Read Zompoc Survivor: Exodus for Free Online

Jefferson fast enough to throw me against the door, then slammed on the brakes as we started around the slight curve. I hoped that would throw them off.
    A battle field lay ahead of us. Two Humvees were parked in the middle of Jefferson Street, in front of Kickapoo High School. They were surrounded by bodies, but it looked like the vehicles themselves were abandoned. More chilling was the size of the crowd in front of the high school itself, pressed up against three Humvees parked nose to tail in a rough semi-circle at the main entrance.
    “Pull in there and kill the engine,” I said, pointing to the parking lot of a little insurance office on our left. She got us into the parking lot and slipped in behind a pair of thick decorative bushes that hid us from easy view to the right and in front before she turned the engine off.
    “There must be hundreds of kids in there,” she said, reflecting my thoughts.
    “And a hundred infected trying to get at them,” I grumbled. Off to my right, the pair of infected that had followed us from the parking lot trotted by. They crossed Primrose and headed for the throng at the school. “Make that a hundred and two.”
    “I don’t get it. Where are they all coming from?” Porsche asked.
    “My bet is a hospital. Probably Cox South, it’s just down the road from here. And it’s right by the highway. They get out, they infect other people and those people infect other people and so on.”
    “There’s got to be something we can do,” she said.
    “Well, we can guess that shooting them only goes so far before you end up as dinner for the rest. They do tend to be easily distracted, though. If we get their attention on us, maybe we can get them to chase us and leave the all-you-can-eat-teen-buffet.”
    “Once we get them to start chasing us, how do we get them to stop?” Porsche asked.
    “We get far enough ahead that we’re out of sight. Then, we make a couple of turns. Before we do that, though, I want to check the Humvees for weapons. So, here’s the plan. I’m going to go check out the Humvees, grab what I can and come back, then we’ll ride in, make ourselves a target and save the day.”
    “What’s Plan B?” she asked with a grin.
    “Plan B goes something like ‘I scream like a little girl and you come get me.’” She laughed at that and nodded. I took a calming breath and opened the door, then slowly pushed it closed. I was across Primrose before the sheer amount of stupid in my whole plan hit me. There was nothing between me and a hundred infected but a thirty yards of air and ignorance. If they saw me, I only had a few seconds before they were on me and I was just another victim. If they didn’t see me, I stood to gain a little extra gear and maybe…just maybe, we could buy the kids at Kickapoo a little more time.
    I found myself crouching low as I got closer, even though it probably didn’t really help anything. It made me feel better, and I really needed that. I could hear the movement of the crowd of infected with every step. They uttered a low, constant groan that was unnerving even from a distance. I couldn’t imagine how nerve-wracking it must have been up close. When I finally made it to the first circle of bodies, though, I had other things on my mind. Most of the bodies were either in patient smocks or scrubs with the Cox logo on them, bearing out my guess. Patients and hospital staff. My brain went straight to the worst case scenario with Maya, and I fought to keep the rising sense of despair from overwhelming me. Until I knew otherwise, I had to keep Maya alive in my head, making it the girlfriend version of Schrödinger’s cat.
    The dead slowed me down as I tried not to step on them or in the pools of blood they were laying in. Once I made it behind the closest Humvee, I leaned up against it and let myself relax just a little. The smell of cordite and blood filled my nostrils and I decided to spend as little time as I could there.
    Despite the