Lazlo shouted things I didn’t understand, and the car started doing more than just rock back and forth. It was full on tipping.

I tried to grab onto something to hang onto, but it happened so fast. One second, I was on my knees, the next I was tumbling head over feet over lion.

I heard things shattering and metal crunching and people screaming, but I hit my head and everything became very disorienting.

Ripley leapt over me, her chain smacking painfully into my stomach, and then she was gone. I heard her roaring and felt a greasy hand grabbing onto my arm. I sat up, yanking my arm from a zombie grip.

When the car flipped over, the back window broke out. Shattered glass was strewn about with the bags, and zombies were starting to creep in the back.

Ripley rushed out to get them, and she held off a few, but there were too many for just her. There were too many for us.

The zombie that grabbed my arm kept coming after me. I picked up a giant shard of broken glass and stabbed it into its throat, and the zombie finally stopped. But another one was right on its heels.

“Remy!” Lazlo yelled. Blood trailed down his forehead, but he was sitting up and held his hand out to me.

Only the back window had been broken out, so in the front, they were safe. Blue tried to aim the gun at the zombies coming at me, but I was in the way. Harlow had crouched down, covering her head with her hands, but otherwise, everyone looked okay.

A zombie came at me, and I kicked in its face. It squished in, leaving a gooey mess all over the bottom of my shoe. I scooted backwards on my butt, mindful of the broken glass, but getting away from the window as quickly as possible.

Once I was out of the way, Blue shot the zombies. After he blew one of their heads off, they came in a lot more slowly. Outside, I could hear their death groans and Ripley’s roars as she took them on. I hoped she didn’t get hurt, but at this point, I voted her most likely to survive out of all of us.

“Are you okay?” Lazlo knelt right behind me.

“Yeah.” I looked over at Blue, who fired on another intruder. “I couldn’t find the handgun.”

“I don’t think it’s gonna matter all that much.” Blue gave me a sidelong glance, and he’d come to the same conclusion I had. We were completely overwhelmed.

The zombies pounded on the side of the car, the sounds echoing through the small space like thunder. That was interrupted by shattering glass, and I covered my face.

Before I could tell where they had gotten in, Harlow screamed. I looked up to see her being dragged out through the broken window, her fingers desperately raking on the felt ceiling of the car.

– 15 –

I went out the window after her. Glass from the broken window scraped my knees, and a long piece slashed across my stomach, but I barely noticed it. Harlow’s plaintive cries blocked out everything else.

As I crawled out of the car, a zombie greeted me. One of its ears had been bitten off, and its jaw hung by a piece of skin. It did some weird screechy howl thing right in my face, its breath smelling of death and rotten meat.

To shut it up, I punched it in the face. The skin gave way, and its head snapped back. It didn’t kill it, but it gave me a chance to slip by.

A hairy monstrous beast of a zombie had grabbed onto Harlow’s ankles and pulled her out of the car, presumably so it would be easier to eat her. She rolled onto her back and kicked at his face as hard as she could, and I finally saw the appeal of her combat boots.

Two more zombies came at her, rushing to the sound of her cries, but Ripley dove over her, tearing into one of them. The other one kept coming, and I had to get to it.

The zombie with one ear tried to come at me again, so I punched it even harder, aiming my fist on the soft skin of its cheekbone. It caved underneath my hand, covering my skin with disgusting gelatin that passed for zombie brains. Before I had a chance to vomit, I yanked my hand out and got to my feet.

Sprinting, I went for the zombie going at Harlow’s head. I tackled him in the back, slamming him onto the ground right next to where Harlow lay struggling. I knelt on his back, with his face smashed into the ground, and he wriggled and tried to get out from under me.

I had been hoping that he would be older, and his whole body would cave under my weight, but no such luck. I grabbed his head, my fingers pressing on his dry, patchy scalp, and I twisted it hard, snapping his neck with a sickening crack.

At least six and a half feet tall, the zombie attacking Harlow looked to be half a ton, not counting the grizzly dark hair running all down his arms and back and chest. On top of all that, he didn’t look that old. His skin hadn’t sagged or bloated. The only thing keeping Harlow alive was he was too stupid to think of a better plan than letting her kick him in the face, but eventually, he’d just snap her legs.

He was far too big for me to take down on my own, and Blue was trapped in the car with the only gun, holding zombies off as long as he could. Ripley had taken down another zombie right next to us, and she ripped into the meaty part of its belly.

Ripley still had that chain tied around her neck, since I hadn’t trusted her to let me get close enough to take it off. It might finally come in handy, and I grabbed it.

Holding the chain in my hands, I jumped up and wrapped it around the monster zombie’s neck, choking him. He made a gurgling sound, and I literally hung off him by the chain. After a second, he let Harlow go and stumbled backwards.

The chain yanked on Ripley, and she growled in protest, then jumped at his face. He fell backwards, with me landing roughly underneath him, and Ripley began eating him.