Holding her pistol at the ready, Emma placed her foot on the wedge and shoved as hard as she could. Juan and Monica did the same, forcing it to burrow into the dirt and lodge under the tire.
“That should do it,” Monica declared.
“Try it, Arnold!” Juan shouted.
The engine roared and the beleaguered driver switched gears. The wheels spun and the short bus lurched forward toward the middle of the road.
“Yes!” Juan hooted, lifting his hands in victory.
The bus slowly rolled a few feet away, and Belinda leaned out, “Hurry! Get inside!”
Arnold brought the short bus to a stop and the trio scrambled after the vehicle.
“Let’s get the hell out of here.” Monica clutched the handhold near the open doorway of the bus and lifted herself inside.
Emma was about to follow when another zombie landed near her with a meaty splat and lashed out with a long, muscular arm to grab her ankle. Dressed in running shorts and a sweatshirt, it had once been a tall, athletic man. Emma jerked her leg back, but the zombie’s grip was stronger than she’d anticipated despite the blackened skin on his fingers being cracked and oozing. She aimed her pistol at its head and fired, blowing a hole in its skull. She tried to yank free only to discover she was trapped by the huge hand.
“Dammit!” Holstering her gun, she leaned over and tried to wrestle her foot from her boot. The painful grip of the dead zombie pinched the leather around her ankle, preventing her from pulling free. “I can’t get loose!”
“I got you, Em!”
Juan had been letting her deal with the threat while watching for other zombies. Realizing her predicament, he slung his rifle onto his back and leaned over to pry the dead creature’s fingers off her ankle.
“We need to go,” Kurt huffed, limping around the back of the bus to help. “There’s more coming than we thought. A shit-ton of them. And we’re low on ammo.”
“This bastard has a good hold on her,” Juan muttered.
There was a sharp snapping sound as he broke one of the fingers.
“Can you get the boot off?” Kurt asked.
Emma shook her head. “He’s got me good.”
Juan broke two more fingers. “Death grip.”
After a struggle, the vice-like hold released and Emma gasped with relief as she broke free. Juan’s hands settled on her waist and hoisted her up into the short bus. She moved away from the doorway to give Kurt room to enter. While watching Juan climb into the bus, she became aware of a low, chest-vibrating sound hidden in the noise from the engine and the wind. She pivoted around and saw a wall of dead only a hundred feet from the vehicle.
“We’re in!” Juan shouted, slamming the back door shut.
There were too many zombies for their small group to deal with and there wasn’t any hope of backup. Nerit guarded the jammed front doors. Even from where Emma stood, she could see that the blood had drained out of her face. Arnold shifted gears and started to perform a distressingly slow three-point turn. Sweat beaded his face and he muttered curses under his breath as falling zombies made every second even more harrowing. Another clipped the side of the bus, metal groaning under the impact as a deep groove formed in the ceiling.
Emma wiped the perspiration from her face and forced herself to breathe. Her chest was tight with tension. Helpless to do anything other than watch and hope, she ignored Ted’s screams of terror.
“Shut the fuck up!” Monica yelled at him. “Your screaming is going to rile them up more, you idiot!”
“We’re going to die!”
“No, we’re not,” Nerit said as though she had complete authority over the situation.
It was probably the cold look in her eyes that silenced Ted. Trembling, he curled up in his seat, his hands covering his face.
The bus bounced over bodies and clipped the front edge of the herd tromping down the road. Zombies scrabbled at the vehicle, fingers skidding over the metal grates, making an awful racket. Nerit fired at one zombie trying to clamber inside and kicked another away. Monica and Kurt stood a few feet behind her, ready to assist.
Arnold at last aimed the bus toward the bottom of the hill and accelerated. Despite having a souped up engine, the bus took an agonizing amount of time to gain speed. The herd pursued, banging against the rear door, smearing the windows with viscera. Since the jammed front door faced the drop off, Nerit didn’t have to deal with any more zombies attempting to board, but she remained at the entrance.
When the bus had enough distance from the herd so that it was out of sight behind the trees and hillside, Emma’s shoulders started to relax. Staring out the back window at the dappled light sifting through the tree branches to dance over the cracked road, she marveled out how deceptively tranquil it appeared. The curving road would work to their advantage. Zombies often lost interest in prey when it wasn’t visible.
The short bus reached the bottom of the hill and turned off the narrow road, heading back the way they had come earlier. There weren’t any more falling zombies, or another herd on the main country road, but the knowledge that there was a sizable number of zombies lurking on the outskirts of town was important to the Fort.