Outside, the stench of rot is tainting the air. Peeking around the corner of the church you see a destroyed neighborhood before you. Wreckage, bodies, limbs, debris from broken doors and windows -- it's like nothing you've ever imagined. One woman hangs halfway out of her window, her head a gory mess. Inside, you tremble. Artie is hugged up to you, hiding his face from the horrors.
Agonizing screams from inside draw in the random undead from the street and yards. Even though you didn't like the people inside, their terror makes deep empathy seep from you. You suck in a ragged breath, and accept that it's too late to save them. As the last undead in sight goes inside, you know it's time to move. The store looks much too far away. Nearer, there are plenty of cars to choose from. With your legs feeling like jello and your heart filled with panic, you figure closer is the best choice. But which car...
"Are they g-gone?" Artie whispers between silent sobs.
"Yes," you whisper back.
He takes a step back. With shaky little fingers, he pulls a set of keys out of his pocket. "I t-took these. They're my daddy's. Will you h-help me f-find him?"
The keys are a blessing, but can you promise him you'll find his dad? Finding your family is just as important, and they're closer.
"Maybe. First, I have to go to the mall," you say, not wanting to tell the kid an outright lie. "But we've got to go now, okay? If we don't, they'll come after us."
"They'll come after us anyway," he says. "They're everywhere, they're gonna get us-"
"Stop it," you say, because you can tell he's freaking himself out. "We're smarter than they are. We can beat them." You sound so sure, but you're scared nearly out of your wits. You've got to keep it under control for the kid. "Where is your dad's car?"
He points vaguely to the church's parking lot. You take his hand and go for it. "Which one?"
"It's big and yellow," he says proudly.
Hmm, you think. Thanks for narrowing it down, kiddo.
"Oh, and it gots an H on it," he adds.
Bingo! You spot a huge Hummer nearby and point. "That one?"
He nods his blonde head, excited. His and your joy is short-lived, however. Spine tingling gnarls interrupt your moment of relief. Some of the undead were done ravaging the congregation. They were ready for more humans. They come tearing toward you. In the lead, a male in a trucker hat and flannel shirt. One arm missing. A woman in a dress, that you think you've seen at the grocery store a time or two, only it's hard to tell because some of her face is gone and the rest of it is bloody. The rest of the undead kind of mesh together and seem to become one entity as your fear builds. They seemed slower now, fuller, but just as greedy and deadly as ever and you're getting out of there.
Scooping Artie's small body in your arms, you sprint to the Hummer. A button on the keychain unlocks the doors, and you shove him inside before you climb in the other side. They crash into the sealed doors like battering rams. Others press and fight to get near the windows. The ignition switch fires it up on the first go, and you make it out alive.
The whole town is a nightmare, you realize as you drive along. It's slow moving through all the destruction, so you've got time to see more than you'd like. Houses and buildings are on fire or mobs of the undead are tearing at them to get inside. People are screaming. A man in a suit runs out in the road, the front of his shirt torn and bloody. He's holding his stomach and waving with his hand for you to stop...but you remember Tom vividly. How fast he had turned into one of them.
"We can't help," you tell Artie with an unsteady voice. "They might change. We can't help..."
A sedan flies by and smacks into the man in a suit, startling you and causing you to jump. Artie screams.
"Shh, it'll be okay. He's-he's not suffering now," you say at a loss for how to comfort him right now.
The man is laying across the hood of the sedan, his legs pinned between the sedan and a house. An undead woman climbs out of the driver's seat and attacks his still form. You maneuver around a pile of burning bodies -- who knows who is behind that, you think -- and finally the street is open enough to go faster.
You're still tore up mentally from all you've seen. Tremors are taking over most of your body, but you fight to stay in control, to drive away from all of this.
"We have to find my daddy," Artie insists.
"I told you, we have to go to the mall first. I want my daddy too, and he's closer," you say, trying not to get frustrated. Of course the kid is going to want his dad, just like you. This madness has a way of pushing people apart, and pulling them together.
"But my daddy is a genius. He can stop the bad things," Artie says. His words catch you by surprise, but is there any truth to them?
"How do you know he can stop them?"
"I heard him talking about them to his friend Quinn. Daddy works for the sigh."
"Sigh? What- you mean the CIA?"
"Yeah, that's what I said, sigh. I saw it on his folders in his office, but don't tell. I'm not supposed to go in there..." His eyes were wide, as if his father's knowledge of his snooping was somehow as terrifying than the 'bad things'.
Holy heck, you think. A CIA agent might really know what's going on and how to fix it...but who knows if you can find his dad? Your family should be at the mall. They're probably still there. They wouldn't tell you to stay inside and then go out in this themselves. They're probably still there worried about you. But in helping Artie, you might be able to help stop this all somehow...
Find your family - PLEASE SKIP TO CHAPTER 48
Find Artie's dad - PLEASE SKIP TO CHAPTER 49