Devoured, - [chapter books to read to 5 year olds TXT] 📗

Lance lost most of the visibility out of that side of the truck as her window also cracked, but held in place. He ignored everything else around him as he aimed the truck directly at Ralph.

The old man locked his gaze on Lance. He spit a line of tobacco juice on the lawn as he raised his M4, taking aim at the front of the truck.

The windshield cracked in front of Lance from the impact of bullets. Despite his lowered visibility, Lance could still make out the back end of the truck and Ralph’s silhouette.

He pressed the accelerator to the floor and squeezed the steering wheel in a death grip, his hands grinding into the vinyl.

Ralph dove out of the way at the last second, flying by the driver’s side window in a blur. In the mirror, Lance watched the old man roll to a knee and take aim at the back of the truck. More bullets bounced off the steel.

The truck slid in the grass as it went around the tractor-trailer, missing a tree in the yard by inches. Lance spun the wheel and brought them back to the road.

Cass sat up again. “What the hell are these guys doing? They’re going to call a shitload of attention to themselves!”

“They’re crazy, redneck assholes!”

“No shit!” Cass unbuckled the holster on her hip and pulled the pistol out.

“What are you going to do with that? You’re holding a pea shooter compared to the goddamn arsenal they have.”

Dozens of cars were parked along the edges of the street behind the eighteen-wheeler. Men sat in lawn chairs around a fire in the yard of another home, weapons resting across their laps. Their heads swiveled around as the armored vehicle flew by, their shouts fading quickly.

More people, mostly men, flooded out of the houses that lined the street. The majority of them held rifles and shotguns and wore flannel or camouflage.

“How many of these crazy bastards are there?” Cass asked.

“Too many.”

Three or four tanker trucks were tucked away on the small road behind the houses. They were parked end to end, taking up most of the space beyond the small, fenced-in yards.

Another big rig with a fuel tank on the back, straddled the street ahead, effectively closing off the neighborhood. Two trucks, both jacked up with lift kits, swung through an alley, pulling in behind Lance and Cass.

The window beside Lance cracked at two distinct points and splintered outward.

“We’re going to be driving blind soon!”

Lance cut the wheel toward the lawns again, crushing a parked motorcycle with the grill. The trucks followed behind, mere feet away, men hanging out of the passenger windows with pistols in their hands.

Two guards stood by the tanker ahead, popping off shots as fast as they could.

Lance maneuvered around this barricade as he had the first, but he lost control when one of the tires slammed against a missing section of the sidewalk, jerking the wheel in his hands. The backend swung around, fishtailing through shrubbery separating two plots of land. The rear bumper crashed against a tree, tearing it away, jolting Cass against her seatbelt.

The armored truck ground to a slow crawl in an instant. One of the trucks following them, now visible through the passenger side window, accelerated toward them. Lance hit the gas and swung left.

The pursuing vehicle rammed them by the rear tire, rocking the entire truck. Lance’s head bounced off the window beside him, pain blooming behind his eyes.

Cass grabbed the handle on her door, pushing her other hand against the dash to brace herself. “Get us the fuck out of here!”

“Working on it.” Lance gritted his teeth. “These psychos are trying to flip us!”

In the mirror, Lance saw the devastated front end of the other truck. Steam rose from its grill. The men inside slumped against their doors, the seatbelts not connected.

Lance got them moving again, steering back to the road. A grinding noise came from behind Cass as they picked up speed again.

“What is that?” Lance asked. His attention was divided between avoiding obstacles in the road and swerving from side to side, trying to keep the other truck from passing them. He didn’t dare look anywhere else.

Cass jerked around in her seat, trying to see through her broken window. “I can’t tell. Might be something with the tire though!”

“Damn!” Lance moved them to the right side of the road, allowing their pursuers to pull even with them on the other side. “Hang on!”

He swerved as fast as he could, smashing against the lifted truck. The man hanging out of the passenger window, who had been shooting at them with a pistol, was caught between the large vehicles. He screamed as his ribs splintered in his chest, his arm rending at an odd angle.

The truck veered away as the driver shouted at his ruined passenger, not paying attention to what lay ahead.

They crashed into a tree at almost fifty miles an hour. The dying man, his upper body still hanging from the window, flew from the truck, landing in a driveway thirty feet away. He slid across the asphalt, leaving a gruesome trail in his wake.

Cass unbuckled herself and reached for her door handle.

“What the hell are you doing?” Lance grabbed her forearm, pulling her back.

She tore herself free. “I need to see what that grinding noise is. We can’t afford to stop and check, so I’m going to poke my head out.”

Lance didn’t like that plan. In fact, it felt completely moronic to him. She was right in one way though—they couldn’t stop. More of that maniacal group would be coming.

“Be careful,” he said.

The road opened up a bit, the amount of obstructions lessening. Lance wondered if the men had moved the cars away, giving themselves a faster way to come and go from their quarantined neighborhood. He would have loved to ask them where they hid every night when the Vladdies came out to play.

“Just don’t hit anything.” Cass opened her door, having to lean against it because of the wind rushing past. She stuck her head through the opening.

She pulled herself back inside and slammed the door, buckling herself in again.

“And?” Lance asked.

“The fender is bent into the tire.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah, that tire is going to pop. Soon.”

“Damn!”

Daywalkers became more prevalent as they got further away from the militia camp. Most of them stumbled after the truck, crying out as they fell behind. A few moved quickly, their bodies already morphing into the terrors they would soon become.

Lance had to slow down. Obstacles became more prominent after a few hundred yards. The infected managed to keep up as he brought their speed down to just under twenty miles an hour.

A bridge came into view as they approached another bend.

The middle was blown out. Sawhorses blocked the entrance, just like the others they’d encountered.

“Wait a second.” Lance moved his head around, trying to find a spot of the windshield he could see through better. “I think that’s the West End Bridge.”

“So?”

“That means the stadium is close.”

“Thank god.”

“You can say that again.”

“Thank god.”

Lance’s nerves were too shot to laugh. “Bitch.”

“Dumbass.”

They reached another clear spot in the road and Lance coaxed the truck’s accelerator down, wanting to get some distance from the daywalkers.

The tire popped.

Incredible pressure yanked at the steering wheel, threatening to tear it from Lance’s hands again. He squeezed it as hard as he could, fighting to keep the truck on course.

His foot moved to the brake just as the other right tire blew.

The truck swung sideways, flipping onto its side, sliding down the street.

Lance flew into his seatbelt, the strap bruising his skin. Cass shouted something beside him that he couldn’t make out. Her blonde hair waved in the air as she clutched at the seat.

The windshield finally broke away, grinding under the truck as it slid on.

Sparks flew into their faces.

Dirt stung their eyes.

The truck collided with a sports car parked in the middle of the street, both doors open. The impact finally brought them to a halt. Lance was suspended in the air by his seatbelt, Cass leaning against her crumpled door.

“Ouch.” Blood rushed to Lance’s head, pressure building.

Cass pressed the button to her buckle, her hips falling to the door, landing on top of her axe. “Get moving—we’ve got two armies coming after us.”

Lance followed her lead, but grabbed onto the steering wheel as he freed himself. His legs swung out from under him, hanging beside Cass. He lowered himself to the door, careful not to fall on his injured foot too hard.

Cass ducked and stepped through the opening where the windshield should have been. She reached back through and grabbed her pistol from a pile of glass.

The machete that Lance had sitting beside him on the seat was gone. He searched the small area of the cab, but couldn’t find it anywhere.

“Let’s go!” Cass stood beside the truck, staring at the oncoming hoard of daywalkers. “Now!”