The Turning: A Tale of the Living Dead by Kelly M. Hudson Page B

stepped on
her free arm to pin it so she couldn’t claw him.  He used his other leg to
stomp the trapped arm.
    Outside, the moaning grew louder
and closer as the zombies moved in.  The nearest ones were from the Food Bank
and they were ten yards away.  The mass of zombies behind him were fifteen
yards away and the ones from each side were about twenty away. 
    He tried to ignore them.  He had
one thing to do here and he had to do it right.  He stamped on the zombie’s arm
at the shoulder, just above her biceps.  He would either stomp it free or tear
it off. 
    The living dead from the Food Bank
were five yards away now, at least thirty strong.  The others from the
neighborhood were ten yards away and pouring towards him, like an avalanche in
slow motion. 
    Jeff cursed and kicked harder.  He
heard bones snap.  The zombie arm tore free and stayed tangled in the
seatbelt.  Jeff screamed in triumph, jumped over her body, and yanked her out
the back by her ponytail, his feet smacking hard on the ground.  He sent her
skittering across the road like a bowling ball.  She slid into the closest zombies
and tripped them up, scattering like pins.  When she hit the pavement, her
ribcage exploded, spraying dried organs and   brittle bones into the air.  
    A zombie hand scratched his
shoulder.  Jeff shrieked and spun and shoved it away.  The zombie—an Indian guy
with a long beard and crusty forehead with a face split in two—stumbled back. 
It would have fallen if not for the pressing, living dead bodies behind it. 
The hundreds of them.
    More and more of them had poured
from the neighborhood, and what had at first been a couple dozen had grown to
at least a hundred, if not more. 
    And they were only a few feet from
him.
    Jeff threw himself back into the
van and slammed the doors shut.  He scrambled to the front, jammed it into
drive, and drove forward. 
    The front of the van crunched into
the mass of dead before, thumping and shoving them back.  He was going gentle
on the gas because he didn’t want to wreck, but they were so thick in front of
him and coming up on the sides, he was afraid they would stop his momentum. 
And if they stopped him, he was dead. 
    He punched the gas and swerved to
the left, whacking four zombies and sending them flying.  The tires screeched
as he made his U-turn and plunged into the oncoming zombies.  They hit the
front of the fan with sick, wet thuds and fell to the left and the right.  He
kept going, feeling the tires spin out as they ground the dead beneath them,
blood and pus spurting up and coating the sides of the van.
    He aimed for the loading doors of
the Food Bank.  There was no way he was going to leave Jenny behind, and if
they were going to die, they were going to do it together. 
    The van broke free from the clump
of zombies and roared over to the building.  More zombies came around the sides
by the dozens and behind them, from the charred remains of the apartment
complex and the suburban homes on the other side, dozens more came. 
    There was no turning back now.
    He pulled in front of the loading
doors, slammed on the breaks and threw open the passenger door.  The loading
dock doors banged open and Jenny leapt towards the van.
    The zombies on either side swarmed
over her.  She vanished beneath their bodies, screaming.  The shotgun bared
twice.  Two zombies fell back, one with a hole in its chest and the other with
its face sheared off.  Jenny popped up to her feet and spun, firing the shotgun
twice more.  Brains and blood and bones flew through the air like shrapnel from
a grenade.  She wiggled in the small space she'd cleared, her face drenched
with blood.  Jenny slipped out of the grip of another zombie and flung her body
through the open door as Jeff punched the gas and the van screeched away.  
    Jenny looked over at him, gasping
for air and laughing hysterically. 
    Ahead of them, the dead thronged
the road, choking it, leaving little room for