Carver Pike - Scalp

“There’s a deer in the road,” Nitsy informed the others.

“An infected one?” Eggo asked.

Thomas looked through the window. “It’s hard to tell. Sometimes they’re just dumb like that.”

Andre slowed the truck down, and as he did, other animals came out of the forest, behind the truck, and moved toward them. This flock of random beasts walked slowly toward the bed of the truck.

“Andre,” Eggo called out. “Look behind us, man.”

To Nitsy, the animals looked possessed, like it wasn’t only some kind of worm or bug inside them, but more like a demon had crawled inside their souls. Their eyes glowed in the moonlight, but there was no life there. A bear’s head hung to the side like it was broken. A wolf’s pelt was soaked with its own blood and it walked forward weakly. A gash at its side opened and closed with each step like a red, dripping mouth gasping for air each time its paw touched the earth.

A woman moved out of the trees, walking slowly like she’d been given new legs. Her hair was pulled up from the scalp. Chunks of flesh clung to it and kept it glued to the skull, but it was clear she’d tried to pull her hair out in one big handful.

“Grace,” Thomas whispered.

“What?” Robbie asked.

“Grace Connor,” Thomas said. “She leads the choir at my church.”

The woman trampling through the grass and following the animals didn’t seem like the churchgoing type. Her shirt was ripped, and one boob hung freely. Every part of her was doused in blood except that boob.

“She don’t have her tittie out like that in church,” Thomas said, his eyes still glued on the woman.

“Brace yourselves,” Andre yelled. “If this motherfucker don’t wanna move outta my way, I’m fixin’ to move him.”

With that, he stepped on the gas and the truck leaped forward. As it did, the animals took off at a sprint, chasing after their trail of dust. Eyes glowed through the dirt cloud and they were coming fast. Nitsy closed her eyes, clutched Robbie’s hand, and prayed they’d blow right past that deer. If they didn’t, if the truck slowed down even a smidgen, the wolves nipping at their heels would leap right over the tailgate and it would all be over.

Andre didn’t slow down.

He drove faster.

Nitsy didn’t have to look to know they were about to hit the buck.

“Come on, you fucker!” Andre yelled.

That was the signal.

“Hold on!” she yelled.

Nitsy leaned forward and tucked her head between her knees, covering her head with her hands the way she’d been taught to do in kindergarten whenever their teacher made them practice for a tornado drill. It was the only thing that came to mind.

The moment of impact felt like they’d hit a brick wall. The truck slammed into the weight of the animal, bashed through its meaty hide, and must have knocked it to the side because only the left tires seemed to hobble over it.

Eggo was nearly thrown out of the truck bed as it bounced over it. “Holy shit!” he yelled. “We nailed that sucker!”

He leaned over the side of the truck to get a closer look at the deer, and it happened in a split second.

Eggo was in mid-sentence with, “Damn, we fucked that thing—” when he switched to, “Wha… ah… no…”

His hands went to his face and he thrashed around, scratching at his eyebrows, and swatting at his head and cheeks. Robbie and Nitsy threw themselves to the opposite side of the truck, closer to Thomas, and watched as their friend panicked. Eggo’s eyes went wide as he realized what was happening to him.

Their theory earlier about shaving their heads was wrong. The lice had latched onto Eggo’s eyebrows. The young man screamed in pain and scratched so hard at his face that his forehead and cheeks began to bleed.

“Eggo, no,” Nitsy whimpered with her hand over her mouth. “No. Don’t do that to yourself.”

“It hurts so bad!” Eggo yelled.

His fingernails had made their way beneath his eyebrows, and he pulled, peeling his upper brow off his face. Blood ran down over his eyes, across his cheeks, and into his mouth where it bubbled with each gasp and grunt the boy made.

“He’s infected!” Robbie yelled. “Stay back!”

“Fuck this,” Thomas announced as he slid a little closer and kicked Eggo hard in his chest. The thump was loud, and the force was enough to knock Eggo over the side of the truck.

Inside the cab, Phyllis screamed.

Andre slowed the truck down to see what was happening and the animals grew dangerously close.

“Don’t stop!” Nitsy yelled as she slapped the roof of the truck.

Robbie joined her. “Go! Go! Go!”

Nitsy turned toward Thomas whose eyes were in his lap. The boy clearly wasn’t proud of his decision, but he’d saved them. She knew that. Robbie would have never done that to Eggo, and she doubted she would be able to either. Thomas had saved their lives a second time tonight.

The road seemed to smooth out some after passing the deer.

They drove on in silence. She couldn’t believe Eggo was gone. One second he’d been fine. He’d been with them, safe in the back of the truck, and all it took was for him to lean closer to one of the animals. The lice had jumped on him.

“He was bald,” Robbie mumbled. “He didn’t even have hair.”

“It looked like they got into his eyebrows,” Nitsy said.

She touched her own and realized how lucky she was. It dawned on her how close she’d come to death herself. If she hadn’t been face down, buried in a pile of infected teenagers in that auditorium, if the lice hadn’t thought they could get in through her hair, they could have burrowed into her eyebrows as well.

Even now, she was lucky. If Thomas waited even a few seconds longer to kick him out of the truck, they might have dove at her and even though she was missing her wig, she still had strands of hair here and there, some of it constantly coming out of her cap. Then there was Robbie. They could have easily gotten to him.

She leaned her head against Robbie. “We’re going to shave your head.”

“Gladly,” he replied. “My eyebrows too. Maybe even my – can you shave lashes? If you can, I’m shaving them too. My arms and legs too.”

Nitsy noticed Thomas was looking at her boyfriend funny.

“What?” she asked.

“I’ll shave my head, but I ain’t shavin’ anything else.”

Robbie laughed and she started to before remembering the sight of Eggo with panic written all over his face. How could she make jokes at a time like this?

“Eggo would be laughing too, you know,” Robbie said. He’d known exactly what she was thinking.

“He’s going to be out there, walking through the woods, like all the others.” It saddened her, even more, to know his smile would be gone. Her team leader would be wandering around aimlessly, attacking any living thing he came across.

“Hey!” came a voice over the truck’s engine.

At first, Nitsy thought it was Andre trying to get their attention again, but she looked through the rear window and past the front windshield to see two men and a woman standing in the center of the road.

“There’s people out there,” Nitsy said.

“Run ‘em over!” Thomas yelled.

“Are they infected?” Robbie asked.

“I don’t think so,” Andre replied. “They’re waving their arms around like they want to be picked up, not like they want to eat my brains or whatever.” Andre leaned closer to the windshield and said, “Hal?”

They were stranded, weighed down with bags full of guns, and they were walking. Hal didn’t like the idea, but what else were they going to do? They’d set out to save the kids at Stonewall Forge, and he couldn’t think of anything better to do now that they were on foot. Walking in the opposite direction would only mean walking toward town, and they already knew what the town looked like. Those things were everywhere. At least out here, they might not be up against many of them.