Zombie Attack! Rise of the Horde by Devan Sagliani

I feel dead on my feet.”
    “Careful,” I cautioned. “We wouldn't want to have to shoot
you.”
    He blasted a nasty look in my direction and I immediately
returned his glare.
    “Guys,” Benji said, his voice weary and filled with dread.
“What do we do?”
    “What do you mean?” Joel wheeled around on him. “We flag him
down and ask for a ride, obviously.”
    “Benji's got a point,” I said. “How do we know he's
friendly?”
    “Now just what is that supposed to mean?” Joel asked, the
anger rising up in his voice.
    “We're not on the base anymore,” I continued. “Everyone we
meet isn't just going to be nice and want to help us. It's a lawless zone out
here. We have no way of knowing how the driver of that truck is going to react
to us. Plus they’re heading in the wrong direction straight toward a zombie
horde.”
    “All the more reason we should wave them over and warn
them,” Tom interjected, looking over to Joel who gave him a nod of solidarity.
    “What if we take cover for now until we see what the driver
looks like,” Benji offered. “If we feel safe once we've gotten a decent look at
the truck, we can make our presence known and try to flag him down. If not, we
haven't given ourselves away.”
    “Now that is good advice,” I said. “Anyone have a better
idea?”
    I could see that Joel didn't but he still wanted to argue.
After what happened with Sam I wasn't able to hide my disgust for him. As far
as I was concerned, Joel was a bigger threat to our safety than any zombie ever
would be. Zombies weren't accountable for their actions. They were victims just
like the rest of us. Joel, on the other hand, was a bloodthirsty killer just
waiting for an excuse to execute one of us. I felt like a monster for even
thinking of hurting Sam. Joel had been ready to pull the trigger himself! If I
had been there to stop him he'd have walked the poor little guy off into the
bushes like an old dog and shot him in the back of the head. The thought of it
made ice flood through my veins, hardening my heart further against him.
    “Fine,” Joel said, relenting at last. He was trying his best
to maintain the illusion that he was in some sort of control and failing
miserably.
    We scurried off the road and into a cluster of bushes to
wait. The sound of the truck grew closer and I grew more and more impatient.
Hunger was starting to make me edgy. I wasn't sorry I'd given away my emergency
candy bar as a last meal to a sad kid, but I sure wished I had another one. I
continued to think about Sam despite the fact it was the last thing in the
world I wanted to be pondering. The mind has a way of playing tricks on you
when you're tired. What if these people came across him walking back to
Vandenberg and discovered that he had been bitten? Who knows what they would
do? They might very well have the same reaction that Joel did. Then again, what
if Sam hid his bite wound out of fear and got into the truck with them? They might
be carrying the disease back to an area they thought was safe and spreading it.
Under those circumstances, Joel would have been right to want to kill Sam.
There was no way I was going to ever admit that out loud though. I couldn't and
still live with myself.
    “Looks like a white Nissan with a bearded man driving,” Tom
whispered.
    “What are those marks on the side of the truck?” Benji
asked.
    “They look like bullet holes to me,” Tom said.
    “That's because they are,” Joel confirmed. “There are also
two armed men standing in the back with some kind of rifles.”
    “What does that mean?” Benji prodded.
    “It means Xander was right to tell us to lay low,” Joel
admitted, sounding unhappy about having to give me credit for anything. “Could
be a militia or a roaming band of thugs looking for trouble to get into. I say
we wait for them to pass, then move on along down the highway until we get to
town.”
    The truck was getting closer. Soon it would pass us and
then, if it kept heading