The Walking Dead_ The Road to Woodbury - By Robert Kirkman Page 0,29

falls on his ass, landing in a pile of clothes.

Both Megan and Scott crack up now at the absurdity of the zombie careening to the road with the pitchfork still planted in its skull. They both scuttle on hands and knees to the rear hatch and gaze out at the human remains receding into the distance behind them—the pitchfork still sticking straight out of its head like a mile marker.

Scott pulls the hatch shut and they both crack up again in spasms of stoned laughter and frenzied coughing.

Still giggling, her eyes wet, Megan turns toward the front of the camper. Through the cab window, she can see the backs of Lilly’s and Josh’s heads. They look preoccupied—oblivious to what just occurred only inches away from them. They appear to be pointing at something in the distance, way up on the crest of an adjacent hill.

Megan can’t believe that nobody in the cab heard the commotion in the rear camper. Was the road noise that loud? Was the struggle drowned out by the sound of giggling? Megan is about to bang on the glass when she finally sees what all the pointing is about.

Bob is turning off the road and heading up a steep dirt path toward a building that may or may not be abandoned.

FIVE

The deserted gas station sits at the top of a hill overlooking the surrounding orchards. Bordered on three sides by weed-whiskered clapboard fencing and scattered garbage Dumpsters, the place has a hand-painted sign over its twin fuel islands—one diesel and three gas pumps—which says FORTNOY’S FUEL AND BAIT. The single-story building features a flyspecked office, a retail store, and a small service garage with a single lift.

When Bob pulls in to the cracked cement lot—his lights off in order to avoid detection—night has fallen into full darkness, and the king cab’s tires crunch on broken glass. Megan and Scott peer out of the rear hatch, taking in the shadows of the abandoned property, as Bob pulls the truck around behind the garage area, out of the line of vision of any nosy passersby.

He parks the truck between the carcass of a wrecked sedan and a pillar of tires. A moment later, the engine cuts off and Megan hears the squeak of the passenger door and the heavy thud of Josh Lee Hamilton stepping out and coming around the back of the camper.

“Y’all stay put for a second,” Josh says softly, evenly, after opening the camper door and seeing Megan and Scott crouched near the hatch like a couple of owls. Josh doesn’t notice the blood spatters on the walls. He checks the cylinder of his .38, the blue steel gleaming in the darkness. “Gonna check this place for walkers.”

“I don’t mean to be rude but what the fuck?” Megan says, her buzz completely gone now, replaced by a kind of jagged adrenaline surge. “Didn’t you guys see what happened back here? Didn’t you hear what was going on?”

Josh looks at her. “All I heard was a couple of potheads partying to beat the band—smells like Mardi Gras in a whorehouse back here.”

Megan tells him what happened.

Josh gives Scott a look. “Surprised you had the wherewithal … your brain scrambled like that.” Josh’s expression softens. He lets out a sigh and smiles at the kid. “Congratulations, junior.”

Scott gives him a cockeyed little grin. “My first kill, boss.”

“Chances are it won’t be your last,” Josh says, snapping the cylinder shut.

“Can I just like ask one more thing?” Megan says then. “What’re we doing here? I thought we had enough gas.”

“It’s too hairy out there for night travel. Best to hunker down till morning. Gonna need you two to stay put until you get the all clear.”

Josh walks off.

Megan shuts the door. In the darkness, she feels Scott’s gaze on her. She turns and looks at him. He has a weird look in his eyes. She grins at him. “Dude, I gotta admit, you are pretty damn handy with the garden tools—pretty goddamn bad-ass with that pitchfork.”

He grins back at her. Something changes in his eyes, as though he sees her for the first time—despite the darkness—and he licks his lips. He wipes a strand of dirty blond hair from his eyes. “It was nothing.”

“Yeah, right.” For a while now, Megan has been marveling at how much Scott Moon resembles Kurt Cobain. The resemblance seems to radiate off him with atavistic magic, his face shimmering in the darkness, his scent—patchouli oil and smoke and sweet-leaf and bubble gum—casting out