Heartland Junk (Part II): Sanctuary by Eli Nixon

through my skin to infest me with its infernal presence. My limbs felt like feathers, the steering wheel a thousand miles away.
                  I could do this. I just had to stay in control. I slapped my left wrist, where the zombie in the field had bit me. Liquid pain flooded my body, clearing my head. I could do this. Just a little farther. The zombie crowd was thinning as I left Joshuah Hill behind me, and I rounded a bend and saw River House just ahead, lit up like a fucking lighthouse in the middle of the dark night.
                  They must know by now. They must have seen the zombies outside. Please, let them have seen. I jerked the wheel to the left and bounced over the shallow drainage ditch. The Jeep's front tires left the ground for a moment and the engine whined, suddenly lacking resistance, then the tires touched home and the vehicle leaped forward, throwing a stream of dirt onto the road behind me.
                  I slid around the side of the house and let the Jeep drift sideways right up to the stairs of the back porch. It bumped into the wooden railing and stopped with a shudder. The headlights came to rest on a patch of trees and I could see zombies shambling out of the woods behind the back lawn. More were coming around the corners on either side, following me from the road. I opened the driver's door and...it wouldn't budge. Fuck, it wouldn't move. It was pressed against the stair railing. I pressed against it with my shoulder, but I'd wedged the door directly into the wood.
                  Well fucking done, Ray, you shithead.
                  A zombie reached the Jeep and slapped the rear door, making me jump. Christ, I was terrified. I slid across the center console and spilled out the passenger door, thumping my shoulder into the dirt. I could see under the car, could see a pair of feet on the other side of the Jeep, just beside the stairway.
                  Something surged up inside me and I gripped my forehead with both hands. Voices, whispering, inside my head. Calling me to them. The night dimmed. The Jeep's solid outline wavered before my eyes. Fighting, I crawled back up onto the passenger-side step rail and shimmied onto the roof of the Jeep. The metal felt hot, foreign in the cool night. Too slick, too smooth. My fingernails scrabbled on the roof. Something grabbed at my ankle and I kicked out, striking something solid. The grip loosened. I clutched the far edge of the roof and pulled my body forward. The pink eyes were all around the car now, winking in the darkness, brighter than they should have been, the black blacker than I'd ever seen it. The night took on a razor edge, a knife-point of sharply contrasted hues. My body felt too distended, separated from my mind. Fuck, where was Rivet? Where were Jennie and Theo and Abby? They should have seen me coming.
                  I dropped off the roof onto the wooden stairs and cat-crawled up onto the porch. Candlelight streamed through the kitchen window, but nobody was looking out, nobody was coming to save me.
                  Bursting through the door, I saw it wasn't candlelight at all. The kitchen table was on fire. The blaze had just started. There were molten wax stubs all over the table, some of the wicks still burning with their own miniature fires. The rest had reached the wooden surface and licked it to life.
                  "Rivet!" I shouted. No answer. "Jennie! Dammit, where are you guys!"
                  The living room was in disarray, as if a fight had broken out. Candles and camping lanterns were lit on all the shelves, and I saw blood on a toppled lampshade. And the pills...the pills were gone. All of them. Our stash on the coffee table, vanished, the table tipped over on its side.
                  No... nonono . I dove to the floor and searched under the couch, looking for an orange glimmer,