Free Undead (9780545473460) by Kirsty McKay

him.”
    I move back a little. “And if the café has Wi-Fi, it probably has a PC. It doesn’t matter if we have the laptop or not.”
    Pete nods. “Or there’s a chance we’ll pick up the signal on Smitty’s smart phone. There might even be a landline that works.” He slides into the driver’s seat. “Let’s hope this thing will start on fumes.”
    â€œWait!” I stop his hand from reaching for the ignition. “Can we make it down the hill? The snow’s even deeper than yesterday.”
    Pete hesitates.
    â€œSo if we don’t drive, we walk?” Alice says. “Count me out.”
    â€œBut what if we can’t get back up here?” I say. “What if there are more of those . . . people, the bus gets stuck, and we can’t escape?”
    â€œYeah, you’re right, it’s going to be so much better if we’re on foot,” Alice snarls. “Anyway, someone has to stay here to take care of him.” She points to the driver.
    I feel a surge of guilt. We’ve pretty much ignored the driver since we finished mending the window. I approach him. He hasn’t moved at all. I reach out to touch his hand and his skin feels waxy and cold.
    Alice stares. “Is he . . . ?”
    I move my palm over his face. There’s a little warm air coming out of his nostrils. “No. He’s still alive.” But maybe not for much longer. Something about him has begun to smell, too, but I’m afraid to look at his other wrist and unwrap the makeshift bandage.
    â€œWhatever we’re doing, we should do it now,” Smitty says. “I’ll check out the road and clear a path.” He grabs the binoculars and tosses them to me. “You see if we’re likely to have company.”
    * * *
    I stand on the roof with Pete and Alice. They followed me, and I didn’t protest. More eyes. Mother Nature is playing ball; the snow has stopped falling and the sun is trying its best to break out from behind a lavender-gray cloud. The air is still, and there’s now just a thin curl of black smoke from the gas station. A last desperate smoke signal. I try not to wonder too hard why nobody has come.
    Smitty is riding his board down the road, pausing in places to scrape the ground.
    Alice is trying the phones again. She’s managed to acquire them all — even Smitty’s prized smart phone — and she’s holding them in her hands like a deck of cards, shuffling each one to the top, lifting it up, and checking for a signal. Judging by her pursed mouth, she is holding a bum hand.
    There’s a movement — I catch it out of the corner of my eye and spin around. A shuffle in the bushes. Steeling myself, I hold the binoculars up. A blackbird scuttles in the undergrowth, and flies out of the cover with a cascading shriek of alarm. Only a blackbird. What startled it? I grip the binoculars tighter. No movement in the bushes now; it was probably frightened by some snow falling from the tree, or another bird. I shiver. It has been years since I’ve heard a blackbird, and suddenly I’m sitting in a sandpit, at home — England Home — many years past. Dad is weeding nearby, whistling like the bird. It seems like a long, long time ago. He’d done no gardening in the States, and the blackbirds are different there. I feel a pang of missing him — raw and sudden. It’s not like he’s even going to be there when I get home.
If
I get home. I can’t help but feel like this whole thing would never have happened if he was still with us. Certainly it never would have happened if my stupid mother’s stupid job hadn’t made us move back to this stupid country. Still, even if I want to blame my mother for Dad not being here, it might be a little extreme to blame all of this monstery stuff on her, too.
    A
thump
vibrates the bus from within.
    My heart jumps.
    Alice gasps. “What was