“This first way, it looks like we avoid any towns or anything, but we don’t have enough gas to get us around that way, and we don’t know if we’ll be able to gather up anything. If we keep going straight, we should hit some neighborhoods just skirtin’ around the outside of this little town here. This last way we’re gonna be driving straight through the center of this other town here.”“I’m just gonna go ahead and call that one Samarra,” said Jay.“It does seem like straight ahead is our best option,” added Gabriel.By this point, the zombie group had finished crossing the road, so they started off again. When the CD that was playing ended, Aliyah ejected it as she rummaged around for a different one.“Oh, thank God,” muttered Gabriel when the silence resumed. After a moment he realized everyone was looking at him. “What?”“You have something against musicals?” jake asked.“You mean, other than the fact that they’re the sonic equivalent of having your eardrums slowly ripped apart by a

Gabriel sat on his knees as a strange man stood in front of him, shotgun on his shoulder, staring placidly back at him. Gabriel couldn’t take his eyes off the man’s mouth, which steadily moved up and down like he was a cow chewing cud.“You know,” Gabriel said, “prolonged use of chew tends to lead to very disgusting sores and abscesses in the mouth and there aren’t really any doctors around anymore to help with the pain.”The man did not skip a beat in his chewing motion, but his eyes narrowed into a look of confusion. He stepped forward and kicked Gabriel straight in the gut hard enough to double the young man over and leave him gasping for air.“Shut the hell up,” he snarled, eloquently. He spat a streak of thick, red saliva down near Gabriel ’s knees as if in defiance. He turned and continued down the line to Jake. He looked her up and down, a smile spreading across his lips. Her face, inversely, was a mask of sheer disgust. She look ready to punch the man in the face, and prob

“Right,” Red said, nodding his head thoughtfully. “There’s just one problem with your theory.”“What?” Gabriel looked confused. “There is?”Red pulled a gun from his pants and aimed it straight at Gabriel . “Only my people are making a run for it.” He motioned with the gun to a nearby open door. “Your people are being locked in that room. As extra distraction.”“You can’t! They’ll kill us!”“That’s the idea,” Red said. “Now move!”Slowly he backed them up into the room, and once they were all inside he slammed the door shut. A moment later they heard the key click the lock into place, and a moment after that they heard the sound of the front door as it opened and closed.“Way to go, Gabriel ,” said Aliyah. “Now we’re locked into a tiny room.”“Yeah, yeah,” said Gabriel , distracted. He looked around the room. As he had hoped, it was a dining room. He stepped over to a cabinet displaying the fine china. “Let’s just work on getting our hands free.”“Oh, what’s the point?” whined Daina.

The werewolves both jumped and soared easily over the gate, but skidded as they landed and tried to get pointed back at the turning vehicle. Aliyah slammed on the gas and shot past them while they were still righting themselves.Mac let out a long and shrill “Woohoo!” as though the entire thing had been some sort of new exciting roller coaster. They shot down the road at top speed and slowly, ever so slowly, the wolves fell into the darkness behind them.The vehicle roared down the highway, pushing eighty, rocking this way and that as Aliyah attempted to dodge abandoned cars, loose debris, and even the occasional wandering zombie. Every movement was made with at best inches to spare, and occasionally there would be a terrible scraping sound or a sickening thump on those occasions when she didn’t quite manage to completely dodge the object in question. The single working headlight in the pitch black dark of an empty night made the navigation exceptionally difficult.“We can’t keep this

Gabriel grimaced and took another look around the room. Suddenly, his face lit up with excitement. He pointed above his head and exclaimed, “The ceiling!”Everyone exchanged confused glances.“What about the ceiling?” asked Aliyah. “Do you want us to hide in it?”Gabriel sighed in frustration. Without another word he grabbed one of the desks and carried it over to the nearby wall. Pushing himself up on it, he explained, “I used to be in I.T., remember? At a school. We had drop ceilings exactly like this.”He pushed open one of the ceiling panels and raised his head up to get a look around. Frowning, he dropped down from the desk and then carried it to the wall on the opposite end of the room. Everyone followed behind him.As he climbed up and pushed open the ceiling from this new position, he continued explaining. “We did a lot of wiring from room to room, and in order to do that with these concrete walls, there were usually crawlspaces… Yes!”He looked back down from the open ceili