school. There are at least thirty or more dead shuffling about the street. They look to be in a worse state than the kids we had to fight off at Austin’s.
Some of them are missing limbs, chunks are gone, and about all of them are burned.
Straight ahead of us, the road doesn’t appear as bad. There are a few abandoned cars and some unmoving bodies littering the ground, but it seems the better route. Dan goes straight, and we all but hold our breath as we pass the dead on our right. About a mile down the road, the left side turns into a park with tree’s everywhere that you can’t see beyond it. The right side is blocked by a metal guardrail, and the ground slants downward twenty feet. Beyond that is a housing community, and up ahead further is an apartment building. From the road, I can’t really tell how it is down there. But at least nothing is burning.
I’m about to try to investigate the park surroundings, when Claire interrupts.
“What is that up there?” She’s pointing out my window towards the park up ahead.
I turn to the window and squint to see what she’s talking about. I don’t see anything at first, but then a shadow is moving about thirty feet ahead of us. It’s large so I don’t think it’s human, but it’s moving very fast too. Slowly, it breaks free of the woods and comes onto the road.
“What the hell is that?” Dan cries.
“Is that a moose?” Sam says, as he leans over the seat to get a better look.
Thinking it would just go across and down the hill, Dan doesn’t slow us down. But it’s not alone. Behind the moose, are three burned dead guys. They are tearing after it, and as we get closer, I can see bites already lining its side.
Abruptly, the moose turns and starts to charge at us.
“Dan, look out!” Maria cries.
“Everybody hang on!” Dan yells.
The dead are right behind flanking the moose, so he can’t go around it. Instead he turns the truck sharply to the left intending to go into the woods. We are all yelling for him to stop the truck, but there isn’t enough time. At the same moment that the truck turns, one of the dead guys gets to the moose and claws at it. It bucks and dives at us, and Dan tries to turn us back to the other direction. I get tossed into the door, and my shoulder goes numb. The moose hits the truck, in between mine and Dan’s door at the next moment, and pushes us into an abandoned car. The truck is going too fast, and as we hit the car we get flipped onto our side. I fall towards Claire, and can hardly hear everyone screaming at the same time.
We land on the rail on the side of the road, and it bends under the weight of us. I scramble off of Claire and I try to pulls her back towards my door. Underneath her, Sam is struggling to move. I hear the metal of the rail snap, and don’t even have time to yell in alarm before the truck falls over the side of the hill. We flip back onto the hood, and with a feeling of vertigo we abruptly flip back onto my side of the truck. I get slammed back into my door with a bang, and I’m up too high to hurt my shoulder. Instead my head smacks the window, it happens so fast I don’t feel anything, all I hear is the glass breaking. We flip two more times, and each time my body goes limper each time I hit something.
Before I know it we land upside down on the hood at the bottom of the hill.
Chapter Twenty Nine
We are a mass of arms and legs, and I’m not sure who I’m lying on.
My body doesn’t hurt surprisingly, but I do have a hard time sitting up. When I do, I get dizzy and my eyes blur out of focus. I blink rapidly trying to clear them, but if anything they get worse. Ignoring it, I shift to the door and see Claire under me. When we landed, the truck must have impacted because there isn’t much room to move.
But I pull Claire a little towards me and she groans and opens her eyes. She has cuts all over her face from the glass, but she sits up right away as if she’s