Eviscerating Excerpt
Michelle, Levi,
Chuck, and I got back to Harrington this afternoon. It took us four hours to
get here from Brownsborough—a trip that used to take 25 minutes by car.
We walked in the
fields that run parallel to I-65. We only saw three zombies during the whole
walk, aside from Chuck, of course.
The first two
weren't a problem.
In our first hour
of walking, we came across a green truck lying on its roof, its wheels in the
air like the stiff limbs of a carcass.
It was in the
center of a field, but we could tell from the thick tracks leading up to the
wreckage that the truck had come from the highway.
A side mirror lay
in the grass several feet away and I had an idea the truck had flipped over at
least twice, breaking off its mirror before rolling to a stop on its back.
Levi wanted to
walk around the wreck and I thought that was smart, but Michelle marched
straight to it. "They could've packed food or weapons," she called
over her shoulder.
That was a fair
point.
I hurried to catch
up, but I stopped when Michelle brought our only gun out of her jeans and
pointed it through the truck's windshield.
She knew not to
fire it. A gun's good for getting out of a tight spot, but the shot will draw
the attention of every zombie in hearing distance.
I had my bat up,
ready to swing before I knew what the danger was.
Then I heard the
muffled thumping. There were two corpses pounding on the windshield from inside
the truck.
"They're out
of food," Levi said.
When I looked
where he was pointing I felt faint and my vision clouded with black spots. If
this had happened a week ago, I would've thrown up. But I've seen a lot since
then.
At first I could
see only the zombies lying on the roof of the truck's cab, Mommy and Daddy.
Both of them had the dark-rimmed, all-white eyes of the dead, sunken because
the pale grey skin surrounding them had gone lax and hung off their skulls like
dough.
Mommy was wearing
a blue summer dress, stained maroon all down the front. Daddy had broken his
neck and his head lolled on his shoulder. An unnatural bulge protruded beneath
his jaw and stretched the skin there to near bursting.
Then I saw what
Levi meant by "food."
Hanging upside
down behind Mommy and Daddy was a car seat. It was still strapped in, despite
the seat belt straps on either side having been gnawed through.
The soft grey
lining of the car seat was stained red and black and covered in flecks of skin
and hair.
They're trapped in
there," Levi said.
How can you
tell?" Michelle asked.
Levi shrugged.
"If they could've got out, they would've. Let 'em starve."
He kept walking.
Michelle followed.
I stood a while
staring at the car seat, but when I heard a faint crack in the windshield the
zombies were pounding on, I got moving.
The third zombie
wasn't trapped. He came right at us.
To read more, check out All Together Now: A Zombie Story at Amazon.
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