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Kimber had gotten out of the truck and started calling for her, too. The pair of us were walking up and down the stretch of highway, shouting her name.
And then her voice squeaked out from the long grass of the embankment. “I’m okay!” Harlow yelled weakly, and I immediately ran to the sound.
She was sitting up by the time I reached her, and I crouched down. I brushed back the hair from her face so I could see her eyes better, and I noticed a gash on her cheek.
“You’re bleeding. What else is hurt?” I asked.
She rubbed her temple and shrugged. “Everything. What happened?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. There was a loud noise, and then it all happened so fast.”
I stood up and surveyed the scene, but the only light came from the moon, the red taillights, and the headlights shining in the opposite direction from where we were on the embankment. Kimber had followed me here, and she knelt on the ground beside Harlow.
Kerrigan, Riva, and Calvin had already gotten out of the truck, and they were walking around it, investigating the crash. One of the kids was crying in the back, and Bâo and Vân were talking to each other frantically in Vietnamese.
“There’s fucking spike strips!” Kerrigan shouted and kicked a chain, making it clatter against the road, and my stomach dropped. That was a man-made trap.
“Spike strips?” Harlow asked. “What are those?”
“It’s basically what it sounds like. It’s a strip of spikes laid across the road to puncture tires and disable vehicles.”
“Someone put that out there?” Kimber asked. “Why would they want to –”
Her words were cut off by a zombie howl. It was the same kind I’d been hearing for the past hour or so – the warbling and rasping howl, almost like a zombie wolf – but it was much closer than it had been before.
“Can you stand up?” I asked Harlow.
“Yeah,” she said, but the moment she tried, she started to fall, and I had to catch her.
“I’ve got you,” I promised her, and the two of us and Kimber hurried to the truck.
When we reached it, Riva and Kerrigan were arguing, with Riva contending, “We have weapons, we can hold off a few zombies for a night, and in the morning, we’ll patch the tires and get out of here.”
“A few zombies?” Kerrigan snorted. “You think a zombie laid that spike strip? No, we’re dealing with something else out here, and I don’t know what the hell it is. We’re better off running.”
“We can’t all run, Kerrigan,” Riva said sharply. “There’s little kids, and some of us are banged up from the crash.”
Harlow leaned against the back of the truck to rest her knee, and another of those long zombie howls rattled the night, sounding even closer than before.
“We can’t stay here,” I muttered, and I left Harlow to join Kerrigan and Riva’s discussion. “We’ll be sitting ducks if we stay here.”
Riva whirled on me instantly, her eyes wide with disbelief. “How can you suggest that? Harlow can’t even walk.”
“I’ll carry her on my back if I have to,” I said.
“Finally, someone with some –” Kerrigan was saying, but a whistling sound cut through the air, followed by a wet thwock. “What the hell just happened?”
“There’s an arrow in your arm,” Riva said, pointing to the thin pole jutting out of his right shoulder.
“Get down!” I shouted as I dropped to my knees. “Someone’s shooting at us!”
All around us, in the thick forest that surrounded either side of the highway, branches were breaking and crackling, as if a herd of deer were racing through. But by the sound of the zombies howling, it was something much worse.
“The zombies will get us if we stay on the ground,” Kerrigan grumbled, and then he got to his feet and shouted, “Women and children, get on top of the truck! Everyone else, grab a weapon and get ready to fight for your fucking lives.”
Harlow wouldn’t be able to get up on the truck on her own, so I ran over to help her. Kimber went up first, using the underside of the truck as a ladder. I grabbed Harlow by the waist and lifted her up until Kimber took her hand.
“You got her?” I asked as she helped pull Harlow up over the edge.
