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“Yeah, but Bell’s is a blockhouse, solid as a rock. Not much past it, either. Just farms and no one’s going to be planting seeds with this storm coming. ”
The rain was still only a drizzle and through the noise they could hear moans. Even with the slow gait of the creatures, the distance was closing fast. Not all of the dead were slow … a few loped along at an awkward run.
JT studied her for a moment. He flicked a glance at the shambling dead—still hundreds of yards away—and then at Bell’s. Dez was right about the hardware store—it was a squat cinder block building with roll-down steel shutters. They could hold off the legions of hell in there.
“I don’t want to die out here, Dez,” JT said indecisively. “We have backup coming and we’re not trained for this. ”
Dez said, “Give me a better plan. ”
He closed his eyes. “Fuck me. ”
Dez stood up from behind the mailbox. For a moment she stood there, waiting to be seen, but when the dead did not visibly react to her, she began waving her arms over her head. They kept coming. Maybe they had seen the two officers all along, or maybe it was that they could not show emotion, but there was no appreciable change in their speed.
“Fuck ’em,” JT said again as he rose, laid the shotgun over the curved hump of the mailbox, and fired. At that distance the pellets did no harm, but instantly each of the dead swiveled their heads toward him.
“Yeah … that did it,” said Dez.
The creatures began moving faster. Some could only stagger along on crippled limbs, but others—perhaps the more recently risen among them—began loping down the hill at a sloppy run.
“Oh … shit!”
Dez and JT said it at the same time, and then they were running north on Mason Street.
Dez was younger and could run like a gazelle. JT was fit for his age, but he was a lot older and heavier and had one knee that was a few years shy of needing a replacement. The rain was intensifying and brought with it a cloying, choking cold. JT was breathing hard before they covered the length of a football field. Dez had to slow down to let him keep place.
“The backup will be here soon,” she said. “I want to draw these crazy fuckers into an isolated area so the staties can set up a proper kill zone. ”
“Jesus, Dez,” JT puffed, “those are still people. ”
“You didn’t seem to think so when you were putting buckshot into them, Hoss. ”
“That was different. That was self-defense. ”
Dez wiped rainwater out of her eyes. “The hell do you think this is?”
JT said nothing. Sweat and rainwater poured down his cheeks, and under his natural brown skin tone a furious red was blossoming. Dez noticed that he was slowing down, too. She turned and looked back.
The crowd of dead things was falling farther behind them. Some of them had not even rounded the corner from Doll Factory, and as the rain thickened it was harder to see them. They were still coming, though, Dez was sure of that. Whatever drove them was as powerful now as it was when they first attacked them at Doc Hartnup’s.
“Thank God they’re slow,” she said.
JT nodded, unable to speak and run at the same time.
One of the cars pulled out of Bell’s parking lot and turned their way. Dez and JT were running up the middle of the street, so the car slowed. Dez began waving her arms.
“Turn around!” she yelled. “Turn around!”
The driver pulled close and lowered her window, using a flat hand to shield her eyes from the stinging rain. It was Bid McGee, the woman who owned the craft shop in the center of town.
“Bid! Turn around and get the hell out of here. Go! Go!”
“Good lord, Desdemona Fox, what happened to you? Are you all right, dear?”
Dez gave her fender a savage kick. “Are you frigging deaf? I said turn the frigging car around and go the other frigging way, Bid, or I’ll drag you out of there and beat the stupid off of your skinny ass. ”
Bid went white with shock and then purple with outrage, but turned her car around and then laid down thirty feet of rubber going the other way.
“Stupid cow,” Dez snarled.
