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them were met with bursts of automatic fire, tearing flesh and spraying stale blood on the street.
    The Outback’s engine roared to life. Lori didn’t wait for an invitation. She ran for its passenger door. A rotter met her as she rounded the rear of the vehicle. She raised her UZI at its snarling lips. Her heart froze as she squeezed the weapon’s trigger and it clicked empty. The rotter’s hands grabbed her shoulders, slamming her into the Outback’s side. Her UZI bounced away as it was knocked from her grasp and fell to the pavement. She struggled against the rotter’s hold on her, kneeing it in the groin with no effect. Its teeth snapped at her flesh. Frantically, Lori got her arms up in between the rotter’s. She wasn’t strong enough to push it off of her so she shoved her thumbs into its eyes, pressing as hard as she could. Its decayed tissues gave way with a sickening, popping noise as her thumbs sank into its sockets. Thick, stale blood oozed over her hands and down her arms but still the thing refused to let go. Glass shattered next to her as a round from one of Elijah’s pistols came through the Outback’s rear side window and splattered the rotter’s torso open in a shower of guts and pus. Lori screamed, a fresh wave of adrenaline pulsing through her, and pushed the off balance rotter from its feet. Several more of the creatures were almost within grabbing distance of her as she hopped into the passenger seat. “Go!” she yelled at Elijah. The Outback peeled out as it lurched forward.
    Lori’s breathing was hard and fast, her eyes glistening with tears. She noticed Elijah steal a glance at her. “I’m okay,” she lied. By the grace of God, the rotter hadn’t broken her skin with its teeth or nails but it had shaken her to her very core. With trembling hands, she drew the pistol on her belt and tried to ready it.
    “ Elijah,” Lori asked, “where were you when all this started?” She hoped talking would help her reign in her emotions.
    “ An army base.”
    “ Wow,” Lori tried to smile. “That explains so much. Were you in command there?”
    “ It was. . .unpleasant,” Elijah answered then changed the subject. “Your husband will die from his wound. Do you want to be the one?”
    “ But he didn’t get bit,” Lori argued.
    “ It doesn't matter. The virus has become airborne.”
    “ How could you possibly know that?”
    “ I can do it if you want,” Elijah offered. “You know I'm telling the truth.”
    Lori forced down her anger. “No, I
    “ Anger is good,” Elijah told her. “It gives you strength. Control it and it may keep you alive but it won’t change what will happen to Michael. It’s only a matter of time.”
    Jacob and the others were waiting on the roof when they arrived. Jacob lobbed a belt of grenades over the edge of the roof into the rotters below as the morgue came into view. Elijah reduced the Outback’s speed as the explosion shook the parking lot, then he punched it, driving through the flames and rain of splattered body parts as Lori held herself in place in the passenger seat with white knuckled hands. The Outback’s brakes squealed, straining to stop the vehicle as Elijah brought it around to the side of the morgue.
    Lori and Elijah leapt from the Outback, providing cover fire against the few rotters left standing, as the others made their way down from the roof. Michael looked worse than ever as Jacob helped him into the Outback’s hatch. The pieces of lab coat tied as bandages over his stomach were a wet shade of red. His skin was pale and sweaty. Lori was the last person to get in. her final shot making a mess of an elderly lady’s gray hair as Lori’s bullet cracked her skull. Jacob was smiling at her as Lori turned to look into the backseat. Helena sat next to him, clearly terrified but holding it together.
    “ Where to now?” Jacob asked.
    “ Out of the city,” Elijah said.
    “ Good,” Lori laughed bitterly. “It’s about time we got the