Dead Hunger V: The Road To California by Eric A. Shelman

ability to hear shortly after their conversion into walking dead cannibals, but for now, even the relatively quiet engine of the Prius seemed to be drawing them toward us as we passed by.
    They would change direction and turn their creepy heads as we passed by, driving home again and again how utterly fucked the world had become.  We were past them by the time they took four steps, but what would happen if they got their hands on us was never far from our minds.  I did not need to ask Lisa this to know that it was the truth.
    As we rounded the corner onto Perry, Lisa grabbed her purse and pulled out her cell phone.  She looked at the screen, and started to cry again.
    One eye on the road and one on her, I said, “Leese, what’s wrong?”
    “It’s Stacy Hayes,” she said.  “I have six missed calls from her.  I don’t know how I could’ve – wait.”  She punched some buttons.  “They just came in while we were … well, after you got to me.”
    Lisa looked at me, her brow furrowed, her expression desperate, even pleading.  “We have to go see if she’s okay,” she said.
    I knew it was coming the moment she mentioned the missed call.  I wouldn’t deny Lisa anything right now.  If life had turned from scraping by in a tough economy to battling mindless creatures just to stay alive, then trying to save Stacy Hayes was probably one of the things we should be doing.
    She quickly hit two numbers and put the phone on speaker.  A girl’s voice said, “Hello!”  Panicked.
    “Stacy?  Oh, my God, you’re okay!”
    “Who is this?” the voice screamed.
    In my mind, I saw a girl cowered in a dark closet, hiding from a killer and frightened out of her mind.  I was positive that I wasn’t very far off.
    “It’s Lisa, Stacy?  Didn’t my number show up on your –”
    “Lisa!” she shouted, interrupting her.  “Oh, God, Lisa, where are you?  I’m at my neighbor’s house.  I don’t know what’s happening.  What’s happening, Lisa?  What are these things?”
    “Where are your parents?” asked Lisa.
    “It wasn’t my mom, Lisa!  I was … in the bathroom and she … it … I don’t know!  It was wearing my mother’s robe, but it wasn’t her!  I thought I had to be dreaming – I thought I was having a nightmare!”
    “Stacy, I know.  It is a nightmare, but it’s real.  How did you get out?”
    Stacy’s quiet sobs could be heard across the line.
    “Which way to her house, Leese,” I said.  “Hurry.”
    “Turn left up on Wick, and make the first right on Thorogood.  Stacy, we’re coming.”
    “My mom’s still over there!” she said.  “She dove at me and I grabbed a towel and pushed her with it.  Lisa, I didn’t want to touch my own mother!”
    “Stacy, it’s everywhere,” said Lisa.  “My parents changed, too.  Where’s your dad?”
    “My dad?”
    “Is he there?”
    “No, no!  He called me from New York about an hour ago.  I told him where I am.”
    “What did he tell you do to, Stacy?  Did he say he’d be able to get to you?”
    I watched Lisa’s face and listened to the relative calmness that had overtaken her voice.  I was amazed at her composure in the face of her best friend’s terror.  It was as though she instantly put her own personal tragedy aside to comfort her friend and make her feel safe.  Lisa had always been a compassionate child, but I was really seeing the woman she’d become for the first time.
    Stacy answered the question.  “He’s there on business.  He said he was in the airport ready to come home, but everything was going crazy.  Three planes took off and crashed within view of the terminal.”
    “Oh, my God,” said Lisa.
    My sense of dread was experienced in silence as I listened to her friend recount the call from her father.
    “He said TSA officers were shooting at people, and there were people attacking everyone.  Biting them.  I don’t think he told me everything.”
    “We’re coming to get you, Stacy,”