World of the Dead [REWRITING]

In most action movies Quinn had watched over the years, when someone gets knocked out, they wake up seemingly without issue. They simply get up, maybe groan and stagger as they get to their feet.

That is not case in real life, as it turns out.

A heavy weight across Quinn's entire body was the first thing she became aware of. The second thing was a horrible, stabbing pain in her head and mouth. Then the nausea hit her like a truck. All she could do was lay there, wherever there was, and try to figure out why her mouth was insanely dry and why she was in so much pain. Also, it was seriously smokey and dusty. And was someone burning meat?

Then the past few hours returned to her in a torrent, the evacuation, the zombies, the trucks, and something hitting the trucks. But what happened after that? She tried hard to think back but all she got was another jab of pain. She tried to call out to her mom, but all she could manage was a raspy wheeze. She really needed some water. Dad had some, she thought, opening her eyes slowly and wincing at the sun. I'll ask him for some.

But as her eyes adjusted to the light, she realized that water was only one of the many problems she now faced.

First off, she figured out why she couldn't move. On top of her was a tall, heavy man with a bloody gash on his head, which she could see clearly as his face was planted on her shoulder. Then she saw how he ended up there in the first place: the truck had flipped. Quinn faintly remembered the impact before she had gone out and wondered if somehow another car had hit them. The tan truck was currently on its side so that the seats that had been across from her were now above her. The cloth tarp that had covered that back was ripped in many places but still attached, and she realized she was laying on it. 

The more she looked around, the more she wished she was still unconscious. At least half of the other passengers were gone; either they were thrown out or they left, Quinn didn't know and wasn't sure she wanted to. The few remaining were sprawled around and obviously not alive. One woman's neck was at a horrible angle and her eyes and mouth were wide open in a look of permanent shock. Nearest to Quinn was a young man with his nose practically squashed against his face, giving her the morbid image of a smashed tomato. She looked away, to any other place without a dead body, and to her horror saw that her mother was not in the truck.

Breathing frantically, she began to struggle underneath the man on top of her. He was most likely dead, which added in her desperation to get him off her. It wasn't easy; he was a full-grown man and completely limp. Not only that, she was totally disoriented, in pain, and every time she tried to push him off, her nausea would spike. Plus, the smell coming from him was horrible.

She had to get out from under him, no matter what. Sucking in a deep breath filled with smoke, dust, and the scent of death, she gave a mighty shove. She didn't try to push him straight up, as she had been stupidly attempting before, she instead tried to heave him to the side. And to her relief and joy, it worked perfectly. 

Freed from her stinking prison, she shakily got to her feet. Her knees wobbled and her head swam, making her sway. She bent over with her hands on her knees, dry heaving. But Quinn reminded herself that she had to find her mom and dad, before those zombies did.

She froze. The zombies. Right. Swallowing, she carefully creeped to the edge of the tarp and peered out, searching for movement.

It was about noon and the sun was bright and high, confirming that Quinn had been unconscious for hours. And if she knew anything about head injuries, that was a bad sign. Reaching up, she felt around. No blood. Thats...good? I think? 

 All around her were empty cars, stores with their windows shattered and doors open or busted, and the occasional dead body. In the distance she saw what she had to assume where the zombies, as they didn't move much and when they did, they did so in a similar jerking, ambling way that no regular person normally would. Smoke rose from crashed cars, and she saw a few were still burning. She now had a guess as to where the cooked meat smell was coming from.