That heart-rate juddered right up to ten, adrenaline sizzling along her nerve-endings at the sight of all that decay out front and lumbering toward her (bobbing, like a buoy on the ocean, or an x marking a treasure-map, here was the right place). The shambling mass of the dead turned toward the car and Maggie reached over to the passenger seat, fingers closing around the gun a second before blood, like a split tomato, burst against the passenger window.
She swallowed the noise in her throat hard as Ms. Manners stood out front without the welcome wagon to greet her, the gates rattling like bones as they drew back and admittance was granted into this little fiefdom of the living in a landscape as arid and terminal as the widespread deserts.
She needed no encouragement. The Toyota crept forward, beyond the lip of the gate and inside and rolled to a halt beyond the invisible line of safety. The door opened, and a couple of fast food wrappers gently wafted out from the backseat as a lot of leg, encased in denim, swung through from the front seat. The sun beat down on the shoulders of the yellow cotton that proclaimed love for the Ramones and the shades masked the sleeplessness of the previous night.
"More bang for your buck," she made a gesture at the crossbow. A slight grin, snapping. "Figuratively speaking. You Shane?"