My Zombie Girlfriend

Chapter 12

He didn't know where he was running. The world had suddenly turned into a weird and unfamiliar place. The sky to the north was bright with fire, and helicopters zoomed overhead, splashing spotlights in random areas and just as quickly plunging that same area into darkness. A fire horn was blaring a long continuous wail that chilled Zane's blood and made him run faster.

Yet his street was quiet. Doors shut, shades drawn. Here he heard only his own shoe soles slapping the ground.

He glanced back once. Light spilled from the front door of his house and cut into the night. He didn't see Harmony. He faced forward and ran.

He didn't know where else to go. The center of town was at least two miles away. That would be where his parents were having dinner, and they were in the thick of this... whatever this was.

He found himself running to the school.

His parents had said they were being evacuated. Schools were always used as evacuation centers in emergencies, weren't they? Schools and churches, but Zane hadn't been to any churches in Palos Verdes. Hospitals, schools, and churches. The hospital seemed to be on fire, so Zane headed toward the school.

The mile to school flew by, and it wasn't until a car nearly ran him over that he realized how there were no cars on the streets at all. He hadn't even been looking when he crossed the streets. They were black and barren, the street lights all flashing yellow: warning! warning! warning!

But when Zane turned to cross Hawthorne Boulevard, a car flew up out of nowhere, trapping him in the headlights. He dove out of the way and rolled off the street into some bushes. Luckily, a boulder stopped his descent into a hill full of thorny bushes.

"Damn," he moaned.

He had managed to push himself up and claw his way back to the sidewalk when he heard footsteps.

Immediately he dropped to his stomach and stopped breathing.

"Zane? Is that you?"

Zane peered up.

"Wilson!" he cried. "Wilson, Wilson!" He scrambled to his feet and headed up the hill. "Wilson!" He tackled the short boy. "You're alive!"

"I won't be for long if you don't let go," Wilson managed to say.

"Sorry," Zane said. He got up and hauled Wilson to his feet beside him. "Man, I heard the hospital was on fire or blew up or something. I figured you were dead!"

"Just barely. Come on, get in the car."

A shiny SUV idled a few feet up ahead. Zane ran with a slight limp behind Wilson, who was much quicker than he would have imagined. Wilson got in the passenger side beside Mason at the wheel, and Zane hopped in the back – and found himself beside Ross. Mason slammed on the gas and Zane struggled to get on his seatbelt.

"Hey man," Ross said.

His arm was wrapped up in a swath of gauze, and there was a sling around his neck. With the dark circles under his eyes, Ross looked completely miserable.

"You broke Ross out of the hospital?" Zane asked.

"Dude, you are completely out of the loop!" Wilson cried. "And why did you ignore my calls and hang up on me?"

"I couldn't hear you!" Zane said, but Wilson shushed him.

"Mason and I went to the hospital, like we planned. Our cover was visiting Ross. We had just got there when all hell broke loose – and I mean crazy shit, man. Alarms going off, Code Yellow, Code Green, Code Black... all the codes, basically. I couldn't keep up. They started calling to evacuate so we got the hell out. Just in time too, we were running to the car when half the hospital blew up. Crazy shit, debris and shrapnel everywhere. We were lucky. There were lots of old people in the way, blocking up the elevators. We all ran down the stairs and got out."