The Walking Dead_ The Road to Woodbury - By Robert Kirkman Page 0,39

cry.

Another vehicle—a battered SUV with a broken luggage carrier—comes squealing and careening into the lot. Bob grabs Megan and gently shoves her toward the soft weeds beyond the service doors. Scott dives for cover behind a Dumpster. Josh and Lilly duck behind a wreck near the front sign.

The sedan mows down the closest fuel pump and keeps going, its engine whining furiously. The other vehicle goes into a spin. Lilly watches in shock from about fifty feet away, behind the wreck, as the sedan crashes into the front window.

The sickening crunch of glass and metal makes Lilly jerk with a start. Debris and sparks go flying as the sedan penetrates the front of the building.

The car keeps going, rear wheels keening and spinning on the floor, destroying half the building with the force of a giant wrecking ball. Lilly puts her hand to her mouth. The front half of Fortnoy’s roof collapses on the sedan as it comes to rest in the retail store.

The SUV slams sideways into the diesel pump, setting the fumes alight. Fire booms upward in a sheath and licks at the rising vapors. The windows of the SUV flicker a dull yellow from something burning inside it. Lilly silently thanks God that the fuel reserves are empty, or she and her friends would be vaporized by now.

The SUV comes to rest at an angle under the awning, its high beams still shining brightly, illuminating the building like stage lights in a hallucinatory play.

For a moment, the silence crashes down on the property until the crackle of flames and the sizzle of fluids are all that can be heard.

Josh cautiously moves out from behind the wreck, still clutching his .38 revolver. Lilly joins him and is about to say something like, What the hell just happened, when she notices the headlights of the SUV are shining directly into the building, a wide pool of light falling directly on the rear of the sedan.

Inside the car’s rear window—fractured by huge starbursts of broken glass—something moves. Lilly sees the back of someone’s shoulders, slowly turning, pivoting awkwardly, revealing a pale, discolored face.

All at once, Lilly knows exactly what happened.

* * *

Moments later, things at Fortnoy’s start unraveling at a rapid rate as Josh calls out to the others in a frantic whisper. “Get away from the building!”

Across the lot, Bob, Megan, and Scott still crouch in the weeds behind the Dumpster. They slowly rise and start to answer.

“SSSSSHHHHHHHHH!!” Josh points at the building, indicating the dangers inside, and whispers loud enough to get them moving. “Hurry up! Get over here!!”

Bob understands instantly, and he takes Megan’s hand and creeps around the flickering flames of the diesel pump. Scott follows.

Lilly stands next to Josh. “What are we gonna do? All our stuff’s in there.”

The front of the station and half its interior are totaled, the sparks still sputtering, the water mains still flooding the cold floors.

In the glare of the SUV’s headlight beams, one of the sedan’s flapping rear doors suddenly creaks open wider, a decomposed leg clad in rags stepping out in fitful, spastic movements.

“The place is gone, babydoll,” Josh says under his breath. “S-O-L … forget it.”

Bob and the others join Josh and Lilly, and for a brief instant they stand there, still in shock, catching their collective breaths. Bob still clutches the shotgun in his sweaty palms. Megan looks sick. “What the fuck happened?” she mutters almost rhetorically.

“Folks must have tried to get away,” Josh speculates. “Must’ve had a passenger that got bit, and they turned in the car.”

Inside the wrecked building, a zombie emerges from the sedan like a deformed fetus being born.

“Bob, you got your keys on ya?”

Bob looks at Josh. “They’re in the truck.”

“In the ignition?”

“Glove box.”

Josh turns to the others. “I want y’all to wait here, keep your eye on that walker, might be more in there. I’m gonna get the truck.”

Josh turns away but Lilly grabs him. “Wait! Wait!! You’re telling me we’re just gonna leave all our stuff in there, all our supplies?”

“No choice.”

He heads around the left side of the smoking pumps while the others stand there stunned and speechless. Twenty-five feet away, the SUV thumps, a half-ajar door creaking open, the firelight blooming. Lilly jerks. Megan gasps as another dead thing pushes its way out of the vehicle.

Bob fiddles a shotgun shell into the breech with shaking hands.

The others back away toward the road, Scott mumbling hysterically, “Shit, man, shit … shit … shit … shit … shit …