Red Hill (Page 9)

Taking even one step toward that scene was terrifying, but I found enough courage to scoop up his keys and run for the Jeep. My fingers pressed the keyless entry. I yanked the door open, praying that the gas tank wasn’t close to being empty. Mrs. Sisney was still consuming the meat of Drew’s neck and the others were slowly gnawing on Drew’s now lifeless body. He definitely wouldn’t need his Jeep again, I thought as I ripped out of the parking lot.

Speed limits and red lights were irrelevant. I glanced from one side to the other at each intersection, and then blew through them until I reached the main road out of town. Surely most people would head for the interstate, I thought, but I was wrong. Wrecks peppered the old two-lane highway toward Kellyville.

I kept the gas pedal pressed against the floorboard, trying to stay away from traffic jams and buy myself some time to think of what I should do. People, alive and dead, were running around. Gunshots could be heard from all parts of town as people shot reanimated corpses from their vehicles and porches.

A blinking sign signaled that I was entering a school zone. My stomach instantly felt sick. The children had been picked up more than an hour ago, thank God, but mine were so far away. If the epidemic had spread so quickly, the girls were probably terrified and running, too.

I had to get to them. My fingers tightened around the steering wheel. If it was the end of the world, I wanted to be holding my babies.

I turned up the volume on the radio, hoping for some clue how to get out of town and to my children. Instead of reporting safety procedures or anything else helpful, the DJs were struggling to remain professional while one gruesome report after another came in about people being attacked, car accidents, and mayhem.

The one thing they weren’t talking about was where the epidemic had originated. If either of the coasts had been struck first, it would have given me more time . . . and time was the only chance I had.

Chapter Four

Miranda

“We’re not going to die,” Cooper said. “Try to stay calm.”

He had his arm wrapped around my older sister, Ashley, in the backseat, his eyes dancing as he watched the chaos surrounding my VW Bug. He leaned against Ashley when yet another person ran by and bumped the door.

“Damn it!” I said, frowning. “They’re going to scratch the paint!”

Ashley watched me in disbelief, but I couldn’t help but allow a little irrational anger to rise to the surface. My brand-new, shiny white Volkswagen barely had time to let the custom paint dry, and these ass**les were rubbing up against it every time they passed.

“We’re at a standstill,” Bryce said, trying to see ahead. Bryce’s tousled brown hair grazed the fabric of the Bug’s convertible top. He’d wanted to drive his Dodge truck to my dad’s ranch, but Daddy was a fan of Ford, and I wasn’t going to listen to them discuss Rams vs. F-150s all weekend. “If you let the top down, I can get a better look.”

“Well that’s just stupid,” I said, my face scrunching in disgust.

My comment pulled Bryce’s attention away from the frightened pedestrians outside. “What?”

I pointed over his shoulder. “There is a reason they’re running. I’m not going to expose us to whatever that is.”

Traffic slowed down to about twenty-five miles per hour no more than ten miles after we merged onto the interstate to take a weekend road trip, and less than five miles later we were halted to zero miles per hour. That was half an hour before, and we still hadn’t moved. Not even when people started getting out of their cars to make a run for it.

“Just drive, Miranda. Get us the hell out of here. I don’t want to know what they’re running from,” Ashley said, fidgeting with her long, wavy hair. She was beautiful like my mother: tall, thin, and delicate. Her dirty blond hair cascaded down each shoulder, reminding me of that girl from the Blue Lagoon movie. If Ashley didn’t have a shirt on, it wouldn’t matter. With a few well-placed dots of Elmer’s glue, her tits would be completely obscured by her hair.

Growing up, I used to be jealous of her natural beauty. My five feet, five inches made me look dumpy next to her. I looked like my father: round face, dull brown eyes, and auburn hair . . . well, Daddy’s was reddish before it turned white. Bryce preferred to call me athletically built, but what did he know, he was six feet and six inches of meager man-child. His basketball coach worshipped him, but when we were together, his tallness only made my shortness seem more obvious.

“You know what they’re running from,” I said, gripping the steering wheel with both hands. Only those in denial weren’t aware of what was happening.

News reports about a viral outbreak were the reason afternoon classes were canceled. Ashley had the bright idea to drive to Beaver Lake for the weekend and had invited her boyfriend, Stanley Cooper, to come along earlier in the week. Not wanting to be the odd man out, I asked Bryce, although once he knew about Cooper coming along, Bryce would have come whether I’d invited him or not. Especially once Daddy found out Mom was out of town and insisted we stay with him for the weekend. Bryce knew my relationship with my father hadn’t been all that great lately, because Bryce knew everything about me. We had voluntarily tolerated each other since our sophomore year of high school. We traded off doing horrible and wonderful things for each other: He’d taken my virginity and helped me get through my parents’ divorce, I’d wrecked his first truck and given him my virginity. Bryce was fiercely protective, and that is exactly how we ended up at the same college. His protection wasn’t fueled by jealousy. It was more like he was protecting me from me. Bryce worked double duty as boyfriend and conscious, and I had never denied that I appreciated both.

Just like everyone else, we continued with our weekend plans, never truly believing something so frightening and dangerous would reach us all the way in the middle of the country. Nothing ever happened here. The worst thing that had happened to Ashley and me was our parents’ divorce. Other than that, our lives had been fairly boring and worry free. It was a running joke with us. We would listen to our friends’ stories of their brutal childhoods or how they were bullied in high school, how their father was a drunk or their mother was overbearing. Our mom and dad never fought in front of us. Their divorce was a complete surprise.

Another runner bumped the paint. I honked the horn. “Dick!”

“Miranda, maybe we should do what they’re doing?” Bryce asked.

“The Bug is my birthday present. Dad special-ordered it, and he will never forgive me if I show up without it. And, the ranch is two hours away. We’ll never make it on foot.”

Ashley gripped my seat with her perfectly manicured fingers. “M . . . maybe we should go back?”

I rolled my eyes. “You act like you’ve never seen a zombie movie, Ashley. We can’t survive in a city. Dad’s ranch is the best place to go.”

“Why do you keep saying that? It’s not zombies, that’s ridiculous!” she said.

“Viral outbreak. The infected are attacking and biting people. They said cadavers this morning. What do you think it is, Ash? Herpes?”

Ashley sat back in resignation, crossing her arms across her stomach. Cooper pulled her to him again. He wasn’t fooling anyone. His wide blue eyes made it obvious that he was just as frightened as she was, but fear wasn’t the only thing I saw.