Surviving Beyond the Zombie Apocalypse by Jeffrey Littorno

moved, but several other shells had come to surround the van. As they slid their hands along the sides searching for a grip on anything to let them inside, I listened to the scratching sound of their fingernails on the metal. The grating noise sent shivers through my body and made me want to scream. Instead I stomped the accelerator to the floor.
         The campervan did not exactly jump forward. Even in a world in which the dead attacked the living, it remained a campervan. It took a little time and space before it picked up speed.
         Despite the rate at which I moved, everything around appeared in slow motion. As the front bumper of the van neared the shell of the black teenage girl, we stared at each other. Rather, I stared at her blank eyes and face, searching for some sign of alarm as the car approached to run her down. There appeared to be no change in the glassy eyes and lifeless expression. An instant later, the shell disappeared beneath the van, resulting only in a couple of bumps.  
         With the van moving along, the shells posed no threat. The only problem would be if I had to stop, and the only thing that could stop me would be if something blocked the street. Nothing blocked the street until I rounded the next corner. Several cars and a bus had met in the middle of an intersection to prevent anything from passing. I had gotten a bit turned around since leaving the newspaper building but was pretty sure that this would be my best choice for getting back to the store. I slowed to a near stop in front of the cars blocking the street. There did not seem to be any shells around, but I waited and watched to be sure. After a moment, I opened the door a little. I left the engine running as I trotted over to the cars blocking the street. My idea was to try to simply push one of the cars to the side of the street and drive through.
         The cars looked as if they had simply coasted up against one another rather than having had any sort of high-speed collision. I wondered if the drivers had died prior to hitting one another. The notion made me pause.
         If the drivers had died behind the wheel, it meant they might still be inside the cars and more than ready to get out and eat whoever or whatever came by. Since I fell into that category, I crept up extremely carefully on the cars.
         Nearest me sat a dark green mid-size sedan, the sort of car driven by someone who cared more about reliable transportation than appearances. I wondered if the driver cared about appearances now. I peered through a dirty window and saw no one inside. However, I did see a huge dark stain covering the driver’s end of the bench seat.
         I kept moving and came to the side of a white SUV that had slammed into the back of an old yellow taxi. About to continue on, my eye caught sight of something which stopped me in my tracks. A clear suction cup held a little yellow sign on the back window that read Baby on Board. 
         My stomach fell and then pitched forward. My vision blurred, and it seemed as if the world was spinning. After a moment, things slowed and my eyes cleared enough for me to see the black plastic of a child’s car seat in the back of the car. I kept my eyes on the car seat as I stumbled a few more feet along the side of the car. From this new angle, the contents of the car seat could be seen. It was not a sight which should ever be witnessed by any pair of eyes.
         The car seat held strapped a small something. It did not seem human. This looked more like a bundle of twitching flesh. Perhaps it had once been an infant. That may have been a possibility, but the thing before me now couldn’t be identified as such. I did not see any eyes. If it sensed me, it might have been by smell. Something had clearly gotten it riled up.
         Through the car window, I could hear the high-pitched shrieks of the little creature. I stared at it for a moment, considering whether or not I would