arguing, Rat and Stick knelt and began stuffing their packs with cans, moving as quietly as they could. After a moment, I unzipped my bag and joined them. For several minutes, the only sounds were the scuffle of hands in the dark, the clink of metal on metal and the rain beating the roof overhead.
I could hear Stick’s frightened breathing, Rat’s occasional curses as he dropped cans in his haste to stuff them into the packs. I said nothing to anyone as I worked, only looking up when my bag was full. Zipping it up, I hefted it onto my shoulders, wincing at the weight. It might slow me down a bit, but Lucas was right; we’d come too far to leave empty-handed.
“Everyone ready?” Lucas asked, his gruff voice sounding low and small in the darkness. I looked around as Rat and Stick finished zipping their packs and stood up, Stick grunting a little under the weight of his half-full bag. “Let’s get out of here, then. Allie, lead the way.”
We left the basement, inching up the steps to the ruined shed. Water poured in from the storm, running in streams from the roof, splashing over everything. Somewhere in the darkness, droplets kept striking a metal bucket with a rhythmic ping-pinging sound. It sounded like my heartbeat; rapid, frantic.
A gust of wind blew open the door with a creak, knocking it into the side of the building. Beyond the frame, the ruins were blurry and dark.
I swallowed hard and stepped out into the rain.
Water drenched me in half a second, sliding down my neck and flattening my hair. I shivered and hunched my shoulders, striding through the tall, wet grass. Behind me, I heard the others following my steps as I pushed through the weeds. Lightning flickered overhead, turning everything white for a split second, showing rows of ruined houses side by side before plunging everything into darkness once more.
Thunder boomed. As the rumble faded, I thought I heard another sound, somewhere to my left. A faint rustle that didn’t come from my friends behind me.
Something brushed against my jeans in the grass, something hard and pointy. I jerked away and clicked on the flashlight, shining it at whatever snagged me in the darkness.
It was a hoof, small and cloven, attached to a hind leg that led to the gutted carcass of a doe lying on her side in the weeds. Her stomach had been torn open, and intestines spilled from the hole like pink snakes. Her eyes, glazed and dark, stared sightlessly up at the rain.
“Allie?” Lucas whispered, coming up behind me. “What’s going—Oh, shit!”
I swung the light around, taking a breath to shout a warning to the others.
Something pale and terrible rose from the grass behind Rat, all limbs and claws and shining teeth. Before he knew what was happening, it yanked him off his feet. I didn’t even have time to shout before he vanished into the weeds and darkness with a yelp.
Then he began to scream.
We didn’t pause. We didn’t waste breath to scream out the word. The grass around us started to move, rustling madly as they came toward us, and we just ran. Behind us, Rat’s agonized shrieks abruptly cut off, and we didn’t look back.
I reached the chain-link fence surrounding the yard and vaulted over it, landing unsteadily as the bag’s weight nearly toppled me over. Lucas was right behind me, using both hands to launch himself over the top. Stick scrambled over and fell in the dirt on the other side but bounced to his feet in an instant and followed me as we ran.
“Allie!”
Lucas’s scream made me look back. His backpack had caught on the prongs at the top of the fence, and he was yanking at it madly, his eyes huge and frantic. I glanced at Stick, sprinting away into the darkness, and swore.
“Just leave the damn bag!” I shouted, stepping toward Lucas, but my voice was drowned in a roar of thunder overhead, and Lucas continued to yank on it, terrified. “Lucas, leave the pack already! Just get out of there!”
Understanding dawned on his face. He shrugged out of the straps, just as a long white arm whipped over the links and grabbed his shirt, dragging him back against the fence. Lucas screamed, yanking and thrashing, trying to free himself, but another claw reached over and sank into his neck, and his screams became gurgles. My gut heaved. I watched, dazed, as Lucas was dragged, kicking and wailing, back over the fence, and vanished under the pale mass of creatures on the other side. His screams didn’t last as long as Rat’s, and by that time, I was already running after Stick, ignoring my twisting insides and not daring to look back.
I could barely make out Stick’s lanky form in the distance, running down the middle of the road, weaving between cars. Stripping off my pack, I followed, feeling highly exposed on the open street. The rain was slowly letting up, the brunt of the storm passing on, toward the city. Over the fading rain, I heard the cans clanking against his back with every step he took. In his panic, he hadn’t thought to take off his pack, either. I sprinted after him, knowing he couldn’t keep up that pace for long.
Two blocks later, I found him leaning against the rusty hulk of an overturned car, next to a tree growing out of the sidewalk. He was gasping so hard he couldn’t speak. I crouched down beside him, breathing hard, seeing Lucas’s and Rat’s deaths over and over again, their screams echoing in my mind.
“Lucas?” Stick’s voice was so soft I barely heard him.
“Dead.” My voice sounded as if it belonged to someone else. It didn’t seem real that I’d lost him. My stomach threatened to crawl up my throat, and I forced it down. “He’s dead,” I whispered again. “The rabids got him.”
“Oh, God.” Stick’s hands went to his mouth. “Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God!”
“Hey,” I snapped, and shoved him, halting the string of words before they got even more frantic. “Stop it. We have to keep our heads if we’re going to get out of here, okay?” There would be time later to shed tears, to mourn what I’d lost. But right now, the most important thing was figuring out how to stay alive.
Stick nodded, his eyes still glazed and terrified. “Where do we go now?”
I started to look around to get my bearings but suddenly noticed something that turned my blood to ice. “Stick,” I said softly, looking down at his leg, “what happened?”
Blood was oozing from a gash in his knee, spreading through the thin fabric of his pants. “Oh,” Stick said, as if he’d just noticed it himself. “I must’ve cut it when I fell off the fence. It’s not very deep …” He stopped when he saw my face. “Why?”
I stood slowly, carefully, my mouth going dry. “Blood,” I murmured, backing away. “Rabids can smell blood if they’re close enough. We have to go n—”
It leaped atop the car with a howl, lashing out at the space I’d been a moment before, ripping through the metal with its claws. Stick yelled and dove away, skittering behind me, as the thing atop the car gave a chilling wail and looked right at us.
It had been human once, that was the most horrible thing about it. It still had a vaguely human face and emaciated body, though its skin, nearly pure white and stretched tightly across its bones, looked more skeleton than human. The tattered threads of what had been clothes hung on its frame, and its hair was tangled and matted. Its eyes were white orbs with no irises or pupils, just a blank, dead white. It hopped off the car and hissed at us, baring a mouthful of pointed teeth, the two oversize fangs extending
