Red Hill

  "I can't believe this is happening," she whispered, pulling her scrub hat from her short blond hair.

  "Your scrubs," I said. A dark red streak ran down the front of her green standard-issue surgery scrubs. Her neck and cheek were also splattered with crimson.

  "Mrs. Sisney flat-lined, and then woke up," Angie said, her face red and glistening with sweat. "She attacked Dr. Inman. I'm not sure what happened after that. I left."

  I nodded and then backed away from her, toward the parking lot. Toward my Suburban. "Go home, Angie. Get your daughter and get the hell out of town."

  She nodded in reply, and then looked down at the blood. "I should probably just go back in. I don't know how contagious this is. Kate's with my dad. He'll keep her safe."

  Her eyes left her blood-saturated clothes and met mine. They were glossed over, and I could see that she had already given up. I wanted to tell her to try, but when the faces of my own children came to mind, my legs sprinted to the parking lot.

  I threw my purse into the passenger seat and then inserted the key into the Suburban's ignition, trying to keep calm. It was Friday, and my daughters were already an hour away, at their dad's for the weekend. Each possible route flashed in my mind. Scenes from post-apocalyptic movies with vehicles lining every lane of highways for miles did, too.

  I pulled out my cell phone from my pocket and dialed Andrew's number. It rang, and rang, and rang, and then a busy signal buzzed in my ear instead of his voicemail. "It just started," I said quietly, putting my phone in the cup holder. "I can still get to them."

  I tossed my phone into my purse, gripped the steering wheel with one hand, and shoved the gear into reverse with the other.

  A part of me felt silly. The logical side of my brain wanted to believe I was overreacting, but there was no music on the radio. Only breaking news about the pandemic, the rising death toll, and the ensuing panic.

  The Suburban stopped abruptly, and I turned around, seeing Lisa Barnes, the employee-health nurse, gripping her steering wheel, her eyes bulging. I'd backed up while she was pulling out of her parking spot, and we'd crashed into each other. I pushed open my door, and ran over to her.

  "Are you okay?" I said, hearing the subdued panic in my voice.

  "Get out of my fucking way!" she screamed as she gripped her gearshift and threw it into reverse.

  Just then a pickup truck barreled through the lot and slammed into my Suburban, taking it all the way to the street.

  Standing still beside Lisa's sedan in shock was the only thing I was capable of in that moment. My brain refused to process the surreal scene in front of me until I caught a glimpse of a crowd of people pushing through the side entrance, and fanning out into the street, joining others who were from other parts of town, running for their lives, too.

  Drew Davidson, the human resources director, stumbled and fell. He cried out in pain, and then looked around him, reaching out to those passing by, screaming for help. No one so much as paused.

  A pair of wild eyes stood out from the mob. It was Mrs. Sisney. She was moving quickly, into the dispersing crowd. She crossed the road and finally caught up to Drew, who was still on the ground, reaching for his ankle.

  I watched in horror as Mrs. Sisney charged Drew, leaping on top of him and grabbing at his expensive suit while opening her mouth wide. Drew was pushing back against her, but she was a large woman, and eventually her body weight helped to press Drew's arms down enough for her to take a bite of his shoulder.

  Drew's cries attracted someone else--whom I recognized as Mrs. Sisney's son--and another woman in scrubs. They ambled over to Drew's flailing legs and began to feed.

  Lisa's screams matched Drew's, and then the crumpled front end of her sedan flew past me and toward the road as she left me standing in the parking lot to witness the horror alone.

  A loud boom sounded in the distance. It was then that I noticed several pillars of smoke in the sky, the newest in the area of the blast. Gunshots added to the noise, both close and far away. The chaos was confusing and happening so fast I didn't have time to be afraid.

  Shiny silver keys lay fanned out on the grass a few feet in front of Drew. He'd just bought a Jeep Wrangler the month before. I had only paid attention because I'd just lamented over that Jeep in the showroom of the local Dodge dealership during lunch, and Drew had been sitting at our table. Not a week later, when arriving for my shift, I saw that Jeep in the parking lot, and Drew Davidson stepped out of it. He thanked me for the tip, and that marked the first and last time he'd ever spoken to me.

  Taking even one step toward that scene was terrifying, but I found enough courage to scoop up his keys and run for the Jeep. My fingers pressed the keyless entry. I yanked the door open, praying that the gas tank wasn't close to being empty. Mrs. Sisney was still consuming the meat of Drew's neck and the others were slowly gnawing on Drew's now lifeless body. He definitely wouldn't need his Jeep again, I thought as I ripped out of the parking lot.

  Speed limits and red lights were irrelevant. I glanced from one side to the other at each intersection, and then blew through them until I reached the main road out of town. Surely most people would head for the interstate, I thought, but I was wrong. Wrecks peppered the old two-lane highway toward Kellyville.

  I kept the gas pedal pressed against the floorboard, trying to stay away from traffic jams and buy myself some time to think of what I should do. People, alive and dead, were running around. Gunshots could be heard from all parts of town as people shot reanimated corpses from their vehicles and porches.

  A blinking sign signaled that I was entering a school zone. My stomach instantly felt sick. The children had been picked up more than an hour ago, thank God, but mine were so far away. If the pandemic had spread so quickly, the girls were probably terrified and running, too.

  I had to get to them. My fingers tightened around the steering wheel. If it was the end of the world, I wanted to be holding my babies.

  I turned up the volume on the radio, hoping for some clue about how to get out of town and to my children. Instead of reporting safety procedures or anything else helpful, the DJs were struggling to remain professional while one gruesome report after another came in about people being attacked, car accidents, and mayhem.

  The one thing they weren't talking about was where the pandemic had originated. If either of the coasts had been struck first, it would have given me more time . . . and time was the only chance I had.

  Chapter Four

  Miranda

  "WE'RE NOT DOING TO DIE," Cooper said. "Try to stay calm."

  He had his arm wrapped around my older sister, Ashley, in the backseat, his eyes dancing as he watched the chaos surrounding my VW Bug. He leaned against Ashley when yet another person ran by and bumped the door.

  "Damn it!" I said, frowning. "They're going to scratch the paint!"

  Ashley watched me in disbelief, but I couldn't help but allow a little irrational anger to rise to the surface. My brand-new, shiny white Volkswagen barely had time to let the custom paint dry, and these assholes were rubbing up against it every time they passed.

  "We're at a standstill," Bryce said, trying to see ahead. Bryce's tousled brown hair grazed the fabric of the Bug's convertible top. He'd wanted to drive his Dodge truck to my dad's ranch, but Daddy was a fan of Ford, and I wasn't going to listen to them discuss Rams versus F-150s all weekend. "If you let the top down, I can get a better look."

  "Well that's just stupid," I said, my face scrunching in disgust.

  My comment pulled Bryce's attention away from the frightened pedestrians outside. "What?"

  I pointed over his shoulder. "There is a reason they're running. I'm not going to expose us to whatever that is."

  Traffic had slowed down to about twenty-five miles per hour no more than ten miles after we merged onto the interstate to take our weekend road trip, and less than five miles later we were halted to zero miles per hour. That was half an hour before, and we still hadn't moved. Not even when
people started getting out of their cars to make a run for it.

  "Just drive, Miranda. Get us the hell out of here. I don't want to know what they're running from," Ashley said, fidgeting with her long, wavy hair. She was beautiful like my mother: tall, thin, and delicate. Her dirty-blond hair cascaded down each shoulder, reminding me of that girl from the Blue Lagoon movie. If Ashley didn't have a shirt on, it wouldn't matter. With a few well-placed dots of Elmer's glue, her tits would be completely obscured by her hair.

  Growing up, I used to be jealous of her natural beauty. My five feet, five inches made me look dumpy next to her. I looked like my father: round face, dull brown eyes, and auburn hair . . . well, Daddy's was reddish before it turned white. Bryce preferred to call me athletically built, but what did he know, he was six feet and six inches of meager man-child. His basketball coach worshipped him, but when we were together, his tallness only made my shortness seem more obvious.

  "You know what they're running from," I said, gripping the steering wheel with both hands. Only those in denial weren't aware of what was happening.

  News reports about a viral outbreak were the reason afternoon classes were canceled. Ashley had the bright idea to drive to Beaver Lake for the weekend and had invited her boyfriend, Stanley Cooper, to come along earlier in the week. Not wanting to be the odd man out, I asked Bryce, although once he knew about Cooper coming along, Bryce would have come whether I'd invited him or not. Especially once Daddy found out Mom was out of town and insisted we stay with him for the weekend. Bryce knew my relationship with my father hadn't been all that great lately, because Bryce knew everything about me. We had voluntarily tolerated each other since our sophomore year of high school. We traded off doing horrible and wonderful things for each other: He'd taken my virginity and helped me get through my parents' divorce, I'd wrecked his first truck and given him my virginity. Bryce was fiercely protective, and that is exactly how we ended up at the same college. His protection wasn't fueled by jealousy. It was more like he was protecting me from me. Bryce worked double duty as boyfriend and conscience, and I had never denied that I appreciated both.

  Just like everyone else, we continued with our weekend plans, never truly believing something so frightening and dangerous would reach us all the way in the middle of the country. Nothing ever happened here. The worst thing that had happened to Ashley and me was our parents' divorce. Other than that, our lives had been fairly boring and worry free. It was a running joke with us. We would listen to our friends' stories of their brutal childhoods or how they were bullied in high school, how their father was a drunk or their mother was overbearing. Our mom and dad never fought in front of us. Their divorce was a complete surprise.

  Another runner bumped the paint. I honked the horn. "Dick!"

  "Miranda, maybe we should do what they're doing?" Bryce asked.

  "The Bug is my birthday present. Dad special-ordered it, and he will never forgive me if I show up without it. And, the ranch is two hours away. We'll never make it on foot."

  Ashley gripped my seat with her perfectly manicured fingers. "M . . . maybe we should go back?"

  I rolled my eyes. "You act like you've never seen a zombie movie, Ashley. We can't survive in a city. Dad's ranch is the best place to go."

  "Why do you keep saying that? It's not zombies, that's ridiculous!" she said.

  "Viral outbreak. The infected are attacking and biting people. They said cadavers this morning. What do you think it is, Ash? Herpes?"

  Ashley sat back in resignation, crossing her arms over her stomach. Cooper pulled her to him again. He wasn't fooling anyone. His wide blue eyes made it obvious that he was just as frightened as she was, but fear wasn't the only thing I saw.

  "No, Coop," I said to the rearview mirror. "You're not getting out of this car."

  "But my mom and my little sister. My dad's not around. They're alone. I should try to get to them."

  I took a breath, trying not to think of my own mom. She was in Belize with my stepfather, Rick. That was why we'd made plans to visit my dad at his ranch in the first place. "They live in Texas, Coop. Let's get to the ranch, get some supplies, and then we'll go get them, okay?" I was lying. Cooper might have known it, too, but my dad's ranch was north, everybody was running north, and Cooper's mother and sister were south. Maybe one day he could try, but we'd all seen enough end-of-the-world flicks to know how this was going to go down: mass chaos and carnage until the population whittled down. That's when the walking dead would start leaving the cities to find a meal, but by then we'd be settled in and well educated in the art of zombicide. We had to survive the next few weeks first. The ranch would be the best place to do that.

  A guy about our age bumped my door and then tripped and fell just out of sight. "Stay away!" I yelled, leaning forward to try to make eye contact with whoever decided to molest my three-day-old car.

  Another running, screaming passerby knocked his hip against my side mirror. A woman trailed behind him, but stopped, and then crawled across my hood. I cussed again, shoving the gear into reverse. "We've got to get out of here. They're going to tear us apart." Just as I turned to get a handle on how far I could back up, from the corner of my eye I saw a flesh-colored struggle in the same spot the first man had fallen.

  "Miranda?" Bryce said. "He's . . . he's got him."

  I peered over my steering wheel, watching the second man trying to pull his arm out of the mouth of the first. A mixture of screaming and moans rose from their frantic wrestling match.

  Bryce put both hands on his forehead just as the first man took a large bite of flesh and pulled away. Blood sprayed the biter's face, and meat and tendons trailed from his mouth to the arm of his prey.

  Ashley's shrill scream filled my ear, and for a moment, a buzzing noise accompanied a fainter version of what I'd just heard. I looked over at Bryce, and his face paled, his eyes saying everything he couldn't find words for.

  I slammed my foot against the accelerator, only stopping when I felt the back of the Bug hit the car behind us. In the next moment, the gearshift was in drive, and I was maneuvering between a semi-truck and a minivan--both empty. The Bug tossed us up and down as it climbed across the asphalt to the shoulder.

  "Don't stop!" Ashley said. "Keep going!"

  We passed more people, unsure of who was running and who was chasing. I saw parents carrying their young children, and pulling along older ones by the hand. A couple of times people screamed at me to stop, begged me to help them, but stopping always meant dying in the movies, and I was barely eighteen. I wasn't sure how long we could survive, but I knew I wasn't dying on day one of the fucking zombie apocalypse.

  Scarlet

  IT WAS A RISK, TAKING the old two-lane highway, but it was the quickest way to my children besides the interstate, and that would be suicide. The Jeep was part of a caravan of cars that had managed to make it out of the city. There were maybe ten or fifteen of us. The silver Toyota Camry in front of me had a forward-facing car seat in the back, and I hoped there was a child in it.

  Mile after mile of farmland passed, and then someone at the front slowed. We were coming up on a bridge, and for whatever reason, the car at the front was being cautious. Fear surged through every vein in my body. We couldn't stop. We had to keep going no matter what was ahead. I might have been in a Jeep, but it wouldn't cross the river. No matter what, I was going over that bridge.

  I couldn't see why the car in front had slowed down until I reached the bridge. An old, glacier-blue Buick was stalled on the side of the road. The windows were rolled up, and a couple remained inside. A woman was staring blankly out the window, only moving when the man next to her tugged while he tore at her flesh with his teeth.

  Instinctively, I thought to cover the eyes of my children. In the same moment I realized they weren't with me, and the panic and anxiety of getting to them, and wondering where they were and if they were scared or okay, became nearly too overwhelming for me to drive.

  "I'm coming, babies,
" I said, swallowing the sob welling up in my throat.

  One long stretch of highway north and another equally long stretch to the east would lead me to my girls. Two small towns stood between us. Their populations were only a few thousand, if that, but that was too many people to wade through if the dead were wandering the streets.

  Most of the caravan turned west, toward more rural areas. It was the direction I would have headed if my girls were with me. West on Highway 11 was one of the roads we would've taken to get to Dr. Hayes's ranch.

  Along with just two other vehicles, I turned the Jeep east, where each town's population was bigger than the last: Kellyville, Fairview, and then Anderson was on the other side of the interstate.

  The stories of the families in the other two vehicles piqued my curiosity. Ahead of me was the Toyota with the car seat, behind me was a green seventies-ish pickup truck. Whether it held one person or a family I couldn't tell; the truck kept several car lengths back.

  Five minutes from Kellyville, my hands began to tremble. I wondered if the other two drivers were as afraid as I was. Preparing for an outbreak like this was impossible, even when we'd been told for decades that it could happen, and were presented with hundreds of different methods of survival by the entertainment industry. Hoarding food, weapons, medicine. But none of that mattered if you were bitten . . . or eaten.

  The Toyota sped up a bit as we entered Kellyville's city limits. My nerves were on edge, and my brow felt damp. At any second a quick turn or evasion maneuver might be necessary.

  I wasn't sure what to expect, but the town appeared abandoned. No walking dead, no living humans. No running, no screaming. It gave me hope that maybe some way, somehow, the pandemic had stalled.

  We left unscathed, just as we had come in, but it felt too easy. Something wasn't right. I turned up the volume on the radio, but the news was the same. Once in a while they would report that someone famous had been found dead or was killed because they'd succumbed to the sickness spreading, but even then the story was similar.