Free Zompoc Survivor: Exodus by Ben S Reeder Page A

streets.”
    “We can,” she said as she shifted the truck into reverse. The back tire bumped over the almost nonexistent curb before she stopped and shifted back into gear. “I used to live in the apartments at the corner of Fremont and Seminole.” She took us back toward Fremont and turned right. According to the mental map I had of this area, she would have lived caddy-corner to the southeast corner of the hospital campus. I hoped she knew what she was doing, because I’d only been through this area a few times, and I didn’t trust my memory of it in the dark.
    As we pulled even with the first street on the right, screams pierced the night, and we could see shapes emerging onto the road. Porsche straightened the wheel and hit the gas. The next road looked deserted, and she took the turn. As we started down the street, movement on either side caught my attention, but we were going too fast for me to make out what it was. I had a sneaking suspicion, though. Frantic barking broke out ahead of us, and I felt the truck slow. As we got closer, I could see something moving up ahead of us, and the barking got louder. Then I heard something in the dog’s barking that made my gut clench up. In between barks, it would let out a whine, then bark again. We pulled up until the dog was to our right, and I dug my flashlight out of my backpack. The cone of light showed a Rottweiler in front of one of the infected. The infected was sitting up slowly, and the dog was down with its forelegs in front of it but it’s haunches up in the air. I caught sight of its tail, and gave a smile of approval for its former owner. Most people bobbed the tails on Rott’s, but this big fella had his intact. I felt a surge of pity for the poor creature. The Rottweiler was a very devoted breed, and if I was any judge, this one was trying to make sense of what its human had become. It looked at me, then back at the thing that was struggling to its feet in front of it.
    There is a saying from the Hagakure, The Book of the Samurai, that one should make decisions within the space of seven breaths. It took me less than one to jump over the side of the truck. I went around to the back and pulled the tailgate down. The dog backed away from the infected, and I let out a whistle.
    “Come on, boy!” I called out. It gave a low whine, then ran toward a pile of things in front of the house behind it. My jaw dropped in disbelief as it carried a rolled up green wool blanket back in its mouth. Barely breaking stride, it jumped into the back of the truck, then turned around and dropped the blanket at its feet. I closed the tailgate and hopped back in, fighting the urge to go back and bash his former owner’s skull in.
    “Picking up more strays?” Porsche asked as she gunned the accelerator. I could hear the smile in her voice. The dog gave my proffered hand an experimental sniff before laying eight feet of slobbery tongue across it in what I guessed was his canine approval. I chuckled as I patted his shoulder. A thick leather collar encircled his neck, and I followed it around until I found the tag.
    “Sherman,” I read aloud. He gave me a short bark in reply. The name fit. Up close, I could see how broad he was across the shoulders. Like the tank he was named for. He laid his head down on his paws and looked up at me with big, soulful doggy eyes, and I imagined I could see the sadness behind them. I ran my hand along his back as I looked out the front windshield at the perilous new world that was being born around us.
    Even humans who hadn’t been infected were preying on their own kind. As much as I wanted to judge myself superior to the two men I’d shot earlier, in truth, I couldn’t say I was that much different. It had been way too easy to pull the trigger the first time, and even easier the second. My gaze went to Sherman as he nuzzled my hand. If there was one difference, though, he was the result of it. My father had always said that you could tell a