Free Duality (The Hitchhiker Strain) by Kellie Sheridan Page A

freeze in my seat, not sure what I’m supposed to say. “It’s okay,” he continues for me. “I know you go out of your way not to talk about her.”
    Liam purses his lips together but doesn ’t turn to face me. Still, I can’t take my eyes off him as I search his face for any clues about what he’s feeling right now.
    “ Honestly though, part of me really wants to talk about her. I spent all of my time in the Militia with memories of her, mourning her. I thought I got past it. Then, in one moment, it was all right back up at the surface. I need to… I don’t know.”
    I know how he feels. I know exactly how he feels. After my parents died, talking to Zack was the one thing that kept me sane, but… “I figured I’d be the last person you’d want to talk to about any of this.”
    Finally, he looks at me . For the first time since I met him, his tough exterior melts away. I stop seeing his signature leather jacket or the tattoo that loops up to the side of his neck and see someone who’s hurting as much as I am.
    “ Savannah, I don’t blame you.”
    I open my mou th to respond, but no words come out. I’m at a loss. When it comes to the big moments, all I ever seem to be is at a loss. I turn my head away, and as soon as I look out the passenger side window, all thoughts of Liam and loss are pushed from my mind.
    Grab bing the walkie-talkie from the cup holder, I fumble to bring it up to my mouth. “Stop!” I screech, failing to keep the panic from my voice.
    My eyes stay glued to the scene in front of me until we come to a stop behind the others. Eduardo steps out of his truck, but as soon as he walks around to the flatbed, he sees it too. Together, the four of us make our way to the edge of the bridge where we’ve stopped, overlooking another highway below, all trying to figure out exactly what it is we’re seeing. The first word that comes to mind is horde—more of the undead than I can count. There are so many of them that at first it’s impossible to wrap my mind around the fact that it’s not people we’re seeing.
    There ’s a pack—or maybe you’d call it a herd since there was never time to give all the elements of this disaster proper names—of Zs in the distance, all streaming steadily down the western highway. Row upon row. They’re all keeping a fair distance from one another, but there’s still enough of them to stretch across six lanes of traffic. I’d be surprised to learn there are any less than a thousand, but it might be even more than that. The ones I can see are headed down a long stretch of road, but it’s easy to imagine that there are hundreds more trailing them in the forest as well.
    I ’m still staring in awe when everyone else starts putting the pieces together faster than I ever could have hoped.
    “ That’s what all of the roadblocks are about,” Liam says, his voice hushed.
    “ And that explosion we heard,” Eduardo adds. “The Militia must have known this was coming, and they’ve been trying to corral them away from their territory.”
    “ But all the commotion they’ve been making has probably drawn more into the group. They’ve only made things worse,” I add, horrified.
    It ’s possible that this many people died together in one place—a stadium or hospital maybe—and have somehow gotten out of their prison to start hunting together as well. I don’t bother mentioning any of my theories out loud, because where they came from doesn’t matter. It’s why they’re here, where they’re going, that we should be concerned with.
    “ Maybe they have a plan on how to dispose of that many zombies all at once,” Dooley suggests. “They have to.”
I’m not that optimistic. “Or maybe they know they can’t stop them, so they’ve been focusing on keeping them away from their border. It would take days, weeks even, but they could steer them right around their entire border and send them off to the west, making them someone else’s problem.”
    I