The Jeep tore out of the driveway, the oversized tires chewing up the manicured lawn and spitting wet earth and pulverized brick against the side of the house. The engine roared, a guttural, violent sound that shattered the dead, heavy silence of the cul-de-sac.
Justin's hands were locked on the wheel, his knuckles bone-white. He wasn't driving like a man with a destination. He was driving like a man running from hell. Beside him, Mari was still clutching the chef's knife, her chest heaving as she stared out the windshield. Her green eyes darted frantically, tracking the jerky, wrong movements of the infected shambling across the neighboring yards.
"Justin," Tally screamed from the backseat, her voice high and completely manic. "Who the fuck was upstairs?!"
Justin didn't look back. His face was a tight mask of sheer, panicked adrenaline. "I don't know! The house was empty, Tally! I swear to God!"
"I saw a shadow!" Tally shrieked, twisting around to watch their massive brick home vanish behind a row of ancient live oaks. "It was watching us! Someone was standing right in the guest room window!"
"I checked the rooms!" Justin roared back, the veins in his neck bulging against his skin. "I checked the closets, the bathroom, everything! It was clear!"
Tally felt the air completely leave her lungs. A cold, nauseating realization dropped into her stomach like a stone. "Justin... where was Mrs. Gable's son?"
Justin's jaw tightened until the muscle looked like it might snap. "I don't know. We all saw Mrs. Gable when the garage door went up. She was just standing right there in the driveway staring at the sun."
"Did she have Julian with her?" Tally pressed, her pulse hammering against her eardrums.
The Jeep swerved hard as Justin yanked the wheel to miss a parked, empty sedan. "No. No, I didn't see him."
Tally stared at the back of her brother's neck. "He hides, Justin. You know he does. He's twenty-six, but he has the brain of a three-year-old. When things get loud, when sirens go off... he just hides. He was up there. He was up there the whole time."
"Fuck," Justin breathed. The word carried a sudden, crushing weight. He had thrown the heavy deadbolt on the front door. He had effectively locked a terrified, special-needs man inside a tomb with the things that were now tearing the neighborhood to pieces.
They tore down the narrow, oak-lined shortcut Tally usually took to bypass the subdivision's speed bumps, trying to avoid the absolute gridlock of the main road. The outside of the Wrangler was a rolling nightmare—caked in dried gore, the bumper dented, the radiator grill choked with unrecognizable black sludge—but inside, it was a climate-controlled bubble smelling of leather, gasoline, and Tally's expensive perfume.
Suddenly, a girl stumbled out from behind a row of pristine hedges, sprinting dead down the middle of the street. She wore a familiar blue-and-gold cheer jacket, but the white sleeves were soaked a heavy, wet crimson.
It was Kenzie.
"STOP!" Tally shrieked.
Justin stood on the brakes. The heavy off-road tires locked, biting violently into the asphalt and throwing Mari hard against her seatbelt.
Kenzie was gasping for air, her blonde hair matted with thick strings of gore. Right behind her, closing the distance with terrifying, mechanical speed, was a man in a US Postal Service uniform. His lower jaw was completely unhinged, hanging loosely against his throat, exposing the wet root of his tongue. His bruised, purple eyes were locked dead on Kenzie's spine.
"Kenzie!" Tally yelled, throwing her heavy door open.
Kenzie tripped, scraping her palms raw on the asphalt. She scrambled to flip onto her back, her eyes wide with absolute, primal terror as the mailman lunged for her legs.
Tally didn't hesitate. She grabbed the collar of Kenzie's bloody jacket and hauled her violently into the backseat just as Justin gunned the engine. The mailman slammed face-first into the reinforced window, leaving a thick, greasy smear of blood and saliva on the tinted glass as the Jeep tore away.
Kenzie collapsed onto the floorboards, tangling her legs in the trash and empty Red Bull cans. She was shaking so violently her teeth chattered like a machine gun. Her skin was the color of old parchment. She reeked of copper, sweat, and voided bowels.
"You're okay, Kenz. I got you," Justin said, his eyes flicking to the rearview. He'd known Kenzie since middle school. "Are you bitten?"
"I'm not bitten," Kenzie wheezed, her voice a hollow, broken shell.
She crawled up onto the leather seat next to Tally, curling into a tight, trembling ball. She rocked back and forth, staring at the roof of the Jeep with wide, completely unhinged eyes.
"What is happening?" Kenzie hyperventilated, the words scraping out of her throat. "Why is this happening? This isn't real. This isn't real life. People don't just... they don't do this."
"Kenzie, look at me," Tally said, grabbing her friend's face. "What happened?"
"My grandma was sick," Kenzie babbled, her eyes completely vacant. "Bedridden. Cancer. I was in the kitchen with Barbie... I heard the bed creak upstairs. She was standing at the top of the stairs. Her mouth was bright, wet red. She grabbed my mom. Mom tried to catch her, but Grandma just bit her right in the neck. She didn't stop. She just kept chewing through her throat."
Mari slowly lowered her knife, horror entirely replacing the defensive panic on her face.
"I grabbed Barbie and ran into the bathroom," Kenzie sobbed, her chest heaving with jagged, ugly breaths. "I locked the door. I climbed out the second-floor window. But when I got out onto the roof... my mom came out the front door. She was already turning."
Kenzie choked, her face contorting in pure agony. "And Leo... oh my god, Leo had his headphones on. He was walking up the driveway from his friend's house. He didn't even hear them coming. They just grabbed his backpack and pulled him down and... and..."
She let out a wet, ragged sob that sounded like her soul tearing in half. "They pulled his stomach open! I just climbed down the trellis and ran while they were eating him! He was screaming my name, Tal! He was looking right at me while they pulled him apart!"
Kenzie completely shattered, burying her face into her hands, sobbing uncontrollably into the blood-soaked fabric of her knees.
Tally pulled her legs up tighter to her chest, disgusted by the dark, sticky blood transferring from Kenzie's sleeves onto the pristine leather. She didn't give a damn about Leo. People who walk around oblivious with headphones on during a crisis die, Tally thought coldly. That's just natural selection. But she needed Kenzie. She needed Kenzie exactly like this—broken, hysterical, and pliable. When they finally found their parents, Mom and Dad were going to demand to know why Tally hadn't picked up six-year-old Ella Belle from school. Kenzie's trauma was the perfect shield. Tally would just claim they almost died escaping the high school, and Kenzie's shattered brain would be too fried to dispute the timeline.
A small movement broke the horror in the backseat. A tiny, wet nose poked out from the zippered pocket of Kenzie's jacket. Barbie, the four-pound teacup Yorkie, let out a tiny, muffled huff. Kenzie let out a broken, hysterical laugh. "I shoved her in my pocket before I ran."
"Justin," Tally said, dropping the comforting best-friend act entirely as her mind quickly calculated the logistics of their survival. "Where exactly are we going?"
"We're getting Ella," Justin said automatically, navigating toward the main boulevard that led out of the subdivision. "We push to Wilmington Island, check the aftercare, get our sister. Then we cut back across town to Memorial for Mom. Then we push south to Hunter and get Dad."
"Are you out of your fucking mind?!" Tally snapped. "Mom is at Memorial! It's the biggest hospital in the city! It's going to be a total slaughterhouse! And Dad is at Hunter today! Tuesday, Justin, he rotates! If we drive into a school and a hospital, we are dead! We have to go straight to the military base right now!"
"I'm not leaving them behind!" Justin yelled, his voice booming over the engine. "I'll drop you at the base! I'll get you, Kenzie, and Mari behind the wire at Hunter. Once you're safe, I'm taking the Jeep and going back out for Mom and Ella."
"No," Mari said instantly.
Her voice wasn't loud, but it cut through the screaming match like a razor. She turned in the passenger seat, completely ignoring her pregnant stomach pressing against the seatbelt, and looked Justin dead in the eye.
"I am not staying behind at a military base," Mari said, her tone fierce and uncompromising. "If you drive into a school, I'm going with you. If you drive into Memorial, I'm going with you. We stay together, Justin. Period."
Tally threw herself back against the seat, fuming. They're going to get me killed, she thought, her heart hammering a selfish, frantic rhythm against her ribs. They're going to drag me into a meat grinder out of blind, stupid loyalty.
Justin swallowed hard, his jaw setting into a furious, stubborn line. "It doesn't change the first step. We get you to Hunter. Then I find Ella and Mom."
He eased off the brake, inching the Jeep forward. Dead ahead, the frantic, honking traffic didn't just slow down; it stopped completely.
The sprawling brick and iron gates of the subdivision loomed in front of them. The main Savannah thoroughfare just outside the walls was completely gridlocked—an impenetrable, solid wall of abandoned steel.
"We can't get out," Mari stated, terror creeping back into her voice. "The road's completely gone."
"Don't look," Justin commanded, his voice tight as he stared at the horrors unfolding outside the gates. "Nobody look out the windows. Keep your eyes inside the Jeep."
But Tally looked.
The people who had abandoned their cars on the main road weren't running away. They were being pushed backward, fleeing in a blind panic back into the subdivision. And right behind them was a massive, surging wave of infected.
They poured through the open iron gates, swarming the stalled luxury cars. A woman in a silver Porsche was screaming, frantically slapping her tinted window. Three infected crawled over her hood, their clothes soaked in dark, wet stains. One of them just started slamming his forehead repetitively against the driver's side window.
Crack. Crack. Shatter.
The safety glass gave way. The woman's screams reached a pitch that didn't sound human before they were abruptly, wetly cut off.
Tally watched without an ounce of pity. She felt a dark, cold rush of relief. Better them than me, she thought, locking the door.
"They're coming inside," Mari whispered, shrinking down in her seat.
Dozens of figures were shambling over the abandoned cars right in front of them, their bruised, empty eyes locking onto the loud hum of the Jeep's V8 engine. They were boxed in. Panicked neighbors were throwing their cars into reverse, backing up recklessly toward Justin's front bumper.
"Hold on!" Justin roared.
He slammed the shifter down, cranked the steering wheel completely to the left, and floored the gas.
The heavy Jeep lunged sideways, vaulting the landscaped brick median. The undercarriage screamed as steel scraped violently against brick. The entire Jeep tilted, teetering dangerously on two wheels. Kenzie shrieked, clutching Barbie to her chest as she tumbled against Tally. Mari grunted, bracing her boots against the dashboard.
The heavy off-road tires bit into the dirt. The Jeep crashed down hard on the grass, the suspension groaning loudly. Justin didn't aim for the road. He aimed for the tree line.
"Where are you going?!" Tally screamed as pine branches whipped violently against the windshield.
"The back route!" Justin yelled, fighting the steering wheel as the Jeep bucked over exposed roots and thick mud. "Through the woods! Past the community lake!"
They tore through the pristine, manicured woods that separated the neighborhood from the outer county roads. The Jeep smashed through a wooden walking bridge, sending splinters flying, and fishtailed wildly through the thick mud bordering the subdivision's fishing lake. Justin kept his foot planted, the engine roaring like a caged animal, plowing over heavy brush and tearing a raw path through the timber until they violently burst out the other side.
They hit the back dirt road leading out toward the marsh levee. The tires spun on the loose gravel before catching traction.
Suddenly, the radio crackled.
Through a thick, heavy layer of static, a voice emerged—strained, distorted, but undeniably human.
"...is an emergency broadcast... all citizens are urged to... repeat, do not approach... the infection is spread through... seek high ground or reinforced..."
"Infection," Mari whispered, clutching her stomach. "He said infection."
"It's a disease?" Kenzie asked, wiping a bloody smudge from her pale face, her eyes still blown wide with shock. "Like rabies?"
"Rabies doesn't make your mom eat the neighbor's kid, Kenzie," Tally said bluntly.
Justin didn't comment. The Jeep splashed through a deep pool of brackish water on the dirt track, sending brown spray over the hood. Behind them, the smoke from Savannah continued to billow into the sky, a massive black shroud for a city that had died in a single morning.
Justin glanced at the rearview mirror. He saw Tally, sitting perfectly upright amid the chaos, her face a mask of cold, unreadable iron.
"Justin," Mari said softly, placing her shaking hand over his on the gear shift.
"We're going to make it," he whispered, entirely unsure if he was lying to her or himself.
The Jeep roared, its engine a defiant scream against the deadly silence of the marsh, as they drove deeper into the terrifying unknown.
12:45 PM.
The longest day of their lives was only just beginning.