red hill - jamie mcguire

She would raise the remote in her hand and turn up the volume, a disgusted look on her face. Lost
in Space might have been the one piece of happiness she had, between working three part-time jobs
and raising me alone. My needing her attention appeared to have ruined her life.
You make me sick, Scarlet. You’re just like your father. One of the most selfish people I’ve ever
met, she would say, nearly ruining mine.
The words were an afterthought, an outlet for her residual anger, but they burned through my
clothes and charred my skin, leaving a brand so inexorable, it wore me even as I fought to survive the
end of the world. Was I selfish for leaving Anderson Should I have stayed and waited for them
Would that choice sentence me to a life without ever seeing their sweet faces again
The Jeep’s headlights lit up dozens of shufflers. Like a herd of sheep, they meandered about in the
middle of the road. I winced at the sight of children among them. Some with visible bites on their
carotids. Some with mouthfuls of their skin and muscle missing; all covered in the blood of their
former selves. Jenna’s and Halle’s faces flashed in my mind, and then were projected onto the faces
of those children. Tears sizzled down my cheeks.
I slammed on the brake and gripped the steering wheel. If I chose to drive through them and was
forced to stop, they could surround the Jeep. On one side was a grassy knoll. A rock with the town’s
name, Shallot, carved into the stone sat at the crest of the small, gentle hill. The sun had begun to rise,
so I could just barely see the shadows of more shufflers crossing the sign and making their way down
to the road toward the noisy car. Noise attracted them.
The left side was field. Acres upon acres of wheat field, still saturated from the downpour the
previous morning. If I wanted to make it to the ranch, I had two choices: drive through the herd, up
that knoll and hope if I hit one of those things it didn’t crash through the windshield, or risk getting
trapped in the muddy field.
Courage came slowly. Each beat of my heart felt like an explosion as my hand rested against the
center of the steering wheel, preparing to press down. I took a breath, and then honked the horn once.
Dozens of dead slowly craned their necks in my direction. The explosions in my chest turned into the
cadence of a thousand tiny sprinters. Even sitting still, I began to pant with fear. After a short pause,
they began to hobble and limp toward the Jeep. Again, I honked and waited. Despite the shufflers
being less than twenty yards away, I pressed the heel of my palm against the center of the steering
wheel, holding it there, until every last one of those fuckers were moaning and reaching out for the
meal seeming so eager to be had. My fear kept my hand down, waiting, hoping they would move
faster so I could drive past them and in the opposite direction of their new path.
When the shufflers were just over an arm length away, I jerked the wheel to the left and headed
toward the wheat field.
“Don’t get stuck. Don’t get stuck,” I repeated. My hands jerked the wheel right to make a large
circle around the herd, and panicked when the Jeep struggled in the mud. “C’mon!” I yelled, my
fingers digging into the padding of the steering wheel.
The Jeep weaved back and forth, fishtailing and threatening to lose control, but the mud tires
clawed through the rain-swollen soil, and back onto the road. After turning into the skid more than
once, the Jeep straightened out, and I was screaming in victory, barreling toward the white tower.