The SUV rocked and bounced as twelve year old Emily drove it over the lawns of the apartment complex. Gruesome splayed bodies mixed with screams and lumbering zombies. The infected weren’t too thick, but thick enough to give a nine year old a fatal bite.

Spencer took a bead on a Hispanic man whose face was missed a line of flesh from chin to ear. The car hit the curb of the volleyball court and he lost his aim and the shot went wild.

“Stop it!” his sister yelled. “You need to help me find dad. Which way did he go?”

“I didn’t see. With my window shattered, why not shoot? There aren’t too many in here. It could help us once we find dad.”

“Oh yeah, how many shots do you have and remember, your gunfire attracted more. There are another twenty in the parking lot that will be after us once they stop…” she broke into another wave of tears. “Oh Chris.”

“Just keep driving and try not to hit anything, except maybe a zombie,” Spencer said, before taking it upon himself to crawl into the back seat. He knew his father had more ammo and guns in the trunk, but stopping to open it in the middle of this madness didn’t seem an option. Instead, he searched the back seats. He found a box of shells, but they were for the other pistols and wouldn’t work in his 32.

“Hey Em, the rifle dad gave you is still back here.”

“Send it up front. Where is he? Where is he? Doesn’t he know we’re in trouble? I see groups of these things pounding on doors, but they’re all over the place, who knows which of them belong to dad’s stupid secret girlfriend?”

“Must’ve run into trouble. Just keep driving. He’ll see us,” Spencer said and then spotted the wood axe that Chris had been using. “Better than nothing,” he mumbled, as he tossed it back into the front passenger seat. He quickly followed it.

As he finished climbing over the seat, Emily yelled when the right fender smacked into a teen wearing a bloody t-shirt. The kid went flying back and hit the steel fence that surrounded the pool. “Nice one Em, high five.”

“I didn’t even do it on purpose.”

“It was still cool.”

She tried to smile and then they both grew silent as the sounds of muffling shooting could be heard.

“That’s dad,” he said.

She said, “It could be anyone,” but she still steered the car toward the direction where they had heard the shots. “I think I might be getting the hang of this driving thing.”

And that was when a mother carrying a baby leapt out in front of the car.

The mother might have screamed something like, “Help us,” but Spencer barely registered the words, for Emily had jerked the SUV to the left and run straight into a barbecue station. The grill was suspended on a pole, which bent and allowed the car to ride up over it and promptly become stuck.

“Drive off Emily! Drive off.”

“I can’t. We’re stuck!”

The mother had raced closer and yelled, “Oh my God, you’re just children!” But then, instead of helping, she hugged her baby tighter and fled.

“Why are all the adults abandoning us?” Emily said, as she tried in vain to free the vehicle.

“I don’t know, but I think it’s our turn to run,” he said. Looking around, they both saw that between the mother’s screaming and the noise of the wreck, another circle of undead closed in around them.

Spencer started shoveling handfuls of the bullets he had spilled into his pockets while he yelled at the top of his lungs, “Dad help!”

To be continued next Saturday.

You can discover where Spencer and Emily enter the Eternal Aftermath Here!