THE LAST RIDE: Love in the Zombie Apocalypse

POV: Charlotte Hayes "Lock the doors, Leonard! Lock the damn doors right now!" I slammed my palms against the dashboard of the municipal pickup truck, my heart beating so fast like it would explode. Outside the windshield, Main Street was tearing itself apart. The annual biker rally was supposed to be the biggest event of the summer in our small town. Food stalls lined the streets, engine exhaust mixed with the sweet smell of fried dough, and loud rock music usually filled the air. But right now, all I could hear were screaming voices, tearing metal, and horrifying, wet sounds that made my stomach turn inside out. "I’m trying!" Leonard shouted back. His hands were shaking so hard he could barely hold the steering wheel. Sweat poured down his face, leaving clean tracks through the dust on his skin. "The central lock isn't working! The wiring has been bad all week!" "Char! They’re coming! They’re right beside us!" My younger sister, Tabitha, screamed from the back seat. She was curled into a tight ball, her arms wrapped tightly around her knees, sobbing uncontrollably. I whipped my head around. Three people—no, three things—were charging directly toward the passenger side of the truck. Their clothes were soaked in crimson. Their eyes were wide, milky white, and completely devoid of anything human. Their teeth were bare, snapped wide open as if they wanted to bite through the very air. The glass on my window spider-webbed as the first one threw its body straight into the door. "Leonard, drive!" I screamed, turning back to my fiancé. "Put your foot on the gas and go! Push through them!" Leonard didn't hit the gas. He froze. His face went completely pale, drained of every drop of color. He stared ahead at the crowd of screaming townsfolk running toward us, blocked by three abandoned motorcycles lying on their sides across the road. "I can't," Leonard whispered. His voice sounded paper-thin. "The truck is too heavy with all this equipment in the back. The engine is stalling. We won't clear the bikes. We're stuck." "You have to try!" Tabitha shrieked from behind us. "Don't let them touch us! Leonard, please!" "I'm sorry," Leonard said quietly. I turned to look at him, confusion spiking through my panic. "What did you just say?" Leonard didn't turn his head to face me directly. Instead, his eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. His eyes were cold. Empty. There was no love there. No promise of the wedding we had been planning for next May. No memory of the three years we had spent together in this town. "The truck can't pull all three of us over the curb fast enough," he said, his voice flat and detached. "And they're breaking your side down first." "Leonard, what are you talking about?" I reached out to grab his jacket, but before my fingers could touch the fabric, his hand slammed down on the manual override lever on the center console. The lock on the passenger door released. "Leonard, no!" I gasped, the air rushing completely out of my lungs. He reached across the seat with a violent, desperate push. His palm slammed into my shoulder. "Forgive me, Charlotte. Keep them busy!" He kicked my door wide open. The sudden rush of cold wind hit my face, along with the horrifying stench of blood and rust. Before I could catch my balance or grab the seatbelt, Leonard pushed me hard with both hands. I hit the hard, black asphalt of Main Street shoulder-first. Pain shot up my neck, sharp and blinding. Skin tore off my palm as I slid across the rough ground. "Charlotte!" Tabitha screamed from inside the cab. Her face was pressed against the rear window, her hands beating against the glass in pure horror. "Leonard, what did you do?! Stop! Go back for her!" "Hold on, Tabitha!" Leonard roared. He didn't look back. He slammed his foot all the way down on the accelerator. The tires shrieked against the pavement, throwing up a cloud of dark smoke. The truck lurched forward, running right over the front tire of a fallen motorcycle, tearing down the street and away from me, carrying my screaming sister into the distance. I lay on the ground, the breath completely knocked out of me. My chest heaved, but no air would come in. He threw me out. My fiancé just threw me to the monsters to save himself. "Get up, Char... get up," I forced myself to whisper, every nerve in my body screaming in agony. I rolled onto my stomach, scraping my knees against the dirt. A shadow fell over me. I turned my head. Four of those blood-stained things had stopped tearing at a trash can thirty feet away. They were turning toward me now. Their heads tilted in unison. They smelled the fresh blood dripping from my hands. They let out a collective, raspy hiss and began to run. Panic surged through my veins like ice water. I scrambled backward on my hands and knees, my boots slipping against the slick pavement. I looked around wildly for anything—a weapon, a door, a hiding spot. Just five feet to my left sat an abandoned flatbed truck, parked uselessly against the curb. The bottom clearance was narrow, barely two feet off the ground, but it was my only chance. I didn't think. I threw my body flat against the street and pulled myself beneath the rusty iron belly of the flatbed. The smell down here was choking—old engine oil, dry dust, and cold dirt. I dragged myself as far toward the center of the undercarriage as I could squeeze, my back pressed up against the cold metal frame. My elbow hit something hard lying loose under the truck. My fingers closed around a cold, long piece of metal. A tire iron. I dragged it against my chest, holding it with both hands, my knuckles turning bone white. Above me, heavy footsteps stomped onto the wooden boards of the flatbed. Then, a pair of bloody hands slapped down onto the asphalt right in front of the truck's rear wheel. A face dropped down to the gap between the tire and the street. It was Mrs. Davis, the sweet old lady who owned the bakery down the lane. But her jaw was torn open, hanging at an impossible angle. Blood dripped continuously from her chin onto the pavement. Her pale, milky eyes locked straight onto mine. She let out a wet, gurgling sound and lunged forward, thrusting her upper body under the truck. I squeezed my eyes shut for half a second, let out a raw scream, and shoved the tire iron forward with everything I had left. The heavy piece of iron hit her jaw with a solid impact. She snapped her teeth together, inches away from the leather of my left boot, her breath smelling of decay and copper. "Get away from me!" I screamed, pressing my back flat against the underbelly of the flatbed, holding the tire iron steady as more hands reached under the frame, grasping wildly at my legs in the dark.