RU in? - 1st novel in the Ruinsaga series

Chapter 5

Lily

"What are you doing?" I asked Hunter.

His dark, brown eyes looked in the rearview mirror. "We need to lose the zombies before we stop at your house."

I glanced in the side mirror. Through the darkness and the light from the car lights, I could see about 8 zombies chasing us including 3 children. They quickly lost interest when the distance between the van grew wider. They began to wander and disperse. Arthur continued to sob into Molly's fur. She in turn continued to rain him with wet, slobbery kisses and rub her furry face all over his.

"Okay," Hunter said after a few minutes. "We'll circle back around. Be very quiet," he said mostly to the kids in the back. "They seem to react when they hear or see us. It's dark in the car so they might not be able to see us directly, but maybe you should duck just in case."

He turned the van back around and headed back towards my house. I held the house key tightly in my fist inside my jacket pocket. The kitchen knife was still in my other hand. Victory and Mackenzie ducked their heads low when we passed a congregation of zombies. Arthur was blocked by Molly. I sunk low in my seat.

Everyone inside the van was extremely quiet - even Molly. She stopped her slobbery kisses and instead the large dog sat on the ten year old's lap as best she could. We were in front of the neighbor's house now. Their porchlight was on, but everything was quiet.

Hunter pulled into our driveway and put the van into park, but left it running. Our yard was thankfully zombie free, but there were a few zombies across the street and in the neighbor's yard.

If we wanted to gather what we needed and get the other car quickly, I would need Mackenzie to come in with me. And we would need to do this quickly. Who knew how long Maria or our parents would last. The problem was that the zombies would surely see us as soon as we exited the van. I needed to protect not only Mackenzie, but those left behind in the van because they might get noticed too once we exited. The door on Mackenzie's side would take longer to shut as it slid shut as opposed to mine which I could just slam shut quickly.

I didn't want to take the chance that the van door by Mackenzie wouldn't shut fast enough and let a zombie get in leaving Arthur especially exposed.

Hunter looked at me through the darkness as if he knew exactly what I was thinking.

"Mackenzie," I whispered. "Climb up here."

"Why?" she whispered back.

"You'll need to come in with me, but I don't want you to use that side door. We'll both use this front one. You'll go out first and run to the house. I'll be right behind you."

"Aren't we all going in?" Victory whispered.

"We'll wait here," Hunter said quietly.

"Why?" Victory's voice grew slightly louder, but not enough for the zombies to take notice yet. "I have to be there to protect Kenzie."

"Her sister will be with her," Hunter replied roughly, but still quietly. "There is a good possibility when they get out of the van it will attract the attention of the zombies. How would we be able to get back to the van if we went with them and when we came back out the van was surrounded by zombies. Then they wouldn't be able to get their car out either and we would all be stuck here."

Victory shook her head and looked out the van window. Her arms crossed over her chest. Her jaw clenched, but she didn't argue.

Hunter reached up and pushed a button by the overhead lights so they wouldn't come on when I opened the door.