The Locked Room Part 6

You’d think having a car would be a teenager’s main priority, but I always got around well on my feet. I never saw the need to spike my blood pressure because the guy in front of me didn’t press GO with his foot the moment the light turned green. As much time as adults spend driving, they should have figured out a better system for keeping cool by now. Even after I got my license, I still walked everywhere. Especially with Evelina. That’s just how teenage girls get around in League City, Texas. Call me a hillbilly if you must but that’s the game down here. What I lacked in wheels I made up for in sweaters. I learned to make my own clothes when I was eight years old, after my mom bought me a sewing machine and put me in a summer fashion camp. By the time I was a junior in high school, I was knitting comfy sweaters for all of my friends. Charged ‘em cheap, too. I gave Evelina a yellow pull-over with a cute purple heart over the breast for high school graduation last summer. She was wearing it the day the world changed. We were half a mile east of the charred remains of the church, following Clear Creek toward the larger waters of the bay. Above the creek, the world was burning. We didn’t dare risk taking the streets to get to Christie’s place, as they were flooded with stalled vehicles and the zombie dead. Whatever virus that rampaged the church was no longer contained inside its walls. We could hear music playing from a stalled car on the road, and I poked my head over the embankment to judge the danger. The music was coming from a beat-up red sedan, back passenger door open. A blonde-haired toddler twisted in a car seat, mouth open wide, blood spilling down its tiny chin as it gobbled on the family pet in the backseat. Looked like a Terrier. The dog, not the kid. The mom was shrieking in the front seat, kicking the crazed father in the face as he attempted to bite through her shoe. “Fools. Everyone knows a car is the worst place to be in a zombie apocalypse,” Evelina said, dipping below the embankment and continuing to trudge through the dank, thigh-deep swamp toward Crab Bay Restaurant. “Come on, Kat. Let’s get this over with. Christi should be at work by now.” Evelina took my hand as we waded deeper into the waters, the screams from the streets above drowned out by our own heavy breathing. The sun was above the trees now, the moon a silver sickle on the opposite side of the pure blue sky. In this tiny slice of pie that makes up my world, the end was coming. I just didn’t know yet whose end it would be...