and right, remaining barely intact but somehow still keeping him alive. The Hummer has come to a stop because of what I did but I don’t care.

            The man looks at me with his vacant eyes and for a moment, all is silent.

            Then he releases the highest, most ear-piercing scream I’ve ever heard in my life.

            He won’t stop screaming as he grasps for me, desperately trying to claw me into bits so he can eat me into his swaying mouth. I jump back into the seat, knowing taking another shot is impossible while he’s this close and do the only thing I can think of.

            I kick him in his rocking face.

            From the force and how little his head was holding onto his body, his skull goes flying across the pavement and his body drops like deadweight.

            Immediately I roll up the window and turn back to find three pairs of eyes staring at me in complete shock.

            It was one bullet, one missed shot and I can’t realize how big of a problem I have just caused. All I can think about his the numbness of the quiet I’m drowning in right now. Even the child is too shell-shocked to cry.

            “Sloane,” Jagger whispers, staring at me with disbelief, “what have you done?”

            No one else speaks. We all just listen to the silence and pray that we haven’t alerted anything else. We’re wasting gas by idling but no one says anything, because no one thinks we have a chance. We’re four teenagers, a dog and a baby, all unfit to survive a zombie apocalypse. Out of all of us, Bullet seems like the most likely to survive.

            When Jack speaks, I’m even more stunned than before. For someone so fragile – so breakable – to suggest anything is shocking. Jack is the last person I would expect to try and find us a way out of this mess.

            “We need to get out of here,” he says in a tone of authority. Despite how ridiculous his words sound coming from a pale kid holding an infant, I agree with him. “I mean like now.”

            “Do I have permission to gun it?” Cole asks, gripping the wheel tightly as he looks to Jagger.

            “You have permission to do whatever the fuck you want if it gets us out of here alive.”

            Cole nods and steps on the gas so hard that I lurch backwards and smack my head against the seat. Bullet stumbles and grows in the back, not ready for the sudden speed either.

            Cole does his best to maneuver around cars and fallen street posts as he can. As a rear view mirror scratches against my door I flinch and clench my teeth, desperately gripping the black leather of my seat so I don’t go flying.

            For a moment, I reach for my seatbelt but quickly move my fingers back to holding me in place. Safety isn’t really a concern anymore in this world. If we were to get in an accident, I would rather die during it then be trapped, seat belted inside a car while zombies use me as their next meal.

            “Are you sure you know where you’re going?” Jack shouts from beside me. He doesn’t sound scared but rather concerned. I have no idea who is sitting beside me anymore. I feel like he’s a stranger.

            “Positive,” Cole replies.

            “If that turns into a negative we’re screwed,” Jagger notes as we drift around a corner. I’m thrown against the glass of my window and I wince as my head smashes into it. It cracks, but stays intact. Jagger turns around in his seat as we start a straight-away. “Sloane, are you okay?”

            He looks generally concerned as I try to make my eyes stay open properly and touch the back of my head. Blood seeps onto my fingers and I curse under my breath. “Fine.”

            Zombies everywhere are stumbling out of their hiding places inside buildings and shops. I even saw one fall out of a dumpster in attempt to get to us.

            “Can you be more careful?” Jagger asks as we turn another sharp corner. This time I’m ready and brace myself, making sure my head doesn’t collide with anything.

            Cole laughs darkly. “I’m sure Sloane would choose a concussion over having her intestines ripped out.”

            A feeling of uneasiness fills my stomach at the thought but before I can ignore it, a large bang sounds at the front of the Hummer and I fly into the back of Cole’s driver’s seat. The toddler starts screeching and Jack tries to comfort it as Cole slams in the breaks.

            There’s a thumping on the roof and I turn around to see a limp body fall out the rear windshield and land on the pavement out of sight.

            “Why are we stopping?” Jagger asks breathlessly.

            Cole doesn’t say anything. When I turn back around to look at him, I see that he’s shaking in his seat. Slowly, he pries one hand off the black steering wheel and points at the road ahead of us.

            “That.”

            From the way his voice trembled, I’m scared to look.

            Slowly, I life my eyes and feel like I’m going to pass out. I can’t be sure if it’s from the concussion or what I’m witnessing.

            The four of us stare at the wall of zombies approaching us, moaning and limping, some even running towards the Hummer. There has to be thousands of them and already I know that this isn’t even close to all of them.

            “We’re screwed,” Jagger says. He swears a few times and punches the dashboard. “We’re screwed.”