Day 17

The sound of the police siren was the loudest thing Dani had heard in weeks, louder than Jimmy and Edgar’s clumsy attempt to break down the rolling gate just days ago. She stood in shock – unable to wrap her mind around what she was hearing. She felt a pain in her ears.

The world now was oppressively silent, only populated by a few hushed voices. Bob had called it “noise discipline” at the storage units. Dani had gotten so used to being quiet. She even cried quietly within her trailer, terrified that if she were just loud enough, errant, shambling corpses would be at her door.

Now there was this fucker in the cop car. They split the air with thunderous whoo-whoops, and every goddamn ghoul within a few blocks would be drawn to the noise. She couldn’t even laugh as loudly as she wanted at a dumb joke out of overwhelming caution.

She wanted to shoot the driver, whoever they were.

She glanced around at Jimmy, Edgar, Mary, and Alicia; they were also still, staring in the direction of the sound. The police car swerved into view, dodging abandoned cars along Orange Ave. It made no effort to slow down, and Dani assumed the driver had not seen them. She and the others probably looked like dead-eyed ghouls to the person speeding by at a reckless pace.

Dani felt her heart pound, and her stomach tighten. The ghouls in the area had turned to track the car that had sped through. She watched the dead bastards make awkward, lurching motions toward the intersection – despite the car being out of sight and the siren fading as it drove east.

But going east put Dani and the others in the path of the ghouls that were following the sound.

Jimmy glanced at Dani, his eyes wide. Edgar looked puzzled, having popped up, hand resting on the car’s hood. Alicia had partially leaned out of the car. She stared in the direction from which the cruiser had come.

Dani had already crept toward the street to get a look around the wall that divided the Walman’s shopping center from a bank next door. It was instinctual curiosity she had no control over, eager to get a glimpse of the fucking cop car. The weight of the iron poker in her hands did little to reassure her as she moved to gaze further down the road, where the car had been headed.

She stopped just short of the street and took a breath. She approached the wall and leaned against it. After a moment to steel herself, she leaned forward enough to look down the city’s main thoroughfare. Orange Rd. was actually a named portion of Highway 74 that ran to the mountains. The street was wide and wouldn’t afford much cover to anyone walking or driving down it.

She took a small step out onto the sidewalk, where the wall came to a cruel and sudden stop. An immediate stench wafted, and she was ready to move.

A ghoul swiped at her with a flailing stick-and-tissue arm from just around the other side of the wall. Dani dodged it and brought her fireplace poker down on the spindly limb, shattering it. It hung loosely, a bundle of rotting bone and meat, connected by a thin casing of leathery skin. The ghoul stumbled forward from the weight of the blow, and Dani quickly drew her arm back and down again, crushing the skull.

Her fears had been confirmed. A trail of ghouls was making its way down the street in the cruiser’s wake. This one had been pulled toward the street from the bank. Dani caught the last second as the cruiser had turned at another intersection. Dani looked back west at a mass of bodies moving in lurching, irregular steps down the road, toward the only other living people she knew. The fucker could have been dragging them for miles, now.

“Jesus.”

A pair of the undead, stumbling out of an enclosed motel courtyard, noticed her dispatching one of their own – maybe. She didn’t know if their brains worked that way, and she didn’t want to stick around to confirm it, either. All she noticed were shadowed, thin faces with open mouths and hoarse moans bellowing from between rotten teeth.

Dani turned around and started waving the rest of the group off. Her hand made wild arcs forward, pushing them on. She didn’t say anything, not wanting to attract more attention. She noticed one of the carts was already gone, and Jimmy was darting back up the embankment. She had been in the zone so much that she hadn’t heard the clattering cart.

Jimmy was already pushing the second cart down the embankment onto the street. Meanwhile, Edgar had climbed over to the driver’s side seat and was waving at Dani. His meaty hand slapped at the roof. “Vámonos!”

No sense in playing it quiet now. If she ever figured out who the asshole was in the cruiser, she’d crush his head beneath the wheel of their own car.

Dani nearly tackled the remaining cart and began wheeling it down the embankment as Edgar turned the engine. Jimmy had slammed the trunk, only managing to throw in the contents of one of the carts. They had to hurry. No time to pack

They’d need to push the remaining carts back to the storage unit.

Exposed, noisy, and pursued by dozens of greasy undead hands.

Was that even a real cop, anyway?