Free Unrest by Nathaniel Reed

against the side windows, obliterating her view through the windshield. As much as she wanted to rev the engine she would probably only get three deep, if that, before the van got stuck, so she had to keep driving forward at about five miles an hour, gently nudging them along.   
                  Ravenous faces pressed against the glass. The van only succeeded in pushing the zombies forward, but they still held on. For the first time Marina truly felt afraid. When she was sure it was over for her, she heard a man’s voice shout loudly over the mob, “Hey!”
                  Some of the zombies turned in the direction of the shout which was somewhere beyond the ocean of walking corpses. The air suddenly filled with the racket of machinegun fire, as some of the heads of the zombies began to explode about her. Bodies fell around the van. When they had cleared a path through the mob, Marina, and Kamara in the vehicle behind her could see three men in full camo. Military!
                  The mob was still swarming, but now they could drive their vehicles through, as the military guys continued firing into the throng on both sides of them. The only drawback to the gunfire was all the attention was drawn toward them now. The zombies ignored the slow moving vehicles and went toward the men standing out in the open. The zombies either had no fear, or no clue that they were walking toward their own suicide. Likely both. Their one instinct appeared to be to feed.  
                  Despite killing off a good portion of them the military men were quickly overwhelmed. Those that passed through the gunfire made their way toward the men, overpowering and engulfing them. With their attention drawn to them, Marina exited the van, running into an emptied warehouse. There was still no getting around them. Xinga, Jomo, and Kamara followed her lead. They went through the first floor and out the back door into another alley. It was empty. There was no roadway here, but they had abandoned their vehicles anyway.
                  Marina looked at the others. “You guys didn’t have to follow me.”
                  “There was no other way out,” Kamara said.
                  “It was a shitty thing to do,” Marina insisted. “We left them to die. They saved us.”
                  “There was nothing we could do,” Jomo said, clearly shaken by the decision.
                  “And now we have no rides,” Marina added.
                  “We couldn’t have gotten out with them anyway,” Kamara said. “We were swamped.”
                  “Can go please,” Xinga said, shaking.
                  “I agree,” Marina said, “Let’s get the hell out of here before they catch on to us.”
     
    ***
     
                  Making their way through abandoned streets, and hiding around buildings when they caught sight of zombies, they came to a set of steps. At the top of them the doors to the classical building with Roman columns was open.
                  “What is?” Xinga said.
                  “It’s a museum,” Jomo replied with a sense of wonder.
                  “We should go in,” Marina said. “Maybe there are other survivors.”
                  “Or more of...” Xinga tried her best to imitate how the zombies moaned and moved and made odd faces, and it caused them to burst out with laughter.
                  “We’ll never know ’til we try,” Marina said.
                  “I’ll bite,” Kamara said.
                  “Poor choice of words, my friend.”
                  They went up the steps and entered the immense lobby. There were no people, living or otherwise.
                  “We need to get that van back,” Marina said.
                  “We