How long did they have? Five minutes? Ten? David didn’t know. He strained his ‘ears’ to try to better understand.

  He had no frame of reference for translating psychic distance to physical distance.

  Mark and Charlie were already out of sight headed for the stockroom and the panel van. Katie moved to help with the woman they'd found inside. Camila started grabbing armfuls of supplies near the door.

  David moved toward the exit and the unconscious man in the car outside, still straining to track the approaching whispers. They were distant but growing slowly louder.

  He reached the car at a jog and opened the door carefully. The unconscious man slumped toward him, and David had to catch him to keep him from spilling onto the pavement.

  "Easy, easy," David muttered, though the man couldn't hear him.

  He was deadweight, completely limp. David tried to get his arms under the man's shoulders but couldn't get good leverage from the angle.

  He nearly called for help, but a stupid spark of pride flared followed by logical justification. Katie will need Camila to help her with the woman.

  Finally, he figured out a play, letting the man flop out of his car like a sack of potatoes and cushioning his head as best he could. After a bit of tugging, he pulled the man’s legs out and with them stretched out it was easier to get him half sat up with David behind him to hold him.

  He was heavier than he looked. David's arms burned with the effort as he half-carried, half-dragged his burden toward their cars and the panel van that was pulling around from the back.

  The engine roar of the van seemed impossibly loud in the afternoon silence. David's paranoid mind immediately worried about attracting attention.

  But the whispers he was hearing suggested attention was already coming.

  He reached the van as Mark killed the engine. The back doors swung open, revealing mostly empty cargo space, with a couple of pallets of deliveries still wrapped, presumably for other stores.

  "Careful with his head," Mark said as he came around to help. “I’ve got his feet. On Three. One, two, three HEAVE!” they lifted the man into the van, David grunting with effort.

  David tried to catch it, but the man's head still lolled against the metal floor with a soft thunk that made him wince. Then Mark hopped up into the back, moving with the easy confidence of the athletic and started to pull him further in and arrange some flattened cardboard boxes, trying to make him as comfortable as possible given the circumstances.

  "I’ll check on the girls with the woman," David said. "Then start loading supplies."

  He ran back to the store entrance where Camila had piled supplies. Trash bags full of canned goods, water bottles, medical supplies, and whatever else they'd managed to grab.

  He grabbed two bags and ran them to the van, his tool belt jangling with each step. The machete slapped against his leg, the crowbar banged against his hip.

  The whispers were definitely louder now.

  Mark appeared from within grabbing his load. "How much time do we have?"

  "Not much," David said. "They're coming. I can hear them."

  Mark's face went pale, but he kept moving.

  Charlie emerged from within carrying a case of energy drinks. "Found the good stuff!"

  "Just throw it in!" David snapped, grabbing more bags.

  Katie and Camila emerged from the store supporting the unconscious woman between them each tucked into an armpit and holding a limp arm looped over their shoulders. Her shoes dragged as they moved but it was reasonably quick, if awkward. Her head kept rolling forward, chin to chest.

  They got her to the Van and Mark helped haul her in, laying her beside the man, arranging her with the same care.

  "They're both in," Katie reported. "But we need to secure them. If we brake hard, or hit something, they'll get thrown around."

  David looked at the empty van. No seatbelts in the cargo area. No straps or restraints.

  "Use the moving straps," Charlie said, pointing to equipment hanging on the wall. "Tie them down like cargo."

  It felt wrong, treating unconscious people like freight. But it was better than letting them slam into the walls during the escape.

  David and Mark worked quickly, running straps across the two unconscious survivors and securing them to the tie-down points in the van floor. Not perfect, but better than nothing.

  The whispers were resolving into something clearer now. Meaning almost distinguishable in individual voices, or whatever passed for voices among the Nath. David could almost distinguish directions, plural.

  Multiple groups. Converging from different angles. This was feeling horribly organized, like the jaws of trap closing.

  "We need to go," David said. "Right now."

  "We get the supplies until we see them." Camila insisted, already running back to the pile of supplies.

  David wanted to argue but she was gone. He grabbed more bags and threw them into the van, not bothering to organize anything. He was constantly looking for the first signs of movement even as the murmur grew.

  Charlie was doing the same, rubbernecking and moving with frantic energy. His face was flushed, eyes wide with adrenaline.

  Mark climbed out the back of the truck and rushed towards the pile of loot, calling to Camila who had just vanished back into the store.

  "Load what you can in the next thirty seconds, then we're leaving!"

  Then more gently to Katie “Babe, let’s go before more zombies show up.”

  David made two more trips, each load thrown carelessly into the growing pile. Food, water, supplies, all jumbled together. They could organize it later.

  Then he heard it, the whispers suddenly intensified. No longer distant. Close, the change spreading from one group to another, being communicated he realized with a chill.

  "David!" Camila's voice, sharp with fear.

  He turned and saw her standing by the store entrance, staring toward the road.

  Then he saw what had caught her attention.

  Figures moving down the main road. Too many to count quickly. Some moving on all fours with that horrible four-legged shuffle. Others stumbling upright with an unnatural gait that made his skin crawl.

  At least fifteen. Maybe twenty.

  "Everyone in the cars!" David shouted. "NOW!"

  Camila ran for the other sedan she'd been loading. Mark dashed to the van scrambling to pull the roller door down. Charlie appeared from nowhere, arms full of unbagged supplies.

  "Leave it!" David yelled.

  Charlie hesitated, then dropped almost everything and sprinted for David's car.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  The zombie horde paused as a second group emerged from a side street. Five more creatures, joining the first group in a brief milling confusion.

  Then, as if responding to some unheard signal, they all turned as one.

  Toward the 7-Eleven.

  Toward the group.

  David's new senses screamed as the whispers coalesced into something approaching coherent intent. HUNT. FEED. KILL.

  He dove into the driver's seat, hands shaking as he fumbled with the keys.

  Charlie grabbed the passenger door handle. Locked.

  "Unlock! David, unlock the door!"

  David's hands flew across the unfamiliar controls. Where was the unlock button? His fingers found switches for lights, wipers, hazards, everything except what he needed.

  The zombies were moving faster now. Drawn by movement, sound, the presence of living prey.

  Thirty yards away. Twenty-five.

  David leaned across and yanked the manual door handle from inside.

  The door flew open and Charlie dove in, still yelling. "Go go go GO!"

  David stomped the accelerator before Charlie's door was fully closed.

  The sedan lurched forward, tires squealing. In the rearview mirror, David saw the van already moving, Mark driving with the careful precision of someone trying not to roll the cargo.

  Camila's car was starting to move, pulling away from the store entrance.

  They were all moving. They were going to make it.

  Then David saw the second problem.

  More zombies emerging from behind the 7-Eleven. Not the shuffling four-legged variety, but the upright walkers. Moving faster, more coordinated.

  Mark saw them too. The van swerved violently, nearly tipping as he veered away from the new threat.

  Katie screamed from inside the van, audible even through the closed doors and engine noise.

  The van's tires screeched as Mark accelerated hard, engine roaring. The vehicle fish-tailed briefly before straightening out, heading for the far exit.

  Camila followed Mark's lead, her car accelerating toward the same exit. She had to swerve around the advancing first group of zombies, looping wide to avoid them.

  David watched both vehicles pull away and felt relief start to bloom.

  Then he realized his problem.

  The zombies weren't just ahead of him anymore. They'd spread out as they advanced, tracking all three vehicles. Now they formed a loose arc between David and the nearest exit.

  Gas pumps on one side. Zombies ahead, behind, and to the right.

  He was boxed in.

  "Uh, David?" Charlie's voice was tight with fear as he struggled to get upright and grappled with a seatbelt locked by the violent driving. "What are you doing?"

  David's analyst brain ran the calculations. He couldn't reverse, there were more zombies behind. Couldn't go right, trapped by the pumps. Couldn't go left, too many zombies.

  That left forward. Straight through.

  "Hang on!" David yelled, gripping the wheel with white-knuckled hands.

  He floored it.

  The car accelerated with agonizing slowness. Not a sports car. Not even a particularly powerful sedan. Just a borrowed vehicle that was about to become a battering ram.

  "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit," Charlie chanted beside him.

  The first zombie to reach them was a fat man with gray skin and an ugly contusion on his head. Running shorts and a vest, like he'd been out jogging when the wave hit.

  He moved into David's path with that horrible shuffling gait.

  David didn't brake.

  The impact threw the zombie onto the hood with a sickening crunch. The windshield spider-webbed instantly as the creature's head smashed into the glass.

  The zombie kept thrashing even as it slid across the hood, its movements weak and uncoordinated.

  David felt the car slow from the impact.

  Then his vision whited out. His ears rang with sudden pressure. The impact felt like being punched by a giant fist made of fabric and chemical propellant. The airbag deployed, because of course it did.

  The yatter of ABS told him the car had decided, independently, to come to a complete halt. Because, clearly, that was what was safest for him right now…

  Shocked and struggling to get the airbag out of his face he barely registered the red stain where his nose had connected as Charlie thrashed beside him dealing with his own airbag.

  At least the braking seemed to have tossed the zombie off the hood and onto the ground in front.

  A second zombie hit the passenger side, barely more than a glancing blow. Dirty clothes and a beard, facial features David's brain refused to process. Then he was back in gear focused on the need to MOVE.

  Another crash and a third zombie hit the car directly, slamming into the hood and folding over the bonnet, half falling onto it and sliding up with momentum. This one tried to hang on, its hands scrabbling for purchase and to get to the people inside.

  David's foot was already floored, but the engine had died. The car wasn’t moving. It took a second as he cursed. “Stupid safety systems” Then he hit the ignition. The car complained shrilly but didn’t start.

  A fourth zombie staggered into the third, while the second struck the car again with an audible thump. Then the new zombie joined the assault on his side of the car.

  Remembering what he was supposed to do David stamped on the brake and tried again. This time the engine roared to life, and he put the car in drive before gunning the engine.

  The car bucked as it rolled over something with a horrible crunch thump sound, David tried not to think about. That was made harder by the affirming adrenaline rush of XP.

  Then, impossibly, like the answer to a prayer, the car accelerated rather than coming to a halt again. The zombie on the hood slid, losing their precarious grip.

  It fell away as David sawed on the steering wheel to dislodge it seeing open pavement ahead as the car fishtailed in response to his steering.

  Then he turned, aiming for the exit where the others had gone.

  Through the deployed airbag and spider-webbed windshield, thankfully not right in front of him, David saw one final zombie shuffling towards him and blocking the clear road to safety.

  The car was still rolling forward but slowing, as he unconsciously tried to avoid the collision.

  He stomped the accelerator, screaming wordlessly as he did.

  The car lurched forward sluggishly at first before accelerating hard as the distance dropped. This time he was going fast and accelerating hard when he hit the upright figure. The result was predictable as the zombie was tossed up by the bonnet of the car crashing and tumbling over to land headfirst as it pitched off the driver’s side.

  Unlike a person there seemed to be no reflexes to handle this abrupt change as it came down with a sickening crunch filling David with the surge of euphoria that accompanied XP.

  Then the death scream hit him. Far louder and more intimate than the previous one it almost felt like a part of him was dying and the psychic agony being cast out to the world.

  David's vision went white. The cry hurt, as his ears rang with the shriek his hands spasmed on the wheel.

  The sound wasn't just loud. It was WRONG. Distress, alien but final and wrenching, horrifyingly intimate almost as though it was a part of him, he felt something twitch and stir as his bloodline translated pure anguish and his personal ghost stirred.

  "David!" Charlie was screaming. "What's wrong? DRIVE!"

  David forced his eyes open through the pain. Forced his hands to grip the wheel even though his fingers felt numb.

  Every zombie in the plaza turned toward him, or more accurately the fallen zombie.

  The whispers that had been growing louder exploded into a chorus. Not words, but intent. Pure, focused, terrible intent broadcast on the Nath frequency. It felt as though he could hear it more clearly than before and the ghost inside him stirred as though listening too.

  HUNT. KILL. FEED.

  They moved faster now. Not shambling, moving with purpose. Coordinated by that death scream into a single-minded pack.

  David could hear it, the signal propagating outward, more responses in the distance. Dozens of voices answering the call, amplifying it.

  They’d just painted a target on themselves that every dead thing in range was converging on.

  The speedometer was climbing. Twenty. Thirty.

  The plaza entrance rushed toward him. The other vehicles were already on the road, accelerating away.

  David burst out of the parking lot with a stream of zombies behind him. They couldn't keep pace, still ultimately slow, and clumsy, falling back as the car pulled away.

  But David could hear them in his senses. Still pursuing. Still broadcasting their hunt on the Nath frequency.

  And more were coming. He could hear responses from all directions, dim and distant but converging on the signal. There were a lot of them…

  "FUCK YEAH!" Charlie screamed beside him, punching the air. "That's how we do it! Did you see that? You just ran right over him!"

  Blood streamed down Charlie's face from his nose, broken by the airbag deployment. He didn't seem to notice or care, adrenaline masking the pain.

  David wanted to scream at him. Wanted to explain that they'd just made everything worse. That death scream had summoned every zombie in range.

  But his head was still ringing, his insides were still writhing. His hands shook on the wheel. And the car was making sounds that suggested it hadn’t escaped unscathed.

  The windshield was a spider-web of cracks that made seeing through the passenger side difficult. The engine had picked up a whine. The car now pulled to the right, requiring constant correction.

  David's hands tightened on the wheel as the pain from his face and arms started to register. They'd been so focused on escaping they'd not buckled up. He wondered if the others or the survivors loaded like cargo were OK.

  Add it to the list of things keeping him awake at night.

  The car continued its limping progress down the road, following the tail lights of the van ahead. Mark had slowed, apparently waiting to make sure David made it out.

  David flashed his lights to signal he was okay.

  The van accelerated again, and David followed at a pace his damaged car could maintain.

  His necromancer senses screamed for most of a mile. Then the whispers started to fade back to background, hopefully they would fade to silence.

  The death scream had done exactly what he'd feared. It had summoned reinforcements.

  And they were all converging on the signal's origin point.

  On the 7-Eleven they'd just escaped.

  David processed the implications. If zombies were drawn to death screams, then every fight created a beacon. Every kill summoned more threats.

  They couldn't fight their way through the city. Not without attracting overwhelming numbers.

  They'd have to find another way.

  But first they had to get back to the park. Back to safety. Before the damaged car gave out completely or the growing horde caught up with them.

  David pressed the accelerator as far as he dared, the engine's protest growing louder with each passing second.

  They'd gotten lucky this time. They'd escaped.

  But David had learned a terrible lesson; monsters weren’t some passive video game thing, they summoned help, even something as ‘basic’ as zombies.

  The park's pillar of light appeared ahead, and David had never been so grateful to see anything in his life.

  They were almost home. Almost safe.

  As long as the car held together for another mile. David focused on the road ahead and tried not to think about all the things that could still go wrong.