Three Tires and a Broken Axle

This serial starts 10/25/13

If anything the roads of Tucson looked worse off than her school. Multiple car pile ups had already occurred or happened right in front of their eyes. Mad man, and the people running from them, sprinted across the street going in every direction.

“This is like a video game from Hell,” Vance yelled as he swerved around a shirtless man with a chest painted with blood.

He cased an older woman and Mar cringed when the older woman’s scream let them all know she had been caught. “Where are we going?” She cried out. “Don’t drive near campus, it might be worse around there.”

But it was too late. Vance had taken Sixth Street, which cuts just south of the University of Arizona. Students were rushing south across the street in droves. In some cases they were a hundred thick. Most sprinted like normal people, but often, in their midst, screams echoed between the tall buildings as a few of the bloody ones would enter their crowds.

“Get out of the way!” Vance yelled and then hit two young female students. They bounced off the hood of the SUV with startled cries.

“Dude!” Phil yelled. “Get on a fucking side road.”

“Screw that, we just need to get through this.”

But after Vance hit three more students, Phil grabbed at the wheel.

“Let go, you moron.”

“I’m not going to let you hit anyone else, you could be killing them!”

“Look out!” Cindy screamed.

Then Mar saw it too. A UPS truck had flipped onto its side and they headed straight for it. She had time to toss on her seatbelt and brace herself and then they collided. Vance had been going at least fifty and they hit hard.

Mar and Cindy had put on their seatbelts, but Jenny had forgotten to and went flying forward. Her head connected with Vance’s with a loud smack and they both went limp. Phil’s head bounced forward, right as the air bag smashed into him. A string of blood from somewhere made a diagonal line across Mar’s face.

A daze claimed her and for an indeterminable moment she watched the stream of yelling college students swarm pass.

Cindy voice grounded her and pulled her back to reality. “Mar are you okay? Jenny and Vance are hurt bad and Phil’s not waking up.”

“I’m okay,” she said, while wiping at her face. Her hand came back in a smear of red. “We need to get out of this car.”

Looking outside, she saw that the college students grew fewer and in their place more of the stumbling bloody figures could be seen. “We need to get out now.” She was surprised when he door opened as easily as it did and she rolled out and dropped onto all fours on the ground, just trying to catch her breath.

Cindy didn’t let her rest long. “Mary, my door won’t open. I’m stuck. Please help me!”

Mar made it to her feet right as a blood covered student in just his underwear stumbled at her. He grabbed a handful of her hair and she screamed when several strands were pulled out. She raced to the other side of the car. Cindy still fought with the door, while the other three high school students still balanced, unmoving, on a jumble of airbags.

Underwear boy growled and he moved for her again. Her eyes dazed left and right. They had crashed close to the front of a Greek Restaurant. Their sidewalk sign was held in place by a cinder block. Without thinking, she grabbed up the block and threw it into the freak chasing her. She wasn’t sure if her fury took over or if blind luck guided her hand, but the cinder block smashed underwear boy in the middle of the face and her went down hard and thankfully didn’t get back up.

Cindy still banged on her window.

Once she was sure underwear boy wasn’t moving. She grabbed up the broken cinder block and rushed back to Cindy’s window. “Get back. Cover your eyes.” Then, without looking to see if her friend had complied, she threw the cinder block at the window.

It shattered on the first try and sent small squares of glass raining down upon Cindy. Her friend didn’t care and rushed out of the window frame like the car was on fire.

Mar helped her best friend to her feet and then asked, “What about the others?”

“None of them are moving.”

She was distracted for a minute by the sight of seven sorority girls running back them. Waves of blonde followed their flight as did two stumbling figures. “Well we can’t just leave them here with the window broken out.” But even as these words left her mouth, Mar saw that the wild press of students was over and on the other side of the road nothing moved except dozens of the lumbering things. A few students fought here and there, but they were being dragged to the ground and torn apart.

“We need to get Jenny,” Mar said and leaned into the car and grabbed both of her friend’s ankles. She wasn’t strong enough. “Grab my waist and pull me.” She looked through the door she had left open and saw the few of them stumble into the street.

Cindy yelped and then pulled with impossible strength They got Jenny into the back seat and then with both of them working they got her to the ground outside of the car.

“How can we escape those while carrying her?” Cindy asked. “We have to go. We have to go now!”

“What about Phil?” Mar asked, but as she did, Vance’s eyes snapped open and be began to thrash against the air bags. He looked over at them and growled. Then, as if noticing Phil for the first time, he leaned sideways and took a huge bite out of Phil’s neck.

Both the girls screamed.

Then two big figures were upon them. Mar went to scream again, until she saw that it was three, no wait, four male college students.

“What are you standing here for?” A tall man with quite a good sized beer belly asked.

“Our friend is hurt,” Mar said, still in shock and cringing as Vance devoured his former best friend.

“This her?” the tallest one said, then without asked permission, he tossed Jenny over his back and yelled, “let’s go.”

“You heard the man,” the curly headed student said and as one the group began to jog to the south.

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