Zombie Fever: Outbreak by B.M. Hodges

around hairpin turns, nearly colliding on the straight-aways. They seemed oblivious to the three other racers. But when they came upon Yvonne it was in a straight-away they easily avoided hitting her. She knew they were coming and braced for impact, eyes tightly squeezed shut as they flew by. But the three daredevils failed to see Meng’s go-kart had again stalled at the apex of the next blind hairpin curve. Meng had undone his safety harness and taken off his helmet and was climbing out of the kart as the three approached. Everyone at the bleachers screamed at him to ‘Watch Out!’ If he climbed out, there would be no place for the other drivers to steer around him. The karts were like banshees screaming around the track. There was no chance he could hear us.
    The three racers turned into the hairpin.
    It was Ted who first saw the stalled kart. He jerked right and hit the steep incline of the shoulder, crashing through a barrier wall made of tires. A dust cloud erupted from the crash, obscuring our view of the impact, loose tires rolling down the hill and onto the track.
    Derrik, distracted by Ted’s sudden move to the right, didn’t see the stalled kart or Meng who was now standing next to it scratching his big meat head. Derrik’s kart careened into the right wheel of Meng’s kart and flipped completely over, skidding along some twenty yards, sparks flying off the roll cage as it scraped a long divot into the asphalt before coming to a grinding halt.
    Nearly too late but finally realizing the danger he was in, Meng leapt off the track using his powerful gluteus maximus and bounded over the tire barrier winding along the left side of the track. Quaid narrowly missed him by centimeters, squeezing between the tires and the dead kart, whooshing by Derrik’s upended vehicle and taking a deciding lead.
    Lydia and several roadies from the crew ran to Derrik’s aid. She was screaming at them, expecting the worst, “Turn the kart over! Turn the kart over!”
    They grabbed the side and flipped it over with Derrik still strapped inside.
    Due to the intense heat of the day, Derrik had decided to wear the minimum amount of clothes allowable for the production. He was wearing nothing but a helmet, t-shirt, Bermudas and trainers. Not much protection from accidents. So now Derrik’s legs and bare elbows were a bloodied mess of road rash from scrapping against the pavement when the upended kart had skidded along the tarmac.
    But even after flipping and being set upright his little kart was still running.
    Lydia screamed at him, “Get going, you fool, you have to finish!”
    Derrik was used to Lydia ordering him around and took off just as Jamie navigated around them. After a couple of seconds, Derrik accelerated ahead of Jamie and was back on the track in second place behind Quaid.
    Yvonne was now in fourth, far behind Jamie.
    Ted, covered in a fine mist of sand and dirt from head to toe, was also back on the track. He picked up speed near the bleachers into the third lap and was in fifth place and then fourth as he easily passed Yvonne. Everyone had been so focused on Derrik’s accident that only Ahmed had seen what happened to Ted. After hitting the tires on the incline, his kart stalled then slowly rolled backward onto the track. Ahmed ran to help and was able to restart the kart going using the pull start, getting him back into the race.
    At the end of the competition, with Gemma waving them in with a checkered flag, a dusty and shaken Ted had managed to secure third place behind Quaid and Derrik who came in first and second respectively. Jamie came in as fourth place followed by Yvonne and Meng, his kart dead, finished last. Even though it was unfair and his loss due to mechanical error, Meng still had to spend an extra humiliating twenty minutes pushing his kart around the last lap and a half with Esther steering in the driver’s seat to make his finish official.
    With the teams standing around her, Gemma announced the