Chapter 9: Suburban Nightmare
The street was a landscape of chaos. A car had crashed into a fire hydrant, and water was spraying high into the air in a clean, pulsing arc. The water mixed with the gray smoke rolling from the roof of a burning house two doors down. The pop and crackle of the flames was a steady rhythm under the closer, sharper sounds of distant screams and breaking glass. The dead were everywhere. Some lay still on the manicured lawns, twisted into unnatural positions. Others moved with that terrible, twitching purpose, their heads snapping toward any sign of life.
Quinn scanned the scene, his Marine training taking over completely. He was not a grieving brother or a terrified uncle. He was a point man on a patrol through hostile territory. He saw the street not as a street, but as a series of cover points and kill zones. He saw a man with a shotgun fire twice from a second-story window before being pulled back inside by something unseen. He saw a group of three infected feasting on a fallen figure near a mailbox. He saw a woman run from her front door only to be cut down by a runner who appeared from behind a hedge. This was not a fight. It was a harvest.
"We have to move," he said, his voice flat and devoid of emotion.
Sarah leaned heavily against him, her face pale and beaded with sweat. Her left arm was held tight against her body, the blood now a dark, ugly stain that had soaked her sleeve from wrist to elbow. She was trying to be strong, but each step was a visible effort.
"Mommy, I’m scared," Lily whimpered, clinging to Sarah’s leg. The little girl was in a state of deep shock, her eyes wide and unblinking as she took in the horrors around her.
"I know, baby," Sarah whispered, her voice strained. "We just have to keep walking. Stay close to Uncle Quinn."
Quinn pointed with the iron poker. "Stay low. Keep to the cars," he instructed. "We move from that blue sedan to the white truck. Then to the hedge by the driveway. Don’t run unless I say so. Understand?"
Sarah nodded, her jaw tight with pain.
He took the lead, poker held ready in a two-handed grip. He moved in a half-crouch, his eyes scanning every shadow, every doorway, every parked car. They shuffled from the relative cover of one vehicle to the next. The world was a series of short, terrifying sprints across open ground. Sarah stumbled, her breath coming in ragged gasps that were almost sobs. Quinn pulled her up without a word, half-carrying her for a few feet before finding their next spot of cover.