But realizing it tracked her by sound gave Marisa an idea.

"Buddha Boy!"

She shuffled sideways as she yelled, and noted with rising hope that it altered course to follow. The monster continued to drag Harley along behind it like a rag doll. She couldn't tell if he was dazed, unconscious, or dead. What she did know was she needed to keep the creature distracted or it might turn its attention back to the "bird in the hand." If Harley died there would be nobody to drive the truck. And that meant it was now all up to her.

She was going to have to kill this giant...

....all by herself.

But she had just figured out a way to do it.

It was going to be a gamble. And it would involve her doing something utterly awful. Even worse, it would mean getting back within reach of those huge hands. But Marisa had long since passed the point of caring about "awful" and gambles were all she had left. The monster did have one weak point, and she had just spotted the tool to apply to it.

Now she just needed to bring the horror within reach.

"Hey, boboso!" Marisa yelled as she backpedaled away. "Over here!"

The monster, who had just reached the car, now turned and lurched back towards Marisa's new position. That was exactly what she had counted on.

At her feet, right beside the red toolbox, lay the mechanic's dolly. The low, wheeled platform had allowed Arnold and Leon to lie on their backs and roll under cars to work on them. Now she intended to use if for something else. It took all of her courage to allow the thing to get closer, but she waited until it was where she needed it to be. Then putting her foot against the dolly, she pushed it out into the oncoming horror's path.

The results were spectacular, if not exactly what she intended.

Instead of stumbling forward with its head landing at her feet...like she hoped...the giant stepped directly on the dolly and had its foot fly out from beneath it. Its free arm flailed in the air while its foot went amazingly high for a creature with such a corpulent build. For one brief, suspended moment in time it reminded her of an old movie with a cartoon hippo playing at a ballerina.

Unfortunately, it appeared it wasn't going to go down. The foot started to lower as the gargantuan corpse somehow managed to regain its balance.

But that's when Harley struck.

The man must have been dazed and just instinctually taking advantage of the situation she created. He couldn't have really thought his actions through. Not unless he was trying to get himself killed.

In one lightning fast move he gripped the monsters hand where it held him by the upper arm. Then in the same motion he used it as a brace to swing both of his feet around and drive them into the back of its knee. His boots struck with the full weight and force of his entire body, and the nightmare came down like a ton of bricks...

...right on top of him.

Harley almost disappeared under the ghastly mass, and Marisa realized he only had seconds to live. He had recaptured the monster's attention. Now it had him pinned and could bring both hands to bear on him. Even as she grasped the situation she heard a muffled cry come from the man underneath the downed colossus.

But at the same time, she saw that Harley had accomplished getting the creature into the position she needed, even if it had been by accident.

Grabbing the air impact wrench off the top of the nearby toolbox, Marisa charged into the fray. It was now or never. Given the thing's attention on Harley, she would have a clearer shot than her original plan provided. Now came the "doing something awful" part. She just hoped she pulled it off, and did it in time.

Dropping to her knees beside the blind giant's head, she drove the socket end of the air wrench into the section of exposed brain and pulled the trigger.

The wrench was a heavy duty tool, designed to tighten up lug nuts on eighteen wheelers, and with a torque of over twelve hundred pounds it revved up to seven thousand rpms in a second.

It was like turning the monster's skull into a blender.

Brain matter flew and Marisa gagged as the spinning socket sank into the grey mass. The worst part of the back spray caught her full force and added a coat of fungus and dead neural tissue on top of her previous layer of gore.

A split second later the giant spasmed and splayed out like a starfish. Unfortunately, that meant the arm it had underneath it in search of Harley now came flying out in the form of a monstrous backhand that caught her full in the chest.

It felt like being hit by a truck.

For the second time in as many minutes the air exploded from her lungs, and Marisa tumbled backwards like a puppet with its strings cut. Stars blasted across her vision as her head smacked against the hard floor. Her arm tangled in the air line as she rolled and the wrench came free of the monster's skull. It spun itself to a stop on blood crusted concrete. The girl herself came to rest, face down on the cement, about five feet further away.

Then silence fell, with nothing but the crows to disturb it.

However it may have ended, the fight was over.

Marisa lay there hurting, barely caring whether she was dead or alive. Her body felt like a five thousand pound bruise. It would have probably been easier for her to pinpoint a place that didn't hurt, if she could find one. At the moment, she felt content to just lie on the bloody concrete and not think about anything. Not the dead, not the victims, not what might be going on in the rest of the country...nothing. She didn't even want to open her eyes, having seen enough of the bloody madness her world had descended into.

But she couldn't stop yet.

This wasn't over, and there were still people who needed her. Starting with the only man who could drive the truck out of here.

"Harley?"

Nothing.

"Harley?"

For another moment there was silence, then a faint grunt came from nearby. Since she never remembered any of the monsters making a vocal sound, she hoped for the best. To her surprise, even the effort of hoping seemed to hurt.

"Harley?" she groaned again. "Are you still alive?"

"I think so..." came the muffled reply.

"Oh, good," she murmured. "Just checking."

With that settled, Marisa considered the idea of simply laying there for a while. She knew she should get moving again, but the effort felt enormous. Besides, the others were safe on the truck stop roof, and there were a lot worse things than getting wet. Surely a little while longer wouldn't hurt them.

"Hey, partner?"

Now what...

"Yeah, Harley?"

"You remember that list of turnoffs you wanted me to work on back in the diner?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, I'm kinda stuck laying here under this fat naked dead guy, and it just occurred to me this would be a pretty good place to start."

"Really? You're stuck?"

"Oh yeah. And this definitely falls under the category of 'bad thing.'"

"Okay," she moaned, and stirred to rise. "Just give me a minute."

"Did I mention he's naked?" He sounded markedly unhappy about that.

"Okay, okay!" Marisa laughed and immediately regretted it. That hurt too. "I'll be there in a second. Keep your britches on."

"Oh, believe me...I will."

"Here you go."

Marisa took the offered keys as Harley slid in through the passenger door into the front seat beside her. They fairly gleamed from having been washed off by the man after he had fished them from the squirming mess of body parts in the corner. He really didn't need to do that since she was long past the point of being bothered by gore, but she decided it still counted as a decent gesture on his part.

The car was a refurbished Plymouth 4-door from the eighties, and she knew this thing was going to handle like a boat. Also, the last surviving shred of her vanity cringed at the vomit green color of the metal beast. Before tonight she wouldn't have been caught dead driving it.

But that was before tonight.

Tonight, she noted with relief there would be plenty of room for people once they got off the top of the truck at the rest area. Besides, the wild-haired, blood smeared, fright-fest she caught a glimpse of in the mirror didn't have any business being picky about anything.

"Okay," Harley started as she inserted the keys and buckled in. "Now comes the easy part. But I want you to recite the plan back to me, just one more time."

"Right," She rolled down the window just enough to get her arm out as she talked. "I turn on the headlights then open the door. That should draw the zombies by the truck back here toward us. I wait a few seconds to let them get away from the truck, then I back out fast, turn around, and drive straight through them. Then I pull up beside the truck, you hop out of the car and into the semi. After that, I drive on towards the rest area down the road. Bien?"

"Right," he nodded, obviously satisfied. Then he looked her way with a haggard grin. "We're almost out of here, you know. You ready to do this, partner?"

"I guess," Marisa sighed and turned on the headlights. "Let's get this show on the road."

She started the car and her taillights flooded the door behind them in red. Between those and all the light spilling out of the bay doors once they opened, it should be like waving a red flag in front of a bunch of bulls. Unwelcome recollections of the night's earlier charge on the gas pumps came to mind. She really had no desire to relive that.

At least a glance at the gas gauge showed a full tank.

Marisa reached a gory arm out through the window and snagged the hanging controls for the automatic bay doors. She stared in almost amused despair at the green button. Here she went again...once more opening the doors between her and the death faced horrors outside. This was threatening to become a habit with her. At least this time she had a car's body between her and the monsters. Hopefully it would be enough.

With a rueful shake of her head she stabbed the green button and withdrew her arm.

The electric gate motor hummed to life as she rolled up the window. Marisa gunned the engine, then twisted in her seat to see out the back window. Harley did the same beside her, something even easier for him since he wasn't wearing a seat belt. She started to protest, then remembered he needed to be unencumbered so he could make the jump to the truck as fast as possible.

Then all that was forgotten when the bay door rolled open to reveal the storm wracked night beyond...and the lone skeletal figure framed against the darkness.

"Oh no..." Marisa groaned in horror. "Dios, por favor! No esto!"

It was Vicki.

Probably blinded by the sudden lights of the mechanics shop flooding out over it, the wasted corpse stood unmoving in the entranceway. The taillights limned the pale figure in red. The image blurred in the slightly fogged rear window, and Marisa could almost imagine the gentle face those bones once formed...and in doing so, made what she had to do next almost impossible.

This thing had once been Vicki. The soft spoken girl who calmed her after Marisa got in those awful fights with her mother. The sister who comforted her while Papa spent his final weeks in the hospital fighting cancer. The best friend who helped her make a dress they were to share.

"That isn't her," Harley said softly beside her.

"I know," Marisa whispered and, despite what she had said earlier in the diner, fought to believe it.

Fungus or no fungus, that was Vicki's body out there. It was her brain. Could they be absolutely sure there was nothing left? Doc was sure, but Doc dealt only in science. Marisa believed in a lot more than that, even if she wasn't sure what all of it was.

"Marisa..."

"I know," she repeated, but her hand still hovered above the transmission.

And she did.

But whether or not Vicki still lived in there, that had once been an integral part of her...from the hands that once played the clarinet with such dexterity, to the full mane of hair, just like hers, that Marisa helped her brush every morning. Even the soggy remains of the dress they had so laughingly worked on together. Whatever that was out there, it had once been Vicki.

"Marisa..." Harley said in a calm voice. "The others are coming. They will be crowding in here with us in roughly eight seconds. There are a lot of them, and they are stronger than ever. We may not be able to push our way out of them from a dead stop."

"I know," she choked out as her hand closed on the transmission. She had threatened to kill this horror back in the diner. Now faced with the reality of doing just that, it was the last thing she wanted to do. But it was what everybody needed her to do...and it was what she was going to do. Right now.

She dropped the transmission into reverse.

This was going to hurt.

"I'm sorry, Vicki," the girl whispered. "Please forgive me."

Marisa stomped her foot on the gas and the large Plymouth shot backwards out of the garage.

It smashed into the wasted figure, causing it to fold over the trunk before whipping backward and disappearing under the car. The large sedan bounced and she could literally feel bone crunch and snap under her tires. It felt like pieces of her soul shattered along with them. The sound of it tumbling under the floorboards reverberated through the cab. Then it must have caught under the axle for a second before another jounce and crunch signaled its arrival at the front tires.

Jerking the wheel to the side, Marisa slid the large vehicle into a turn. She tried not to look at the broken heap of rags that emerged from under the front of the car. In the dim light of the parking lot, it looked so small, so trivial...just a piece of refuse discarded on the asphalt.

It lay there like a crumpled reminder that everything she loved was truly dead and gone.

Then the sight of it was mercifully blotted out as the monsters arrived.

Twisting the wheel again, Marisa slammed the transmission into gear and hit the gas. Her tires spun on the wet asphalt and the car threatened to fishtail. She didn't let up. Breathing in harsh gulps, she fought to keep the car on course as multiple thumps sounded off the front grill. Several skulls grinned in her headlights before gaping then disappearing under her hood. Withered claws slapped and scratched past the window beside her head. Once the car almost slowed to a stop as the rear tires caught and then spun out on a couple of corpses, but it regained traction and leapt forward through the grisly ranks.

Then they were through.

The Plymouth shot across the parking lot towards the diesel pumps, leaving the ranks of the dead behind. Marisa became aware of a pain in her jaw and realized she had been clenching it to the point of fracture. At the same time she caught herself looking in the rear view mirror. She refused to think what she had been looking for and forced herself to focus forward.

She had to let go.

She had to. Her friends needed her.

Marisa maintained speed then slowed the vehicle at the last moment. She did a rapid deceleration that allowed her to just barely bring the car to stop without skidding, but placed Harley's door almost perfectly across from the one on Grandpa Tom's truck.. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see figures jumping on the roof of the truck stop and knew the celebration had begun.

Maybe someday she could join them.

"We're here," Harley confirmed and grabbed the handle of his door. "Your part is done. Now go ahead and get out of here. We'll meet you at the rest area."

He started to exit the car...

...and that's when Marisa surprised both him and herself by reaching out and catching his arm.