Earth's Survivors: Home in the Valley / Earth's Survivors (ePub)

On The Road

Night

Bear and Beth

They came through the roof...

Bear was talking to Beth, leaned against the door frame, staring out at the night black parking lot, when the first zombie dropped from the ceiling of the store behind them. There were four of them outside the vehicles talking or keeping watch on the parking lot. Bear and Beth, Mac and Billy. When the first one dropped Billy spun around and clubbed it to the ground. But the rest came so fast that they could not hope to easily and quickly pick them off.

Beth raised her machine pistol straight up and began firing into the roof. The light from the lanterns didn't penetrate the darkness all the way to the ceiling, so there was no way to see how many there were or even where they were. She found herself wishing she still had the flashlight taped to the rifle barrel.

Six dropped and Bear had to wait for them to come at him so he could be sure of shooting them and not accidentally shooting into the trucks. Billy ran from truck to truck pounding on the doors and window glass, waking everyone up.

Bear reversed the stock of his rifle and ran at the Zombie in front of him. He clubbed his head flat and then reversed the rifle and shot him through the head once he was on the floor. Six more UN-dead dropped from the darkness above, one right after the other. Two landed on Bears truck, and he heard Cammy scream from inside. One stood from the roof, preparing to leap at Billy as he ran towards Don and Ginny's truck, and Bear shot him off the roof of the truck. He fell right onto one of the kerosene lanterns and the flames shot up immediately, running under and up the side of Don and Ginny's truck where the kerosene had splashed. It seemed like less than a second to Bear before the truck and the stock in the aisle behind that truck went up in flames. The line of flame rolled away into the store, catching the merchandise on the shelves as it went.

Beth shot another zombie as it dropped from the ceiling and landed nearly in front of her. Don's truck started, and a second later Don's eyes showed just above the dashboard as he dropped the truck into gear and lurched forward. Bear jumped at Billy knocking him out of the way as the truck roared by with scant inches to spare. They both rolled, came up and Billy fired low, taking the legs out from under one of the dead. Bear gained his feet, spun towards the front and watched Don's truck smash dead center into one of the piles of pallets and tires. It was already burning, flames shooting from under the truck and up the sides, the flames had fanned when Don had dropped it in gear and driven from the store. The truck hit, bounced, and then came back down hard on the tires and pallets.

Sparks flew high into the sky. The truck bounced twice more, Bear saw Don's head bounce off the side window, and then the truck veered sharply to the left and roared off into the parking lot covered in flames. A second later the sound of the crash came to them as the truck slammed into several cars in the lot and came to a fast halt. Bear forced himself to turn away. He couldn't afford the luxury of watching something he could do nothing about.