red hill - jamie mcguire

“I don’t think we should try. We might get stranded.”
“It’s too dangerous to go on foot. We need to figure out how to get inside and turn on that pump.”
“I have this,” the guy we picked up said. He held up a handgun.
I frowned. “Did you see those things around that car earlier They’re attracted to noise.”
He didn’t flinch. “We could search the houses for something quieter. Baseball bats, scissors,
kitchen knives. Bryce took that one down with a pen.”
“That could take days,” I said.
He shrugged. “You got somewhere to be”
“Yeah, I do, actually.”
“Not until you get gas in this car, you don’t.”
I turned to face forward in a huff. He was right, but I didn’t like his smart-ass comment. I glared at
him in the rearview mirror. He was tall and looked ridiculous sitting in the back, his knees nearly as
tall as his head. His dark eyes were deep set, and his face was still sprayed with that girl’s blood.
Combined with his buzz cut and muscles, he looked like a serial killer, and I’d let him in my car. For
all we knew, he could have killed that girl before she turned.
“What is your name, anyway”
“Joey.”
“What’s with the haircut, Joey”
“I just got back from Afghanistan.”
“Oh,” I said. My response was more acidic than I’d intended. I was trying not to show my
surprise, or sudden admiration.
“Dude,” Cooper said. He wasn’t holding back the fact that he was impressed. Cooper shook
Joey’s hand. “Appreciate you, man. And I suddenly feel much safer.”
“Don’t,” he said. “I only have what’s left in this clip.”
“Still,” Cooper said. “You’re a badass.”
I wasn’t sure if Bryce was as impressed with Joey as Cooper was and just trying to hide it like me,
or if he wasn’t impressed at all. I caught him rolling his eyes at Cooper’s words, and I elbowed him.
We exchanged smiles. It wasn’t uncommon for us to know what the other was thinking. We’d been
together so long and had spent so much time together it wouldn’t surprise me if Bryce knew what I
was thinking before I did. That was probably why marriage wouldn’t be on the table until well after
we both graduated. We were accused frequently of acting like an old married couple.
“No one move,” I said, watching a dead one pass slowly across my rearview mirror. It was
heading to the highway.
We all sat like statues. The females in the station were still pawing at the doors, and I hoped they
didn’t draw the new dead one’s attention. He was dragging a broken ankle, even slower than was
typical. Ashley began to turn to look, but Cooper stopped her, just as Bryce stopped himself from
telling her no.
The dead one passed. Rattled, we stepped back out onto the cracked concrete. The sun was getting
higher in the sky . . . and hotter. I peeled off my jacket and tied the arms around my waist into a
double knot. There were only a few straggler clouds that broke up the blue sky. It was bluer than it