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“I’m not giving you my gun.”
    “I thought it was the guard’s?” he countered, although we both saw through that frayed argument.
    “You can stop worrying about me, Harrison. I can take care of myself.”
    He stared back, and it was clear he didn’t want me along. But, slowly, unwillingly, he nodded and I could see his thoughts cross his face. He was wondering if he could handle whatever was out there while defending me. I was flattered, but it was completely unnecessary.
    After Harrison conceded, we didn’t say another word until reaching the doors, though I noticed that he fell back to keep a better eye on me.
    If only he knew…
    As we stared out across the parking lot, processing what we were seeing, Mei muttered, “It looks…”
    “Like a war zone,” Doc finished her sentence.
    And it did. The personal possessions remained in place, but all of the attackers, about a hundred of them, were moving, ambling around aimlessly or knocking themselves repeatedly into the fences in a futile effort to get through them. They wouldn’t have been so disconcerting, if it weren’t for the blood stains smeared on their faces, across their shirts, and down their pants. The victims’ bodies looked like they’d somehow widened, but that wasn’t the case. It was that their insides were piled up alongside the edges of their waists, as if someone had been digging inside them.
    Mei made a gurgling sound and, from the corner of my eye, I saw her clutch her stomach as she spun around and vomited her breakfast. The rest of us stepped back, while Beverly groaned in disgust from down the hall.
    “Some of the cars are still running,” Doc said optimistically, trying to divert his attention from Mei.
    “But they’re clogging the exit,” Harrison pointed out. “We’ll need something to get through the parking lot fence, and my motorcycle won’t do it.”
    Doc exhaled, disappointed, and we glanced at him. “My dad dropped me off today. Truck would have made it, but it’s in the shop.” He gently placed a hand on Mei’s shoulder. “How about you? Do you have a car?”
    She was still bent over, recovering, so she only managed a weak shake of her head.
    I cringed. Everything in me wanted to keep my mouth shut, but there was no other way. We needed a vehicle that could tear through the chain link fence and I was the only one who had it.
    Taking a deep breath and fighting back my resistance to the idea, I said, “We can use Old Boy.”
    “Old Boy?” Harrison asked, curiously.
    I dug the keys out of my pocket and held them up. “My dad’s car. The blue Mustang in the back corner.”
    Harrison surveyed the parking lot and I knew he’d located it when he whistled in admiration. When Doc found it, he did the same, muttering, “Nice…”
    “How…?” Mei’s weak voice interrupted the festivities. She had finally improved, standing upright again and keeping her sharply acidic breath to the side. “How are we going to get to it?”
    There was really only one way I could foresee, which I knew Harrison realized too as both our heads fell to the gun in my hand. Intuitively, I dropped the magazine, checked the number of rounds, and reinserted it before lifting my head again.
    “Wow, you know how to use that thing?” Doc asked.
    Before I could say anything in response, Harrison interjected, “She’s an expert marksman.”
    While his comment could have come across as mocking, it didn’t. He was making a sincere point, which prompted Doc to stare at me in awe. And I had the feeling that I was about to impress him further. Unfortunately. I’d really prefer to stroll out the door, across the parking lot, and slip into Old Boy without fear of someone biting me. In fact, it was surreal to realize that I’d done that very same thing yesterday, and that it felt so long ago. Now, we’d be running for our lives.
    “We ready?” Doc asked, although it seemed like he was directing his question to Mei.
    We all nodded, and as