I led the convoy out of L.A. in my Catalina. Mo’Lock drove with me. I loaded the space between us on the front seat with some beer, had whiskey and Vicodin already in my belly and music blaring on the stereo. Mo’ kept trying to talk to me as we barreled along the freeway, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying over the music. The ghoul was thoroughly annoyed.

Finally I gave him a break and turned down the volume.

“You say something?”

The ghoul stared at me a full thirty seconds before saying, “I asked you if you had a plan.”

I lit a butt and nodded. The smoke snaked right into my eyes, causing me to temporarily lose control of the car. I swerved hard left, doing around ninety, and covered my tracks by acting like I was changing lanes. In the rearview I saw the buses keeping pace like two huge ships slicing through black concrete.

I couldn’t help but imagine what would happen if they wrecked. Bodies, hundreds of them, would fly all over the highway, scattered like rice at a wedding. Only when the paramedics showed, all of them would be getting up without a scratch.

That would be fucking hilarious.

Mo’Lock repeated the question. I shrugged. Sure I had a plan. About as much of a plan as you can have when the dead are rising and devouring the living.

“I want you to get your buddies to circle the town,” I said. “Form a perimeter to stop the outbreak from spreading.”

“And what will you be doing?”

I glanced over at the ghoul and grinned. “I’m going in.”

Mo’Lock nodded, but I could tell by the way he looked out the window he wasn’t sure what I meant. Cool by me. That shut him up for the rest of the trip to Mendez.

I had the convoy stop just outside of town and gave out instructions. I wanted the ghouls to park the buses on either side of the town, and then fan out until they met up again, forming a wall of dead to contain the undead. The ghouls liked the plan. They all nodded and shook hands as they reloaded the buses with their pitchforks and axes.

As the buses drove away in opposite directions, kicking up clouds of dust, I scanned the area with a pair of night vision goggles. The good news was that I couldn’t see anybody. That was also the bad news. It meant either everybody in town was dead, undead, or in hiding. I hoped for the last.