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The gray man on the end caved in on himself, turning into a pile of ash.
Alma’s scream was like a fist.
One by one, the remaining customers shriveled into dust. With horror, Ling and Jericho realized that what they’d seen in the town, what coated their hands and shoes and clothes, were the remains of every man, woman, and child of Beckettsville.
“Doc! Get the bus!” Alma screamed. “Go! Go!”
Doc wasted no time. He pushed out the door and raced down the street. Giant storm clouds were massing in a strange pattern at the edge of town.
“Jericho…” Alma said. “What’s that?”
“Nothing we want to be here for,” Jericho said grimly.
“Ling!” Alma shouted. “Ling!”
Ling didn’t move. Instead, she stared at the people who were now piles of ash and at the ash that had spattered the front of her dress. She pawed frantically at it, but all it did was ink itself in deeper, a tattoo of death.
“Ling,” Jericho said, coming to her side. “We have to go.”
“I can’t run,” she said through gritted teeth.
“You don’t have to,” Jericho said and lifted Ling and her crutches into his arms because he was her friend, and right now Ling needed him to be the kind of friend who could help carry her to safety.
Outside, the sky had gone from hazy to angry. Blue lightning fractured the ominous clouds. Carrying Ling, Jericho ran back toward the courthouse with Alma on his heels. They were relieved to see the Ford bus rounding the corner, Doc blasting the horn as he drove toward them. He yanked open the door.
“Get in! Get in!” Doc called. Jericho helped Ling and Alma inside. They plopped into their seats, breathing hard.
“Is anybody gonna tell us what’s going on?” Babe asked, wiping sleep from her eyes.
Doc gunned the Ford’s motor once more and careened down the abandoned street, driving among piles of ash.
“Hey! What about the filling station?” Eloise asked.
The bus bounced, coming down hard, sending the girls into screams.
“What in the Sam Hill!” Lupe said, bracing herself between two seat backs.
“Doc, go, go, GO!” Alma shouted.
“I am going!”
Lightning struck the land and bit into the rooftops. The energy of it danced on Ling’s and Jericho’s back molars. This was no ordinary lightning, they knew. Doc had steered the bus back toward the town boundary.
“Ling,” Jericho said, and she looked over her shoulder. She saw the first one shuffling out of a house. The next two came down a side street on the left. Two more. Three. As the bus came even with the church, Ling saw the disturbed graves on the hillside. Saw the dead streaming down toward the town with the angry storm growling around them. His dead. The hungry kind.
“Sweet Jesus in heaven, what is that?” Eloise shouted.
“Doc, don’t you stop driving,” Alma commanded.
“Wasn’t planning on it, Miss LaVoy!”
The little girl came out of nowhere, into the center of the road.
“Lord Almighty!” Doc said and slammed the brakes hard. Everyone screamed as the Ford fishtailed wildly, before coming to a stop. In the road, the little girl hadn’t moved. She had the soulless eyes of the dead. Her lips spread into a smile, exposing the gleaming points of her teeth. The other dead swarmed the street, coming to stand beside her.
“How many of them are there, you reckon?” Doc said, reaching for the sawed-off shotgun he kept hidden under the dashboard.
“That won’t help,” Ling said, and Doc clutched the gun to his chest, not sure what to do.
