The Living Dead Boy (The Living Dead Boy #1)(6)

“Oh, crap,” Josh whispered.

“Those are zombies, Josh!” Sam shouted.

Then everyone started screaming.





Chapter 4


“Everyone stay calm!” Jamie instructed in a loud voice. “Don’t panic!”

No one onboard the bus listened to him.

Josh really couldn’t blame them.

There wasn’t a ton of zombies like in the movies, but there was enough to be scary. The shambling dead were badly charred and moved very slowly between the gnarled tree trunks. Somehow that made them even more terrifying.

“They look like burned meat,” Sam gasped.

“They are burned meat,” Troy answered, eyes wide with horror.

“We need to go! We need to go now!” a man shouted from the back of the bus.

“I can’t!” Derrick motioned toward the bumper of the vehicle in front of him. “I’ve got nowhere to go!”

“Everyone stay seated,” Jamie ordered. “Clare, Hector, and Ron, please take a seat.”

The people who had followed Jamie to the front hesitated, clearly not ready to give up their argument. The couple was dressed very nicely, like they were going to church. The woman’s blonde hair was still a very stiff helmet of waves around her head despite the day on the road. Her husband, a Latino man with a shiny bald head and mustache, had his arms crossed and looked more scared than angry. The third man was the one Josh instantly didn’t like. He had a round sunburned face and was dressed in jeans and a plaid shirt. There was something about the set of his jaw and the way his eyes didn’t seem to blink that made Josh think he’d be the one to defy his dad at every turn. He kept taking off his beat up trucker hat to mop the sweat from his thin brown hair with a kerchief.

“We’re not done with this discussion,” the third man said.

“We got more important matters right now, Ron,” Josh’s dad answered. “This isn’t the time for arguing.”

“We need a lot more answers,” Hector said in a thick Texas drawl. “And you need to get them.”

“We’ll talk later, hon,” Clare added with a sugary-sweet smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

The couple retreated to their seats with uneasy looks on their faces, but Ron shoved Bonnie aside to sit next to Rachel. He was clearly unwilling to retreat to the back. Bonnie gave the man a questioning look, and kept her furry body planted firmly at Rachel’s side.

Corina pressed her elbow into Josh’s side, and he looked at her pinched face. Her eyes flicked to the man, and her lips mouthed, “Trouble.”

Josh somberly nodded. He hoped his dad was prepared to deal with Ron.

Jamie, meanwhile, stayed next to Derrick. His dead wife’s pistol was tucked into his belt, and Josh felt a little safer seeing the weapon. His dad had reloaded it earlier when a soldier had given him a box of ammunition for it.

The pops of gunfire continued close by, but none of the zombies caught in the spotlight of the helicopter were killed. They continued on their trek toward the line of vehicles on the road with slow steady steps.

“Why aren’t they shooting them?” Yessica asked in a small voice.

“There’s a fence.” Josh pointed to the barbwire strung between posts. “It’ll catch the zombies. They’re probably trying to conserve the bullets.”

Horns behind them started to honk again, and Josh could see Derrick impatiently tapping his fingers against the steering wheel. The rumble of engines, the honking of the horns, and people shouting at each other outside of the safety of the bus reminded Josh too much of the escape from the school. His hands trembled against his thighs, and he clenched them into fists. Again he felt helpless, unable to do anything other than sit and stare at the ghastly creatures meandering toward the road.

There was something hypnotic about how slowly the zombies stumbled through the trees and tall grass. His friends and all the adults craned their heads to watch, for it was difficult not to stare at the zombies trudging toward the long line of vehicles. The first few hit the barbed-wire fence, and came to an abrupt halt. The zombies didn’t seem to understand how to push past the barrier, and they flailed their charred bodies against the wires.

“That’s holding them,” Troy said, slumping down in his seat. “You were right.”

The pops of guns being fired sounded nearby. If the soldiers weren’t shooting at the zombies on the other side of the fence, then they were shooting at zombies that were much closer.

“Guys! Guys! Guys!” Sam shouted, his voice booming.

“There’s more zombies,” Yessica said, matter-of-factly. “Lots of them.”

The space around the back of the bus was suddenly filled with the undead. Many were burned, a few were missing parts of their bodies, and all were very slow.

“It’s a herd!” Troy exclaimed!

“I don’t like them! Make them go away!” Drake added his voice to the escalating noise level.

Jamie ordered people to be quiet, but again no one listened. Panic started to set in as the attention of the zombies was drawn to the bus by the frightened cries inside. Gnarled dead hands started to slap against the bus, and the eerie moans of the zombies competed with the shrieks coming from the living.

Yessica slid off her seat and crawled under it, leaving Sam to stare out the window in horror.