Katarina could feel sweat trickling between her breasts and she rubbed the top of her nose. Drops of tears and sweat dripped from her fingers.
“Ken and Dale are dead,” she said softly. She still couldn’t fully fathom that her two friends were gone.
“We don’t know that,” Bill answered.
“You and I both know it, Bill. You heard what was on the CB!”
“We can’t give up hope, Kit-Kat,” Bill answered determinedly. “We just can’t. ”
Katarina shook her head. “We gotta get out of here, Bill. ” Just looking at him made her even more afraid. She touched his shoulder lovingly. His fingers covered hers.
“We’ll be out of here soon enough, baby. ”
Katarina watched the undead with a growing sense of dread and horror.
Her stomach rolled again. “Please, Bill, let’s just go. ”
“We gotta make sure that the fort is safe,” Bill answered.
“Bill, we need to leave now!” Her voice cracked as she screamed and the sound startled her.
Bill didn’t look at her, but kept driving. He was smart not to take his eyes off the road. Just around the curve was an overturned semi-truck.
“Shit,” he whispered.
There was barely any room to edge around the truck and Bill swore as he slowed down to maneuver around it. He grabbed the CB mouthpiece. “We got an obstruction in the road. We’re going around. ”
There was loud static, then a voice said, “We’re moving up to rendezvous. ”
“Don’t slow down,” Katarina hissed.
She gripped her head in agony and turned away from the view behind them, unable to watch the horde getting ever closer as the Durango slowed down to cautiously creep around the overturned semi.
“Bill,” she whispered. “I’m so afraid. ”
“Baby, you’re going to be okay. ”
“But if anything happens to you, I can’t bear it. ”
“Kit-Kat, if anything happens to you, I can’t bear it. I can’t. We’re going to be okay. We’ll get around this truck, then we’ll be fine. ” Bill risked letting go of the steering wheel so he could grip her hand and kiss it.
It was then that the driver of the truck made his appearance. Darting out from behind the truck, he struck the window with a wrench held tightly in one hand.
Reacting on pure impulse, Bill jerked the wheel and the Durango clipped the guardrail then bounced off to hit the edge of the back of the semitruck.
Fighting to gain control of the wheel, Bill swore. Katarina fell back into the back seat headfirst.
“Bill, there’s a--”
Greta’s voice over the CB was cut off as the Durango plowed into the station wagon directly behind the semi. The rending of metal and the scream of the tires filled their ears, then Bill and Katarina were tossed about inside the Durango as it flipped over and slid down the street.
“Get out! Get out!” Bill shouted, Katarina scrambled for the door, shoved it open, and climbed out.
Tumbling out onto the road from the overturned vehicle, she dared to look back. The horde of zombies was beginning to come into view behind the semi. Bill climbed out behind her. His forehead was gashed and he wiped the blood from his face as he looked back toward the zombies.
What he saw that Katarina did not was that the accident had freed the rest of the undead family inside the station wagon. They were scrambling out of the ruins of their car, decayed and wretched, and fiercely hungry.
“Kit-Kat, run!”