The Reanimates (Book 2): The Highway by J. Rudolph Page B

there is a huge pay out for the risk. I'm taking it. This is where we were headed. Might as well get the lay of the land." Lucas was unshakable in his plan.
    Trent sighed. "That's up to you. Keep checking the freeway. You see where the next off ramp is. When we clear this lane we're going to take the off ramp and head west for a little bit and then run parallel the freeway until we can get past this. I assume that Matt is going too?"
    "If I'm not back when you're done clearing the freeway, leave without me, and no, he isn't. We do solo trips in our group. Less people out the less you have to worry about bringing back." Lucas knew that this was a risk and I had to give him credit that he wasn't going to expect us to wait on him. I didn't like their method of runs either but that was on his shoulders. He went to Lacey and kissed her. "Don't worry, I will be back. No stone left unturned, right?" They embraced and when he pulled away, he got in the car, and backed out of the cluster of cars.
    Trent and Tyreese went to check out the next off ramp to see how much space there was to move the cars. While they were gone I walked to the edge of the freeway to check out the strip. I leaned on the railing and sighed. There was a lot of carnage. It looked as though a great panic had taken the strip by storm leaving destruction in its wake. The pyramid of the Luxor had been on fire at some point and a big portion at the corner had collapsed in on itself. The Excalibur suffered similar damage, the castle was pillaged and burned in one of the towers. Every window seemed to have been broken at the Monte Carlo. There were remnants of some new hotel that I didn't recognize. Everything took on a shade of soot from the areas that burned a few blocks away. The strip really looked like a bad movie set, but made worse by its reality. The roads were crumbled under the feet of the undead that paced along the strip. It used to be drunken bachelor parties that filled the roads, acting like a wad of brainless zombies, now they were really zombies. The echoes of the past reverberated through this new world. I felt a rush of emotion all over again, returning to that wave that said that the world ended. I wasn't this dramatic when threshold hit.
    We were so lucky to have been hiding out in our hole. The complex had protected us, not just from the zombies, but from the intensity of the end of the world. It was a cocoon, wrapping us in its safe walls. How were we going to survive in a world that looks like the zombie wars ended with humanity under the shoes of the dead? My eyes fell on one zombie in particular. It had been a young woman who worked in one of the night clubs. She still wore the uniform of her employer, a pair of short shorts and what had been a white tank top that would have hugged her curves. I could imagine her when she was alive, a young girl with her whole life ahead of her. She had probably been pretty but the time spent dead had not been kind. Her death had been brutal. Her blond hair was a latch-on point for a zombie hand. The grip had torn the scalp from her head on the right side, part of her face had been peeled away and still hung at the jawline, her right eye was missing. Her bones were exposed in her lower right arm, and her hand was missing. Her skin was shriveled and leathery. Her remaining left eye had clouded over but still seemed to scan her environment for food. I wonder if she fought when they came. Did she kick and scream and work to stay alive just to meet this end?
    I was grateful that the guys came back with a plan so I could be distracted again. I called to Drew to stay in sight of Jody or Trisha. Lacey, Raine, Justin, and Jackson also stayed behind to help with the rummaging. I was a little worried that they were going to be caught off guard while riffling through all these cars for supplies. All the zombies that were trapped in cars in other traffic zones taught us a lot that the others didn't really have any