The Zombie Road Omnibus: The Road Kill Collection by David A. Simpson

Author:David A. Simpson [Simpson, David A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wise Pug Publishing
Published: 2019-06-04T22:00:00+00:00

22

Jessie

The Strip Mall

Jessie lay in the shadow of the air conditioning unit on the roof, not even feeling the pebbly gravel digging into his skin. He was so tired. How could somebody only sixteen years old feel like he was so ancient. He felt like he hadn’t slept for days. His face had torn open again, and was dribbling blood. His hands were raw with old wounds opened back up, and new ones adding their misery to the mix. He hurt all over, his head was pounding, but worst of all, his heart ached. It taunted him with every beat, telling him he deserved every little pain that he had and all the ones coming for him in the future. He had no tears. A casual observer would say he looked emotionless. Maybe he was, he felt nothing, just blackness. A void in his soul. An emptiness that wouldn’t even let him feel remorse. That would come later, if he lived long enough to get over the big nothing he felt at the moment. The big hopeless nothingness.

He had taken a quick look around the roof when he finally made it up, before he lay down in the shadows. He was out of ideas and out of options. There were hundreds of them milling around the strip mall. There was no escape. No trees to swing through to the lake. No homemade spears to kill them with. No power lines to shimmy across to another building. He was well and truly trapped.

Sheila was down below him, in the convenience store. Gary was crawling around outside, probably still near the car. He could hear them. Their voices were different than the rest. Fresher, somehow. A little less dead, if that were possible. He hadn’t heard Doug’s voice in hours. He didn’t know if he was dead, or if he was staying quiet. Maybe he was still barricaded in a bathroom and was just waiting them out.

Maybe.

This trip had started out so well. The car ran fine, there weren’t any zombies outside the garage and they outran any that began following them. They were golden. They were so sure of themselves. It was going to be an easy in and out here at the strip, and then on to the Southern Pines Mall. They were going to get all the cool stuff they ever wanted, have a blast running around in all the stores. But things went wrong.

They were only a dozen streets away from home when they saw a black SUV between the houses a few streets over. Jessie hit the brakes and they turned to try to see it better. It was driving around like they were. Jessie tried the horn, but it didn’t work.

“Should we go after them?” Sheila asked. “Do you know who it was?”

“Nobody I know drives anything like that,” Jessie said. “But maybe we should. It’s the first survivors we’ve seen.”

There was a smashing impact against the driver's door and they all yelped in surprise, Jessie’s foot slipped off the clutch and stalled the car with a jolt.

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