He swung the door open, jumping out of its way, and then was running. He could hear Evajean behind him, her sneakers slapping the concrete. The truck was right there, parked just to the left of their room, between the white lines. But the crazies were right there as well and, as soon as the hotel room door opened and the light from the flashlights swept across Elliot and Evajean’s faces, they came forward, stumbling over each other, reaching out–and babbling in their odd language, the noise in deafening layers.

Evajean got to her side as he was still rounding the front of the truck. She yanked at the door and then screamed at him. “It’s locked!” She pulled harder, rocking forward and back, and Elliot could only ignore her, could only focus on getting to his side, getting into the truck.

His door was open. The latch gave a terrific pop as he pulled the handle and then he was inside, yanking the door shut, dropping Hope and leasing across the cab to pull at the lock on Evajean’s side. His fingers slipped on the metal stud, however, and through the window, behind her, he could see the crazies approaching, not more than ten feet–three or four paces–away. He felt sick and his head hummed and, somewhere beneath his feet, Hope howled.

No, he thought. No, this isn’t how it’s supposed to be. He focused. And, just as the first crazy–a fat man in his forties, disheveled hair held in random spikes by the remnants of styling gel–reached out a hand for Evajean, reached out a hand that was so close he was sure she could feel it, he got the grip he needed on the metal and pulled. It snapped up. Evajean yanked again on the door and it came open. She climbed inside just as the fat man’s fingers slid across the back of her jacket.

But then the door was closed and locked again and they both sat, too stunned for anything else, as the crazies closed in around the truck. When a palm smacked against his window, however, Elliot came out of it and jammed the key into the ignition and turned. The engine sputtered and came to life, its satisfied roar driving the crazies back a step. Elliot shoved the stick into reverse, put his foot on the gas, and heard a pained yelp.

Hope was under there, cowering beneath the pedals. “Get out!” he shouted, but the dog only pulled back further. The crazies had come forward again and the truck shifted as two climbed onto the back. Elliot reached down, his face mashed into the steering wheel, and groped around for the dog. He felt fur, grabbed, and pulled. Hope screamed at him and bit his hand, but he didn’t let go and hauled the animal out, throwing it behind Evajean’s seat.

Evajean was looking out the back of the truck, watching as the crazies shoved supplies out and into the parking lot as they crawled across to get at the rearview window.

The pedals now free, Elliot slammed down the gas and the truck jumped backwards. One of the crazies on board fell off but the other held on to a drum of gasoline and maintained his place. “Go!” Evajean shouted at him. “Go!”

A week ago, Elliot couldn’t have called himself a killer. Aside from a brief fight in middle school, when another kid had shoved him in the locker room mostly to see what would happen, Elliot hadn’t hurt anyone. At the moment he pulled the truck back out of its parking space, his body count was two: the woman in Wal-Mart and the little boy in the road above Nahom. The former had been a panicked moment of self-defense, however, and the latter an accident, an inability to swerve out of the way in time. Now the murder was slow and the number unguessable.

The back tire of the truck thumped twice: up and onto a crazy and then back down to the pavement. They did it again. And again. He backed the truck up in a wide arc and countless crazies were crushed in its sweep. His mind was too occupied to contemplate this now, but it surely would later.

Evajean had her hands pressed into the dash and she squeaked each time the truck’s tires made another thump. The dog whimpered from behind her seat. Crazies punched at the windows and one threw a flashlight, cracking the windshield in a long, horizontal line at Elliot’s eye level.

He pushed the stick into first gear and drove over three crazies who were trying to get up onto the truck’s hood. The back left tire stuck and then spun. He let off the gas and then pumped it slowly until the wheel came free. “Oh, God,” Evajean repeated over and over, whispering it to herself.

Then they were back out on the road and heading to the highway, with one crazy clawing up the truck’s front grille and three more in the back, trying to get to the rear window. Elliot swerved, trying to throw them off, but all four hung on and Evajean kept saying “Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.” He could crush the one on the front if he needed to, just drive the truck into a wall at low speed. But the three on the back had stuff to hang on to. Even if he could get the truck up to fifty or sixty miles per hour, they’d just stay back there, like kids in the bed of a pickup. He was pretty sure they wouldn’t be able to get into the cab. The back window was small, only six inches high. Breaking it would allow them to reach inside at most. What concerned him more was the threat to their supplies. If the crazies got mad enough, they might start tossing the food and guns and gasoline off the truck, ruing this second chance he and Evajean had been given.

Elliot accelerated as the crazy in front pulled himself onto the hood.