Induction

You know what they say about mothers being able to lift entire cars to free a trapped child? That’s what I felt like as I made one final tug to free myself. Then a stack of boxes filled with my old textbooks fell from the shelves. One of the boxes caught me in the back of my head and I face planted into the hood of the SUV.

White sparks of light clouded my vision and I was felt a searing pain in my nose. Blood started to flow like a dam had burst. My vision hazy, and stunned by pain, I could hear Daphne barking and Jake screaming for me as everything came back into focus. I could also hear movement and the moans of the dead coming from the other side of the boxes as they attempted to reach me.

I closed the short distance to the car and flung myself through the open door as Jake hit the automatic door opener. Thanking God for the very small favor of continued electricity to power the door, we watched it ascend through the vehicle’s reverse camera. As the gap widened, the first thing I saw were feet… a lot of feet. The garage door let out a wicked squeal on its unoiled track and those feet started to turn in our direction.

Blood flowed from my nose, and I glared at Jake through gaps between my fingers where I attempted to staunch it. “Oiled it last week, my ass!”

A hand slapped Jake’s window, causing me to jump in my seat and yelp. Looking in at us was what had once been our pleasant pothead neighbor, Chet. His sandy blond curls were matted with streaks of blood, and the left side of his face was devoid of skin. Muscle and bone exposed an empty eye socket, making him look like a hideous monster. He left the window smeared with bloody fingerprints in his vain attempt to reach us.

The door had raised just enough to allow the bodies crowding our driveway to enter the garage, but not enough that our SUV could fit through the opening. The garage darkened as the stormy day from beyond was eclipsed by the rush of bodies making their way up the sides of the SUV and closer to us.

“Jake,” I coughed out. “Hit the gas. We won’t be able to get out if they keep packing in.”

Jake slammed his foot down on the accelerator and the SUV shot out of the garage. The thunk of bodies hitting the back bumper made me wince. The reverse camera looked like someone had made spin art on it, and it felt like we were in a parking lot with way too many speed bumps.

We backed out of the driveway and onto the street. Just as Jake was about to throw it into drive, I leapt from the SUV and ran to the front lawn. “What are you doing?” He shouted at me.

I gave Officer Donnelly’s dragging corpse a wide berth as I made my way to the front of the cruiser and plunged my hand into the growing puddle in search of his handgun. Eureka! I struck gold! Gun in hand, I sped back to the car and closed the door behind me. “Now, we can go.” I lifted my prize in triumph as muddy goo seeped from the muzzle and onto my already drenched clothes.

Jake put the gear in drive and we drove away from our home. The only place we had ever lived together, and where a decade’s worth of memories had been shattered in the blink of an eye. I cried softly to myself and Jake took my hand.

“It’ll be okay, baby. I won’t let anything happen to you.” He brought my hand to his mouth and was about to kiss it. On further inspection, he opted out of the kiss, considering my hand was covered in blood, mud, and who knew what else. “Yeah, let’s revisit that after we come across some hand sanitizer,” he said, and patted my knee instead. Though I suspected it was less to comfort me, and more of an attempt to wipe his hand discreetly.

I glanced through the blood-smeared back window to pay a final farewell to our home and saw a lone figure running toward us. Not shambling, not stumbling, actually running. “Jake, stop the car! Stop, Jake, STOP THE FUCKING CAR!”

“What the hell, Em? Do you have a death wish or something?”

“It’s Alicia. Look.” I pointed out the back window to a running figure. My next door neighbor’s daughter, Alicia, was flailing her arms to get our attention. She was easily outpacing what was a disturbingly large number of zombies.

“Emma, I can’t.”

“What do you mean you can’t?”

He looked at me sadly, “One bite, Emma, one bite and it’s over. What if she’s been infected? I can’t take that risk.”

“She’ll die if we don’t stop. Please, Jake, I don’t want to be the reason she dies a horrible death. I won’t be able to live with myself. Or you.”

Alicia’s pace was slowing; she was getting tired and looked to be nearly out of steam. Jake sighed and put the gearshift into reverse. What the zombies lacked in speed, they surely made up for in stamina. They didn’t show signs of slowing and trudged on like predators stalking their prey. She made it to the back door and attempted to open it. Her face shone in terror as she realized the door was locked.