The barbed wire gate opens. Torsos quiver in the man-made metal web. I pull my truck in, slowly. Guns are aimed as I put the big vehicle in park. It exhales fumes idly. They wait for me to exit the truck, but I roll down the window instead.
“I can’t walk. That’s why I drive,” I explain. One of their leaders, a man who wastes his time shaving in the apocalypse, inspects my body. He looks a little too long at my breasts after seeing where my leg used to be.
“She’s telling the truth,” he says to the crowd outside. He turns his dark eyes towards mine. “Why are you wasting diesel? Turn that truck off while we unload.”
“I can’t. They say it takes more gas to start it back up,” I explain. “Look, you all are lucky we made this decision. If it were up to me–”
“Well, it’s not up to you,” he interrupts. “You’re just a driver. You’re the one that’s lucky. You’re lucky I don’t want to breed with you!”
The armed men surrounding the truck laugh like rust. I keep a cool head. I’ve heard worse. I’ve heard them breeding with my sisters right outside of our separate camp, on one of their hunting nights. These are the last living men, and what I’m about to do to them will bring a swift end to their hate-filled existence.
“Look, do you want the combination for the trailer doors, or do you just want to fuck with me? One woman or twenty?”
“Well, are they really in there?” he asks, again looking for lies in my eyes.
“If you shut up for a second, you’ll hear them in there, shuffling around and waiting.” I take a big breath in the sudden quiet. I tell the truth about hearing them, anyway. The crowd nods at the sounds.
“We didn’t want to follow through on this treaty between our camps. We thought about risking the onslaught of your constant hunting nights again, but we recently had an attempted coup, so now you can have our prisoners,” I explain. The leader’s eyes don’t leave mine.
“They’re armed in there, aren’t they?” he asks, knowing something about my explanation seems a bit too much like something they’d do.
“No, of course not,” I answer, truthfully. “Please just promise us, no more hunting for us for a year, like our treaty states.”
“Why, of course, lady! When have we ever broken a promise?” he says, smiling yellow teeth. The crowd of men laugh again.
“The combination is 82-92-88,” I say.
“Alright,” he says. “No funny business. Chuck!” he shouts to a teenaged boy with a rifle. “Take aim, and if she pulls any wild stunts, shoot her between the eyes. Just like we practiced.”
“Yes, sir,” squeaks Chuck.
“El Presidente picks first, boys,” he says, running to the back of the trailer to meet the restless crowd at their new location. I watch the rest of the men gather around from my mirrors. Without looking, I shift gears from park to drive. The truck makes a noticeable noise, but not noticeable enough to Chuck. He has his gun aimed directly at me, but his mind is stuck where the rest of the men’s minds are currently.
I hear the trailer doors open. At first, the men are too horny to notice the decay. I hear the first scream and slam my foot on the gas pedal. Chuck shoots. Chuck misses.
All the zombies we’ve collected in the past year fall out of the trailer, starved for flesh. Chuck jumps away from my truck, which is headed straight towards him. I see the leader’s intestines in the teeth of the beasts, then I suddenly see nothing. My right mirror hits the gate’s post and rips off of my truck. Within a minute, I am out of their gated camp and they’re forever infested.