Before young Spencer, four large zombies prepared to clutch and grab at him, over the railing, if he dared to pass by them. While behind him, the dozen or so walking dead that had made it over the fence, drew dangerously close.

He eyed the wash below for a moment. The rough bank descended nearly thirty feet to the sandy bottom. If the drop didn’t kill him, it would probably leave him with a broken leg and helpless against the plague of monsters that had already overrun Tucson.

He was just about to attempt it anyway when he heard a car horn blaring. Looking back, he saw that a red SUV raced toward him. “Please let it me sis and dad, oh please.”

As the zombies closed in, Emily poked her head out of the back seat window and yelled, “Spence, it’s us!”

“Yeah, I’d figured,” he grunted, while grabbing the lowest horizontal bar of the fence. Swinging under the fence got him away from the dozen that had just started to stretch out their arms toward him, but put him within reach of not only the four big zombies to the north, but the random undead that had still followed him from the path side of the fence.

Spencer figured the time for fighting was through and used his speed and lean form to race between the shambling corpses and sprint straight for his father. He had almost made it, when a tall towering zombie lurched out from behind a parked truck and grabbed his shirt.

Spencer fought and tried to pull away, but the tall zombie had his fingers locked on his shirt and refused to release him. If he didn’t get away soon, it wouldn’t matter for the others were only steps behind him. Within moments, the tall freak would be joined by a dozen others of his kind.

Despite his struggling, the tall zombies drew Spencer back toward its bloody, snapping teeth. A shot rang out and Spencer felt the grip relax before the zombie toppled over.

With a yelp, Spencer was back onto his feet running toward the car. Emily flung the door open and he literally leapt inside. It was only then that he saw that her gun still had a spiral of smoke leaking from the barrel.

“You saved me?”

“Yeah. Dad didn’t want me to, but he couldn’t get to his gun in time, so I took the shot.”

“And we’ll all glad you did, honey,” their father said, “Although, I prefer it when you listen to me.”

They had pulled out of the parking lot and resumed their frantic drive north. Dodging both the stumbling dead and abandoned vehicles, their father took the speed up as high as he dared.

His father was talking again. “Sorry it took so long to get you, Spence, but your sister had raced back to the wrecked car to get more ammo and we had to get her first. Luckily for us all, I grabbed Marcy’s keys before we left her place.”

“What ever happened to her?” Emily asked.

“It wasn’t pretty,” their father started, as he raced around a flaming sports car that had flipped onto its hood. “Her roommate had been bitten and had turned, but Marcy had her locked in the bathroom. No matter how much we pleaded, she refused to leave without her. When she opened the door… things got real ugly.”

They drove in silence until Jewels broke it, by asking, “So where to now?”

“I have a friend that lives at the base of Mount Lemmon. It should work until we can figure out what’s really going on. Considering the situation, I’m sure he won’t mind having a few extra guns to help protect the place.”

His father wiped his eyes on the back of his sleeve before continuing. “Before we get there, I just want to say how proud I am of both of you kids. Not only were you each brave far beyond your years, but frankly, you both kicked some serious ass out there. I doubt either Jewels or I would be alive without the two of you.”

“I’ll second that.” Jewels said, while looking back with a smile.

Emily burst into tears and hugged her father from behind. Spencer couldn’t help himself and joined her in both the hug and her tears.

“Come on guys. You’ll make me crash,” their father joked, but Spencer could see that he had tears in his eyes too. Eventually the two children released their dad and smiled at each other through their tears.

“We did it, didn’t we?” Emily said.

“Hell yes,” he replied and there was a loud slap as they gave each other a big high-five.

I hope you enjoyed and thank you for reading Spiking It.

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