In the Lone and Level Sands by David Lovato Page A

moving
them.
    Her head hurt, and there was a welt around
her neck from where the cord to her headphones had rested all
night. Her messenger bag was under her, still wrapped around her
shoulder. Glass was everywhere, and Zoe had a few scratches and
scrapes on her hands and arms. She felt a stinging pain in her neck
and assumed it was also from the glass.
    She wondered why it was day outside, why no
one had reported the crash or come to help. She began to slide her
legs out from beneath the body when she heard something.
    “Uuuuhh.”
    Zoe was about to call out to the stranger to
ask if he needed help when she looked again at the body she was
struggling to crawl out from under. Its throat was torn out, and
blood was caked everywhere. It looked as though the person had been
partially eaten.
    Had an animal wandered into the overturned
bus? Whatever the case, she didn’t want to alert whatever was
making those shuffling and groaning sounds. She began to slowly
pull her legs out from beneath the body.
    “Grrrr… Ah!” Zoe winced at the loud and
abrupt end of the grumble. She paused for a moment, felt a bead of
sweat run down her face, and realized she had been sweating for a
while; it was hot in the bus, especially beneath a pile of bodies,
cold as they had grown.
    The shuffling grew closer. Whatever was
making it sounded only a few rows away, making its way along the
side of the bus, possibly checking each row for something living,
something moving. But what was most disturbing was that it sounded
very much like a human.
    Zoe finally wiggled one leg free, and
couldn’t help but grimace as she carefully set it down on the face
of the body pinning her down. She felt apologetic, like she should
say something to the poor soul, though logic told her it would mean
nothing, now.
    “Braaah!” the voice said, now closer than
ever. Zoe thought it might be only inches away, and then she saw
the shadow. It was definitely human, and it was definitely close.
She stopped moving, her trapped leg raised slightly (as she was now
afraid to lower it), her muscles stretching uncomfortably. She
closed her eyes and held her breath.
    She played dead.
    She felt the thing find her, then. It was
crawling, and placed a hand right on her side. She tried not to
flinch, tried not to wince. The thing grunted, and Zoe had an image
of it turning to look at her face, to figure out if it had seen
movement. She fought the urge to take a peek and see exactly what
this thing was and what it was doing.
    The thing crawled on, pressing hard into
Zoe’s stomach as it crawled over her, sniffing and grunting as it
went. Finally, Zoe opened one eye and saw the thing’s legs as it
moved farther down the aisle. She waited a few minutes that felt
like they’d never pass, and then opened her eyes. The grumbling
went a bit farther down, and Zoe continued struggling her way out
from under the body, trying not to make any sudden movements,
hoping the thing wouldn’t turn back and see her. She pushed away
the thought of what would happen when she finally did get out from
under the body. The thing was, after all, still on the bus, and it
wasn’t going anywhere.
    Carefully, slowly, Zoe got her leg free and
sat up. She took a deep breath and just barely peeked around the
edge of the seat and into the aisle. The thing appeared to be a
man, indeed crawling on its hands and knees, sniffing at the bodies
as it passed. It was a few feet away, and it grunted and groaned as
it went.
    Zoe looked around. The bus was totaled, and
no one else on it appeared to be alive. She suddenly felt silly for
fearing the man so much; he was probably in shock from the crash,
in need of assistance.
    “Excuse me?” she said.
    The man snarled as he turned. He looked
straight at her with something oddly unfamiliar about his eyes,
very human but not right, somehow. And there were entrails hanging
from his mouth.
    He reached for her, and she dove backward.
He reached again and grabbed her leg. Zoe