Blood Moon by Gwendolyn Harper (books for students to read .TXT) 📕

Even in the dark she could see the herd swaying and shuffling, an undead ocean with an increasingly narrow shoreline.

“Here,” Nathaniel said from the back seat. “They’re not the best, but they’ll have to do.”

Handing them each a pair of foam earplugs, he explained they’d still be able to hear the noise from the transmitter, but it shouldn’t be as painful.

As he finished inserting them, Booker said, “Alright. Let’s part this red sea, huh?”

Flipping the two switches on the clunky metal box in the dash, Caitlin turned on the radio and cranked the volume.

A single high-pitched tone filled the car.

“Roll the windows down,” she yelled. “They have to be able to hear it clearly.”

As the night air hit them, she crossed her arms for warmth and stared out at the shadowy mother-herd less than a quarter of a mile away.

At first, she didn’t think it was working.

The Geeks weren’t trudging away as quickly as she thought they would. Not that she’d ever seen zombies run, but she’d expected some kind of animalistic recoil.

“Gonna have t’go slower,” Booker said, voice muffled from the earplugs. “Can’t risk hittin’ ‘em.”

A lethal balancing act. Slow enough to give them a chance to move, but not so slow that they draw the attention of any other surveillance teams.

They knew they’d risk another drone following them, as cars tripped the sensor like Max said. But it was something they’d have to live with.

And then, as if on cue, the herd began to part down the middle.

Rotting bodies stumbled left and right, moving off the road and into the surrounding fields.

They hadn’t counted on the stench though.

With watering eyes, Caitlin covered her nose and mouth with her shirt, careful not to make a sound as they pushed on.

It couldn’t have lasted longer than five minutes, but it felt like an eternity, just waiting for one of the speakers to blow or a Geek to be unaffected and lunge for the car.

As they got near the opposite edge of the herd, she glanced in the rearview at the hatchback close behind. They were equally unscathed, and at least they didn’t have to inhale Geek-stink too.

Once they were a safe distance away, Caitlin cut the radio and the transmitter.

“Well, that was heart attack inducing,” she said, removing her ear plugs. “Can’t wait to do that with a bus full of people following behind.”

“Hey, at least it worked,” Nathaniel said, shifting back in his seat.

Rolling the windows up, the car became deafeningly quiet.

No ‘laughing about water under the bridge’ in sight.

Caitlin tilted her head, leaning against the cold glass.

Only three and a half more hours to go.

* * * * * * *

Crossing the Iowa state line put a knot in Caitlin’s stomach the size of a baseball.

“We’re close,” Nathaniel said. “Maybe twenty minutes or so to the college.”

“What do we do if they’re not there?” She asked, chewing her bottom lip.

“We keep lookin’,” Booker told her.

Passing a long stretch of suburbia, it took her a beat too long to realize the houses and stores that should have occupied the lots were all burnt out and demolished.

“I don’t think we’ll have to look far though.”

Row upon row, street after street, every building was nothing but charred rubble.

And not a single Geek shuffling around anywhere, all of them drawn away by the radio tower.

Absently, she wondered how far the sound reached, and if the herd Travis and Jorge set on fire had made the directional change because they were seeking out the mother-herd another state over.

Booker tapped the breaks twice, signaling the other car to find a spot to pull off while they went on.

“Alright y’all,” he muttered, sitting up in his seat. “Look alive.”

The sign for Graceland University had partially come apart, leaving it crooked and bent.

Guess that didn’t matter now.

In the distance, twelve-foot-tall chain link fencing gleamed in the security lights. Two Humvees were stationed on either side of the drive, manned by at least one guard each.

On the other side of the fence, two more guards started the process of pushing the gate back to let them in.

Their Trojan mustang worked like a charm.

“I’ll take left,” Booker said, easing off the gas as they approached. “Nathaniel, you take right.”

“Got it.”

As soon as their windows began to roll down, Caitlin covered her ears.

It was much faster than she expected.

The element of surprise really was their greatest weapon.

The guards on the Humvees hadn’t even been looking over their shoulders at the car.

They were dead before they hit the ground, and milliseconds after, so were the guards controlling the gate.

Nathaniel jumped out, scrambling to gather up the assault rifles and side arms of each man.

“Cae?”

“I’m good,” she said, already opening her door.

They had to move the bodies fast so no one would see if they looked out their windows.

The .22s Nathaniel and Booker had used were much quieter than the revolver Caitlin had grown to think of as her own, but they still made a noticeable pop in the pre-dawn stillness.

With some considerable effort, she and Nathaniel dragged the dead guards behind the Humvees, out of direct sightline.

Booker continued driving the mustang around the first building, slow enough to keep an eye on the others.

Max had been right. There weren’t any extra locks or barricades at the doors, so entering would be quick and painless.

Avoiding the other patrolling guards, however, was a different story.

Staying low to the ground, Caitlin and Nathaniel ran to catch up to the mustang.

“Anything?” She asked at a whisper.

“Clear.”

Parking along the shadowed side of one of the larger buildings, Booker popped the trunk and got out.

“Thirty-four minutes,” he told them,