"Now we can't get out of here without having to fight some of them off."

"If only we had a distraction," he said.

Scooter stirred. His tags jingled on his collar as he licked Shaun's hand. As he went to pet the dog, Shaun's eyes locked with Dejah's. Neither had to say anything aloud to know what each was thinking. "No," Shaun said.

Dejah just looked at him, sensing his internal battle, knowing he had to fight this out on his own.

"No," he said again, and now the tears were coming. "He's the only family I've got left. Really. Both my parents were only children. My grandparents are all dead. My parents and sisters were it. That's all I had. Now they're all gone, and that's it, and Scooter's all I've got left."

He couldn't help what happened next. He broke down utterly and completely, and cried like he was six-years-old, and his. .h.i.tched sobs pulled forth a pain lodged so deep within him that it changed him the moment that reservoir of hurt was tapped and started to flow. It aged him, it hardened him; it buried an anguish and hate and bitterness in him that no sixteen-year-old had any right to have to live with. But it was true. Everything was gone. His whole d.a.m.n life. And he'd been raised Christian all his life, so he knew that while G.o.d probably didn't make this happen, he sure as h.e.l.l allowed it to happen, like some kind of modern day Job, and maybe that was worse.

Dejah pulled him close. He let her hold him, closed his eyes and tried to pretend she was his mother. It didn't work.

Scooter licked his cheeks. Shaun blinked hard and brusquely wiped away tears, his cheeks burning. Dejah let him go, and he looked away from her.

"It's okay," she said. "I understand. Scooter has to go with us." She smiled, and it was a pretty smile. Somehow. In the midst of all this there was still beauty.

Shaun nodded. Scooter whimpered. Rage fueled his resolve, and Shaun was suddenly wound tight as an energy coil, ready to move. "Let's just make a run for it."

Dejah looked at him, glanced at the monitors. She seemed to evaluate the situation in a split second. She pulled out the gun and put an extra bullet in the spent chamber. She latched the cylinder back into place and started to pick up the duffle bag.

"Let me carry that," Shaun said.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, you're hurt. You shouldn't-whoa. What the h.e.l.l?" He stared at her arms, where she had deep lacerations only a couple hours ago. The wounds were almost completely healed. Just red welts where deep cuts had been, the slightest traces of scabs in lieu of gaping wounds. Same with the wounds he could see on her torso, which she'd said she got from the barbed wire and the infected dumpster lady.

"I know, I ... can't explain it," she said. "I wish there was some kind of explanation. Maybe I've got good epithelial cells or something."

"Epi-what?"

"Epithelial cells. They make up the tissue that forms skin."

"Ohh-kay."

"I used to be a teacher," she said.

"Or you're from the planet Krypton."

She laughed. "You know, I've run through it a hundred times walking through the forest on the way here. Even as a kid, I can't remember getting badly hurt. I mean, beyond bruises and sc.r.a.pes kids get; well, and childbirth, and I guess I healed really fast from that, too, but..." She shook her head, paused, studying her own wounds. She traded a look with Shaun and searched for something in his eyes. "Anyway, then all this crazy s.h.i.t happened, and I ... I had the same thing happen just yesterday. I was bad-off, should've been dead. Actually, I'm pretty sure I was dead. They got me." She nodded at the windows of the booth. "They ate my guts. One of my legs was stripped down to the bone. But, then I woke up. Alive. And it doesn't make any d.a.m.n sense." She held out her hands. Her eyes shone with a need for understanding, but a greater need to reach her goal. It was as if she'd pa.s.sed her need empathically to Shaun, and he dug into it, used it to fuel his own resolve to help get them out of this.

"Lucky break for you," he said, giving a light hearted laugh to ease the moment. "Right now, we have to think about getting out of here in one piece. I'm pretty sure I don't have Wolverine regeneration powers or anything like you."

Dejah smiled and laughed. "Wolverine, huh? If only! I'd bust out with my adamantium claws and slice these meatheads to ribbons."

Shaun blinked at her. "Okay," he said. "It's official - you're cool."

"I have my moments."

The quips were welcome respite. They helped break the tension. Eased the fear and desperation. But ultimately, they had to move.

She gripped the gun. "Okay. Are you ready?"

Shaun nodded.

"Let's do this."

Shaun strapped the duffel bag over his shoulder. They sat up slowly, peering over the edge of the windows to see as far across the Mountain Creek Lake bridge as they could to spot a likely vehicle.

"That Jeep might be best," she whispered. Shaun could smell the beef jerky on her breath. It made him strangely self-conscious about his own breath, which probably smelled like cat s.h.i.t at best. He figured the overwhelming scent of p.i.s.s from the corner did a good job detracting from whatever unG.o.dly fumes drifted from his mouth.

"Maybe. Is that the one you want to try for?"

Dejah nodded. "Let's go."

Shaun said a silent prayer then reached for the doork.n.o.b. He did his best to quietly unlock it and get ready to dart out. He looked at Scooter. The dog's snout was in the small opening he made as he cracked open the door. The hound sniffed the air hungrily. Shaun had just turned back to Dejah to say Are you ready?, when the door was pulled open, jerked from his hand.

"No!" he screamed, hoa.r.s.e, as he realized what happened. The door hadn't been pulled open. It had been pushed.

Scooter shot out into the middle of Pioneer Parkway and headed in the direction opposite the way they planned to go. "Scooter!" he shouted after his dog, but Dejah clamped a firm but soft hand over his mouth to quiet his cries.

The zombies reacted immediately to the emergence of Scooter, who seemed heroically to make as much noise as possible running the opposite way, barking and snarling. The infected milling around the booth turned as one and went after the canine.

"Now. We've got to make a break for it."

Shaun growled, an anguished, tear-choked sound as he swallowed the hard truth of the situation. There was no sense allowing Scooter's self-sacrifice to be made in vain.

"Come on!" Dejah hissed.

They ran from the booth. Dejah vaulted over the toll gate. Shaun went underneath with the duffel bag. Off the lake, the brisk winds came cold and crisp with the scent of fish. The water gleamed with a pre-dawn light as they edged around the back of a Chevy Impala, climbed over two cars, hopped over a motorcycle, and ran across twenty corpse-laden yards to the Jeep they'd marked for use.

Dejah pulled open the driver door and screamed. A heavy woman in sweats with a dark mottled complexion and feral eyes fell out the door. Worst of all, on the back seat of the Jeep a baby was strapped into a car seat, growling like a caged animal, thrashing against its straps, clawing the air. The woman grabbed Dejah's ankle and mewled. Dejah had to force herself not to fire the gun into her head. Shaun helped kick her away.

"There!" He pointed at a long, old white Cadillac with chrome rims, and dark-tinted windows. It looked like a tank, the kind of a car they made in the 1970s, like from an old TV show.

Dejah took the cue and ran for the driver's side door. Shaun went to the pa.s.senger's side. Dejah paused and looked over the roof of the car at him. The zombie mom in sweats was shambling toward them. A few others were awakened now by the scent of their flesh and the sounds of commotion.

"My side's locked." Shaun said in a panic.

Dejah swallowed hard and pulled open the car door. She stepped back and aimed the revolver into the driver seat. It was empty. Keys dangled in the ignition. She jumped in and reached across the great expanse of the front seat, unlocking Shaun's door. He got in. When they shut the doors they paused to take in the car's interior: fuzzy dice hung from the rearview mirror, rick-rack with pom-poms hung from the velvet ceiling. The steering wheel was furrier than a Yeti. A bobble-head Madonna was adhered to the front dash in a big glob of hardened glue, and hanging from a string of rosary beads, Christ dangled in all his plastic glory, crucified on a glow-in-the-dark cross.

Dejah twisted the keys in the ignition. The car fired up right away. Two zombies were coming at them from the front of the car. She floored the gas pedal and plowed into them. One of them seemed to break in half on the front left fender of the car. The second bounded up onto the hood, denting metal as its head came down with a thud. Its body twisted and crumpled, smearing blood over the windshield as it flew up and over the cab, landing finally on the asphalt behind them in a pile of writhing, infected flesh.

Dejah turned on the headlights. The windshield wipers came on, smearing the brackish blood across their view until she activated the juice to wash it away.

Shaun turned around and looked behind them, over the back seat, and through the rear window. Adrenalin surged in the aftermath of their escape. Sadness at Scooter's loss hung heavily with him, the mournful ghost of a good friend.

"I'm sorry, Shaun," Dejah said, reading the expression on his face like she could read his mind. She was steering the car around a Toyota Prius, maneuvering their way along the bridge to the other side.

"Yeah," he said, morose. "Yeah, me too." He turned around and sat stoically in the pa.s.senger seat, watching through the front window. They drew closer to the tall hill where the DBU campus and its bell tower silhouetted in the moonlit sky.

Dejah and Shaun made small talk to distract them from the horrors of the night, and of the last week, but all the while she was watching the road, thinking the lack of vehicles so far was pretty fortunate. Then they hit a small snarl at the intersection of 303 and Duncanville Road, where they had to turn and head south.

"What a mess," Shaun said. He leaned forward in the pa.s.senger seat, studying what looked like a crash-up derby gone public. Cars were wedged into the intersection as if a ma.s.sive electromagnet had been activated at the crossroads, piling them together.

The sun was creeping toward the horizon and cast a low orange glow into the sky. It gave her the first view of Shaun in daylight. A few hours together and she already felt like they'd known each other forever. One h.e.l.luva kid, she thought. And he's been through nothing but h.e.l.l. The fact that he wasn't a quivering mess right now said a lot.

Dejah rolled the car to a slow stop. She studied the wreckage around them, keeping an eye on the rearview mirror in case any infected were shambling around waiting for their next meal. "I can back up and try to drive over the curb. Maybe make it across the parking lot of that thrift store and go around all this to get where we're going."

"Long as we don't pop a tire on the all the curbs."

"The other option is to get out and change cars."

Shaun went pale.

"I'd like to avoid that if possible. Besides-" she let a grin curl the corner of her mouth, "I don't know about you, but I've grown pretty attached our Mexican hoopty here."

"You've got a point there. This is one sweet ride. It's got some great shocks. And you can't beat a glow-in-the-dark Jesus."

"Maybe if we pa.s.s a jewelry store we can stop off and get you some serious bling."

"And a purple velvet top hat with a leopard band."

"And a diamond encrusted chrome belt buckle that says Pimp Daddy," Dejah said.

Shaun laughed. "We are so white."

"I'll take that as vote for the curb."

She backed up. The Cadillac went easily onto the curb. It had been so long since she'd driven a car with a V8 she forgot how powerful the engine was. It bounced and sc.r.a.ped a bit as it landed on the downside. The b.u.mper raked across the asphalt with an awful sound as they pulled into the southbound lane of Duncanville Road.

"Glad this dude didn't lower his car any more than he did," she said as they listened to the grating of metal against concrete. And she was also glad they didn't have to get out, as she peered at a scattering of infected zombies drawn out of hiding by their commotion.

"Well done," Shaun said.

"Thank you."

She looked at the dash gauges. "Unfortunately, we may have to push our luck again here shortly." The red needle on the gas gauge edged toward a big fat E.

Shaun looked too. "Oh, man. That sucks."

"We need gas."

It wasn't critical at the moment, but it would be shortly. For as smooth and powerful a ride the old Cadillac provided, it was also a gas hog. Dejah found herself leaning forward in the seat, knuckles clinging to the steering wheel. As she steered around a motorcycle in the street and an El Camino up on the median, she squinted into the distance, issuing a silent plea to the heavens for a gas station to appear. Her back muscles were knotted like tensile steel. Her pecks tightened with her forearms, and her neck muscles were hard as vulcanized rubber. Her whole body was on high alert. The end of the first leg of their ride was over. They were going to have to get out and do something, whether that was getting gas, or acquiring another car. The mere thought shot her full of stress. She noticed Shaun was rigid in his seat as well.

He glanced at the duffel bag between them. "We're also going to need more food. Not much left in here but water and a couple of candy bars."

"What happened to those last packs of beef jerky?"

His cheeks blushed. "Sorry, I was starving."

"Okay," she said. "We'll find some food, too."

The sun was breaking over the horizon. It came with a blaze of orange the color of flame, igniting ripples of cirrus clouds amber and gold. What the light revealed here were just more reminders of the holocaust that had befallen the whole area. A dog picked clean of flesh, mostly just bone. Half of a dead man on a street corner, propped on the stump of his ragged torso like some kind of sick version of a panhandler. A skinny corpse lay face down in a run-down Mexican restaurant's parking lot. A handful of infected wandered around under the overhang of Eagle Wheel and Tire, chrome rims colored with crimson. The eyes of the infected followed them along their way.

"Well, there's some of them," she muttered.

"I've been noticing that, too. It seems so abandoned. I mean, where did they all go?"

"They probably concentrate wherever there's food, I would guess."

"Maybe they hibernate," Shaun said. "You know, until they sense, or smell, or hear, food."

"Maybe," Dejah said.

"There's a store!" Shaun's arm shot straight, pointing at a mostly vacant strip mall. The corner of it held a convenience store that had more iron bars along the front than a p.a.w.nshop in a ghetto. Along with the bars, iron grating barricaded the interior of the windows and big steel, roll-down security doors sh.o.r.ed up the doors. A yellow sign that looked like it had been hand painted over an old Sonoco sign read: Bocadomart.

"We really need gas, too," Dejah said, absently, uneasiness taking root deep inside her. Not that the feeling of uneasiness had ever left since Selah and Thomas had gone to Greenville, but this was something more. She attributed it to being in a strange neighborhood. Through Arlington and Grand Prairie and Greenville, she knew her way around. But off the beaten path in between, she was a stranger, as lost as someone from another state. She didn't like that feeling. Not knowing where back roads led, where potential emergency escape routes lay, where the nearest f.u.c.king gas station was.

Despair came over her as she realized the one ancient-looking gas pump present, had no nozzle, the numbers were set on zeros, and the plastic front was clouded yellow from age. That thing hadn't been touched for probably two decades, if not more. No gas there.

"We really need some gas," she said again, quietly, mostly to herself, but out loud just in case the heavens were still taking orders.

"What we really need," Shaun said, "is that."

In the parking lot of Bocadomart, parked right out front of the store, shining black with polished chrome as shiny as the day it rolled off the line, was a Hummer H3. It looked like a diamond in a sea of coal the way it was surrounded by the potholed parking lot, the trash littered sidewalk of the strip mall with its taped-up signs and broken windows in one of the vacant spots. But the fact that it was parked right in front of the Bocadomart, which was about as secure a convenience store as she'd ever seen, seemed almost too good to be true.

Dejah pulled the Cadillac into the lot. She rolled up alongside the Hummer and put the Caddy into park. She didn't shut off the engine yet, but reached to the seat where the revolver lay. She rested her hand on the pistol grip, leaning down to look into the Hummer's cab. She didn't see the shape of anyone...or anything. She scanned the storefront with a critical eye. The sun rising behind them was brilliant, so she could see inside. She looked back at the Hummer. "See anyone in there?"

"No," Shaun said. "Looks clear to me."

"Hmm."

"You don't trust it." Shaun's eyes were sunken, bloodshot, sleepless.

Kid needs some sleep, Dejah thought. We both need sleep. We need help, food, shelter, rest ... and I need to get to my Selah. But now she also needed to take care of this boy. Or at the very least try to avoid getting him killed. "It seems ... odd. Something's not right about this place being shut up tight and this new Hummer sitting right in front. It's out of place for these parts."

Shaun shrugged. "You see people living in the barrio or ghetto like this all the time; their houses are a dump, their cars are rock star limos."

"Hmm. Yeah, and you know all about how it is in the ghetto, right, Mr. Private School?" She raised one eyebrow at him in amus.e.m.e.nt.

He blushed and she was instantly ashamed for having ribbed him after all they'd gone through. She was just coping using humor, trying to lighten the mood. Because this just didn't feel right.

"I'll go first," he said. His voice took on a deeper tone.

She didn't know if he was trying to sound older or stronger, or if it just happened because he'd steeled his resolve. Because he'd changed so d.a.m.n much even since they'd met last night. Or it seemed that way. Maybe it had all just begun to sink in, and he'd switched into survivor mode. She recalled the coyote, scavenger turned predator. They all had to change to survive. That's a fact, Jack. "No," she said. "We'll both go. But I've got the gun, so I'll go first."