Sunkissed: A Zombie Novel

Chapter Nine

I'm driving down a street along the coast of Geneva Lake when a body falls from the sky and smashes into my windshield.

"Jesus Christ!" I slam on the brake, squeezing my eyes shut instinctively, but no flying glass comes. I glance up to find that although my windshield wore millions of cracks that rippled from the bloody body, it was still intact.

It's also now completely useless.

I made a point to drive in the sun, so when I step out of my car, the undead body on the hood is already rapidly decomposing, the stench of burning flesh infiltrating my nostrils.

"Fantastic," I mutter, glancing around, then up. "Where the hell did you come from?" Restaurants line the left side of the road, their front windows opening up to the lake. On the rooftops, I spot nothing. Then I see something on the roof shift, and an instant later a slender figure bolts away from the spot.

"Hey!" I cry out, reaching out an arm for their attention, but he or she disappears farther back over the roof. I frown and slowly lowered my arm.

In a huff, I throw the full backpack over my shoulder, snatch up my hammer, and abandon what had been, up until that moment, a trusty vehicle. I stay clear from the shadows cast by the restaurants and stores; the undead here are more persistent, edgier. They lean against the shadows, barking hungrily at me, their blackened eyes filled with both desire and hatred.

"No thank you," I mutter under my breath.

I continue down the sunlit path, watching my time. The car clock blinked 8:30 AM when I left it, which gives me plenty of daylight to burn, but I definitely need to find shelter and reinforce it well before nightfall. I can start my search for Danny tomorrow.

That's when I spot the figure again. It's standing in the distance, exposed to the sunlight like myself. "Hey!" I call, waving my arm at them. Undead that trail slowly after me in the shadowed sidelines groan at the sound; I ignore them. "Heeey!" I call out again.

The figure turns to glance at me—at this distance, I can't tell if it's a girl or a boy, and can only distinguish that they have short, blonde hair. But then the person takes off running.

"Wh-What? Wait!" Immediately, I start running, too.

I zip down the park path, my feet pounding against the dirt. I call after them, picking up my speed. I'm not gaining on them, but I'm not falling behind, either; our paces must be nearly identical. "Wait!" This time, a note of despair touches my cry. I suddenly want that person's company so badly I can't bear it.

I keep my pace strong, for the long months of exercising to lose weight last year have refined my muscles. This person, too, certainly knows how to run, however; before I know it, my legs are burning. My breath is becoming more stilted. At the pace we're going, even with the backpack weighing me down, we must have been running at least a mile.

Finally, the person comes upon a house and bolts up a white staircase that leads to the second story. Still several hundred feet behind, I make a beeline for the stairs as well, gasping for air.

A large white door opens at the side of the staircase and ascends into the building like a garage door. I realize too late what lies behind those doors.

A horde of undead—at least a dozen, maybe more—moves out from underneath, jerking and twitching. After a few breath-holding moments, they spot me, the only living thing in their line of vision. I feel a tiny squeak leave my throat and turn on my heel to look for somewhere—anywhere—to run to, to save myself.

And then I realize that, in the stupor of my brainless chase, I stand between two warehouses large enough to block out all sunlight.

I stand staring at the rapidly approaching horde. I'm armed with only a hammer and my wits—really just the hammer—in a wide expanse of shade. The warehouses have no nearby entrances, no ladders or any other means of escape. There's not enough time to go all the way back from where I came.

The awfulness of the predicament only gets worse, however; the shadow of the lake house and those cast from the warehouses all perfectly connect, so that a convenient shaded trail leads the undead straight towards me. Any chance to make it to the sunlit areas ahead would no doubt be snuffed out by the overwhelming number of undead.

I observe all of my surroundings in just a few seconds, and my eyes flicker up to the oncoming horde, their groans growing in anticipation. The distance between us is getting smaller and smaller. And then, for reasons unknown even to myself, I start running straight forward, into the approaching swarm, a battle cry ready at my lips.

Fight or flight. I choose fight.

I meet with the first of them in moments, trying to maintain my momentum by sprinting through the inept mass while smashing my hammer through every skull I can reach. Halfway through the throng, I see I'm vastly more outnumbered than I initially anticipated. Half a second after that realization, I realize I'm screwed.

It's at that moment—when the words, "I'm screwed" cross my mind—that I hear a whistling sound followed by a thup. I struggle against the swarming bodies when I hear that combination again—sweeeee, thup, sweeeee, thup—and I find that wooden arrows have materialized, jutting out of the heads of the undead nearest me. And then I react as anyone else would if arrows were flying at them; I throw myself to the ground with my hands covering my head.

Bodies drop all around me. I scream when one lands on me, thinking it was still moving, before it released a last sigh before falling completely still. One after another, the undead bodies collapse and still, and the area gets quiet. In no time, I'm scrunched down in a pile of undead bodies, some twitching, their deadened gazes still fixed on me. I stare back at their empty eyes. Undead eyes look the same even in death.

I'm up and running again a moment later, heading straight for the house that had sent me both a horde of undead and the barrage of arrows that saved my life. Surely in circumstances like these, the latter outweighs the former? I'm at the bottom of the stairs when the door on the second floor slams open.

"Did you get bit?" A firm, female voice demands.

"No," I lie instinctively. "Why the hell did you send all those infected toward me?"

The girl props a hand on her hip. She's probably a few years older than me, with short blonde hair that curls around behind her ears. "Yeah...They've been crowded in the boathouse and we really needed to clear it out. Sorry, we kind of used you as bait." She tips her head at me. "You're a runner," she adds as an afterthought.

"Used me as bait?" I echo, raising an eyebrow. I climb the rest of the way to meet her on the landing. She stands several inches taller than me. "Are all the neighbors as friendly as you?"

"The only way they'd get out of there was if there was some reason to leave, right?" She looks amused. The amusement, however, quickly drains from her expression when she sees my injured wrist. "What's that? A bite?"

"No," I lie again, maybe too quickly; doubt flashes in her eyes. I don't need her to react impulsively and kill me right off. It's already been made clear that she has solely her self-interest in mind. "I got hurt earlier when an undead body landed on my car. Or should I say, when someone threw an undead body onto my car."

"Oops," she laughs a clear, ringing laugh, as she runs a hand through her layered hair. "Yeah...sorry about that."

"Why were you running away from me?"

"The whole 'bait' thing would have worked best that way—you know, you desperately chasing me, not realizing where you were going, et cetera, et cetera."

"Geeze," I mutter. "That's an awfully specific plan. You're either a psychologist or a psycho."

"I studied psychology in college, yeah." The girl shrugs a shoulder. "You just gotta know how the human mind works, and then you can manipulate anyone into doing whatever you want."

I make a mental note to watch out for this girl, no matter how helpful she may be in the future. "I'm Hayden," I offer my hand to her.

"Sam," she smiles brightly back. "Welcome to the Resistance."