The Inevitable Zombie Uprising (2)

// Still chapter 1
On a highway a few miles outside town, a worried trucker noted as the hour stuck ten. Even the sleepy towns he was flying must be bustling by now – no hope of returning to the back roads. Speed and luck were his only allies now, and he wasn't sure about luck. This was a last-ditch effort, but their enemies knew about it, and it was being botched. Big plans, long delays, then the rush job when everything's held up with duct tape and zip ties. And they've got the best of everything.
Vincent looked at the guard beside him. Better than nothing, he supposed, but not exactly intimidating. Or confident. Or watchful. One truck behind him, one ahead, and us, stuck here in the middle. No communication – that might give us away... at least we'd know if one got hit! He looked at the pale gray minivan the tiny camera in the bumper of his trailer showed him, how long had it been there? A few minutes, right? Or had he seen it before, in the early hours of this morning? He wished, not the for the first time, someone had seen fit to install a color camera back there, or a screen big enough that he could see faces. This only showed him enough to encourage his paranoia. Vincent rubbed his eyes one at a time. 
Then several things happened at once. Well. Not precisely at once, but close enough together that it was impossible to tell them apart. The fourth thing, chronologically, was the failure of the tiny camera in the trailer's rear bumper. The third was the collision of the colorless minivan with that bumper, doubtless causing the aforementioned failure. That collision, in turn, had its cause in the sudden drop in velocity of the Peterbilt, as its driver decided this highway was no longer a responsible place to be.
That decision was made because of the explosion.

Not just a small explosion, either. It happened several miles ahead, but Vincent felt the concussion. There was no question at all in his mind what had caused it. He was well aware of the three trucks' volatile cargo. The lead truck must have been found. They'd fought, perhaps, and they'd lost. And Vincent Short would be damned before he drove into the same trap. The whole rig shuddered with the collision, but he shrugged it off. Probably vamps anyway, he thought. It got up on nine wheels when swerved suddenly. The cab lurched sickly with trailer's inertia as they slid down the embankment, though a chain-link fence and onto a lonely rural road. 
 
The sixth thing that happened was Vincent's bodyguard snapping fully awake.
“WHATDIDYOUDOTHATFORYOUTRYINGTOGETUSKILLED!?” 
“Mornin' Cupcake.” Vince's replied cooly. He was really starting to distrust this bodyguard. Some shotgun. 
“They're gonna catch us for sure if we don't play it cool!” Leonardo, known as Leo by most, had not volunteered for this mission. He was simply in the wrong place in the wrong time and happened to be eligible for iti. He'd never been the “cool under fire” type. 
Leo was not entirely sure he was morally ok with this mission. He repeatedly told himself he didn't have any choice – none of them did – but remained uncertain. He was quite sure he wasn't ok with babysitting several metric tons of high explosive. And he was entirely certain he wasn't ok with people trying to kill him as a direct result of the other two. Leo might have been an imposing person, at six foot nine, but he preferred flight to a fight.  
“They'd kill us for certain if we drive right into their trap. And they'll kill us for certain if we turn around try to get past whatever they have following us.” Vincent had the engine roaring and the gears grinding all the time he explained this. The rural road had very few houses and was quite straight, so he was rapidly getting the rig up to its top speed. “Our only hope is to gain some ground while they're confused. That explosion (hopefully) wasn't something they expected, and it'll buy us a little time.”
So the Peterbilt screamed up country lanes, quite oblivious to the disaster that was just beginning on the interstate just a few miles distant.