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best course would be to check everywhere between Santa Barbara and where they had lost sight of her. That was what they had been doing.
    “Noreen?” It was Riley, her voice coming over the CB radio they had installed on their bikes the day before. Each came complete with a new helmet that had an embedded microphone and speaker.
    Noreen keyed the talk button. “I’ve got nothing over here.”
    “East end of town is clear, too,” Riley said.
    “Let’s check out the west end, then.”
    “Meet you there.”
    Cambria was a quaint tourist town along Highway 1 on the California coast. It was divided into several different areas, with most businesses either in east village or west village. Noreen entered west village from the ocean end and slowed again. Stores and restaurants occupied both sides of the street—gift shops and candy shops and antique marts and a barbecue place and a bar and grill. As she passed them, she had the sudden memory of being on this street before. It had been with her parents, some weekend trip God only knew how long ago, before high school, for sure, maybe even back when she went to Faller Elementary. They’d been in a magic shop, and she remembered being in awe of everything. But the shop seemed to be gone now.
    She pushed the mic button, not wanting to think about the past. “Where are you guys? I don’t see you.”
    “Not there yet,” Riley whispered back.
    Noreen stopped in the middle of the road. “Something wrong?”
    “There’s a grocery store between the east and west ends. We stopped to check it out.”
    “Yeah? So?”
    “Someone’s there.”
    “Martina?”
    “Not Martina.”
    “Who is it?” she asked.
    “We’ve seen two people, but there’s got to be more,” Riley said. “They’ve got a pickup truck and at least two motorcycles. And they don’t look friendly.”
    Immediately, the memory of the guy who had shot at them in the hills a few days earlier came back to Noreen. “They haven’t seen you, have they?”
    “Uh-uh. We parked our bikes on Main Street and snuck up the hill. Hiding behind a delivery van someone left here.”
    “Enough talking,” Craig broke in. “They’re going to hear us.”
    “You guys should get out of there,” Noreen said. “We don’t need to make any new friends.”
    “We’re okay here,” Riley said. “They can’t—oh, God.”
    “What is it?”
    “Shhh,” either Riley or Craig whispered.
    Noreen killed the engine to her motorcycle and wheeled it onto a side road, parking it at the curb.
    “What’s going on?” she said.
    She heard nothing, not even static.
    “Hello? Are you there?”
    She looked at the radio to make sure she hadn’t accidentally switched the channel. The power light was off.
    What the…
    Crap.
    The CB was a handheld model with a charging cradle that, with the help of an instruction manual, they had wired into the bike’s electrical system. She snatched the radio out and switched it from external power source to battery.
    “…there? Noreen?”
    “I’m here. I’m here. What’s going on?”
    “Hide! Now!”
    Noreen looked toward Main Street, almost expecting to see a horde of the undead staggering toward her.
    “What’s going on?”
    Nothing for a second, then Riley said between rapid breaths, “One of them saw us. He…ran back inside to get his friends…and we took off.”
    “Where are you?”
    “No place to hide…getting on our bikes…”
    In the distance, Noreen heard their motorcycles roar to life. Then, as their engines idled a bit, a bang.
    “What was that?”
    “It’s okay…we’re all right,” Craig said.
    “Were they shooting at you?”
    “Missed us,” Riley said.
    Hearing motorcycles roar down Main Street, Noreen shot a look at the intersection and was just in time to see Riley and Craig race by. As the sound of their engines began to fade, she heard more bikes coming from the direction of the market.
    “They’re following you,” she said.
    Knowing she couldn’t be