Apocalypse Aftermath by David Rogers Read Free Book Online

happened, then she kicked herself.  She leaned forward awkwardly and tugged the release for the parking brake.  When it clicked free, the SUV began rolling forward.  She applied a bit of pressure to the accelerator, then a little more after a few seconds, until she saw the speedometer ticking past ten miles per hour.  She held it there, holding the steering wheel in a white knuckled grip.
    Dividing her attention between the speedometer and her breathing, Jessica held the SUV straight along the dotted line between the two southbound lanes and tried to relax.  The zombie horde continued to ignore them, locked into their futile attempt to reach the people atop the trailer.  Jessica began to be able to pick out more detail about the trapped people.
    Two women and a man.  She saw a long shape in the hand of one of the women that looked an awful lot like a weapon of some kind, and her brow furrowed a little.  If they were armed, why weren’t they able to get themselves out of the jam?  And it looked like both women were wearing body armor.  She recognized the vests.  They were watching the SUV as it eased closer, though the woman without the gun seemed a lot less calm about the zombies below than her companions.  She kept looking down at them, and stayed close to the armed woman.  The guy just watched the SUV approach, his hands hooked in his pockets, while the brunette with the gun kept glancing over her shoulder at the southbound side of the wreckage from time to time.
    Jessica’s nervousness was starting to spike by the time two thumps came from above her.  They seemed very close to the back edge of the horde.  A few of the upright corpses had noticed them and were starting to shuffle around to head their way.  She made herself brake slowly and steadily, then sat with her hands on the wheel and her foot firmly on the brake when the vehicle came to a halt.
    The first gunshot made her flinch quite badly, but she took a breath and tried to relax.  “Nothing can get into the car.  The car is safe.” she told herself as Austin started a steady rhythm of firing up on the roof.  He was good, she saw as the shots rang out.  Zombie heads were snapping back as bullets went into foreheads and faces and necks, but the gore wasn’t nearly as bad as she’d feared.  Bad, yes.  But not horrible.  Except for the ones that hit low on the faces or necks.  A couple of those made the heads flop around in a way that made her stomach twist uneasily within her.
    “Candice, you okay back there?”
    “Yes.”  The girl’s voice sounded a little tight, but otherwise steady.  Jessica glanced behind her, but found Candice was paying attention to the windows on either side of the SUV rather than craning to look forward through the windshield.  It wasn’t like Candice hadn’t already seen some bad things, but Jessica couldn’t help herself when she thought to try and keep her daughter from seeing something like this if it wasn’t necessary.
    There was a pause in the firing that stretched out for several seconds, then it resumed.  Already more than a dozen zombies were down, only two still twitching.  The rest lay motionless while Austin continued shooting at the others.  Jessica tried to let her gaze unfocus so she couldn’t catch the graphic details, but she still saw sprays of things that were supposed to be inside heads erupting despite her efforts.
    The shooting continued until only the horde had been considerably thinned out, with maybe a few handfuls of zombies still on their feet.  The asphalt was littered with corpses, most of them all the way dead.  Some were still flopping and flailing around, but they didn’t seem to be able to regain their feet.  Jessica was waiting for it, and when the single thump came she didn’t startle.  Her foot came off the brake, and she started forward.  A thought occurred to her, and she glanced down at the door armrest long enough to thumb the lock button.
    The door