“To think I got bitten because of that stupid cart,” Dylan said, giving the offending object an angry kick. “I should’ve let it go. Instead, I came all this way to die for a few bottles of water and a couple of cans of tuna. I don’t even like tuna!”
“It’s crazy,” Ben agreed, his shoulders sagging with defeat. “I wish there was something I could do.”
“I know.” Dylan glanced back at the way she came. “At least, you saved me from being eaten and becoming one of those things straight away. Now, I can go out on my own terms.”
Ben glanced at the gun on her hip. “I suppose it’s better to go by your own hand than…”
He trailed off, and Dylan shuddered. She knew what he meant. They both knew what awaited her, and it wasn’t pretty. Her thoughts wandered back over the past few weeks and how it all began.
It started as an internet rumor, circulating on the web via a series of posts, videos, and chatroom threads. There was a health alert in the Congo, North Africa. Something about an outbreak in Brazzaville. Like many, she didn’t believe it, writing it off as fake news. Then it aired on the news, hitting all the big channels in a row. By then, it was too late.
Within days, half of the world’s population were sick. Once infected, patients grew increasingly ill with flu-like symptoms. They continued to work and travel, spreading the infection until forced to seek medical care.
The hospitals and medical centers overflowed as doctors sought to treat them. None survived. Within seventy-two hours, the virus ran its course, killing the host only to reanimate the corpse minutes later.
Those that didn’t succumb initially were killed by those that did — ripped apart by the monsters that used to be their family, friends, and colleagues. While some were immune to the airborne strain, no one was immune to a bite. Minutes later they rose from the dead, turned into monsters as well. If bitten but not killed outright, like Dylan, you had time. Seventy-two hours, give or take.
Time to suffer the full horror of the infection as it ravaged your body.
Time to feel the virus take over your brain and wash away everything that made you human.
Time to regret all the things you never got to experience.
Dylan looked at the bite mark on her arm, tracing its shape with her forefinger. “I’ve got no one to say goodbye to.”
“Excuse me?” Ben said with a frown.
“Never mind. Just thinking out loud.” Dylan twisted her arm around and set her digital watch to stopwatch mode. Thumbing in the hours minus ten minutes for time already passed, she watched as the seconds began to run backward. Seventy-one hours, forty-nine minutes, and fifty-two seconds.
“Do you have someone?” Ben asked after an uncomfortable silence. “Someone to look after you when the…you know. When the time comes.”
Dylan snorted. “Nothing’s changed in that regard, Ben. It’s still just me.”
He sighed. “I’m sorry, but I have to get back to my family. Are you going to be alright?”
Dylan stared at him with raised eyebrows, the irony of his question not lost on her. “I’ll be fine, thanks.”
He bobbed his head without meeting her gaze and walked toward the door that opened onto the loading dock at the back of the supermarket. After gazing outside through a side window, he said, “The coast is clear for now. You can make a run for it if you want, or you can stay here. Your choice.”
“I’m going,” Dylan said. “I’ll be damned if I stay here.”
“Where’s your car parked?” he asked.
“Out front.”
“You’ll never make it.”
“I know. Can you give me a lift?” Dylan asked, knowing he always parked at the back with the other employees.
“I can’t, Dylan. I’ve been gone too long already. I’m sorry, but my family needs me, and I can’t take you with me. It’s too risky.”
“Then why didn’t you stay at home with them?” Dylan said with growing frustration.
“Same reason you did. Food. I loaded my car with the supplies in here while…”
“While the people out front were dying,” Dylan said, not bothering to hide her bitterness.
“Try to understand. I’ve got kids, a wife, a dog, for God’s sake,” Ben said, running a nervous hand through his thinning hair. “They’re my responsibility.”
Dylan sighed, knowing he was right. “I get it, Ben. I do.”
“Look, Susan came in as well. Her car’s parked next to mine, and her keys are in her locker.”
“Where’s Susan?”
Ben didn’t reply, and Dylan got the message. Susan was dead.
“I’m going now,” he said, “before those things can circle around. You should too.”
“I’m coming, just give me a chance to grab a few things,” Dylan said.
“I can’t wait any longer.” After a final look outside, he slid his keycard through the slot and opened the door a crack. When nothing happened, he tossed her the card. “Take this, and God be with you, Dylan.”
With those final words, he ducked outside. The door swung shut behind him and automatically locked itself, sealing her in.
Dylan stared at space he’d occupied moments earlier and fought back the despair that threatened to weigh her down. Ben. The first friendly face she’d seen since this whole nightmare began. Gone. Just gone.
“Alone again,” she whispered. “Always alone.”
Chapter 5 - Dylan
Dylan took a few seconds to collect herself. She had to face the facts. She was infected. Within three days, after suffering through the various symptoms presented by the virus, she’d die and turn into a flesh-eating monster unless she ended things herself.
“Well,” Dylan huffed, wiping away her tears. “I’m certainly not dying in this shithole.”
With fresh determination, she walked toward the staff room next to the supply room. The manager’s office, Ben’s old office, abutted it. They were the only other rooms in the building besides the toilets.
Susan’s locker was open, her car keys and handbag discarded inside. Dylan took the keys and ran back to the exit. A quick look through the windows showed her it was all clear for the moment, and she located Susan’s sedan with ease. It was parked nearby, and after a moment’s hesitation, she slipped outside.
With her heart banging in her throat, Dylan opened the driver’s door and left it ajar. Then she opened the trunk before running back inside the shopping center. “I’ll be damned if I starve to death before I die.”
Grabbing the cart that had doomed her, she pushed it to the car and loaded the contents into the trunk with supersonic speed. The hair on the back of her neck prickled. The longer she was exposed and out in the open, the more scared she got. Once it was done, she slammed the lid shut and jumped behind the wheel. “Time to get out of here.”
The car was ancient, but Susan had looked after the old thing, and the engine started without a hitch. She edged out of the parking, her head swiveling as she searched for zombies, but they hadn’t found the back of the store yet.
Not wasting a moment further, Dylan gunned it, racing out of the parking lot with a squeal of burning rubber. In the rearview mirror, she watched the undead pour out of the store’s entrance like cockroaches. They trampled each other in their haste to chase her down, their jerky movements at odds with their speed.
“The fuckers just had to be fast, didn’t they?” Dylan muttered while rummaging in her pockets for a cigarette. “Like the end of the world isn’t bad enough already.”
Dylan left the lot behind and headed deeper into town. She lit a smoke and dragged on it until her lungs burned, still unable to wrap her head around her imminent death. She glanced at the bite mark on her arm and shook her head. “Unbelievable.”
There was an icy chill in the air, and she cranked up the heat, grateful for the warm air that blasted through the vents. It was still early, around ten in the morning, but the gray clouds promised little sun. Winter was here to stay, its prese
nce made clear by the skeletal branches on the trees and the cold wind that cut to the bone.
At first, Dylan drove blindly, not caring where she went. The golf course streamed past, followed by Starbucks and McDonalds. A couple of teens ran across the street, not sparing her a glance, and she wondered where they were going. It was dangerous out on the streets, and they were likely up to no good.
A mob clamored at the doors of a gunshop, screaming to get in. The owner had locked up tight, however, the reinforced doors repelling any looters. She knew the place. A few days earlier, she’d been lucky to get in and buy the Glock 17 she now carried on her hip, complete with a holster and seventeen round magazine.
The owner had been kind, probably because she’d spent so many hours on his gun range practicing. It’d had been mostly for fun, a hobby she enjoyed, at first. Now she was glad she’d done it and was a fair shot with most weapons. She only had twelve bullets left, though, which placed her at a decided disadvantage.
“Ah, well. I’ll just have to make do until I can get more,” she muttered.
With a tight grip on the steering wheel, she navigated the clogged streets. It was a mess of abandoned cars, wrecks, and groups of undead that wandered about looking for a meal. Any living people stayed well out of sight, hiding behind boarded-up windows and locked doors.
She’d already decided not to go home. Nothing waited for her there. Nothing but rusted water pipes, possibly undead neighbors, and peeling wallpaper. “Face it, Dylan. You live in a dump. I guess some things never change.”
Her mind wandered back to her childhood. The little that she’d had of it anyway. Abandoned on the church steps as a baby, she’d never known her parents, never had the luxury of a real home. Passed from one foster home to the next, she ended up in juvie when the latest foster dad got too friendly, drawn by her dark red hair, blue-green eyes, and budding curves. It earned him nothing but a stab wound to the gut. The asshole survived and made sure she was blamed for the incident.
At eighteen, she aged out of the system and was tossed into society with little to her name but the will to survive. Six years later, she still hadn’t made her mark or achieved anything of note, traveling from one place to the next as the fancy took her. At least, I never became a junkie or a prostitute.
Now Dylan had no idea what to do or where to go. She rolled to a stop at a crossing and stared in every direction. Behind her lay Springfield, Illinois, the town she’d called home for the past year, though it had never truly felt that way. Not that any place felt like home. She was just passing through. A tourist. An outsider.
To the South-West lay St. Louis, a death trap, for sure, and to the South-East was Edinburg, Sharpsburg and a whole host of other small towns much like the next. Undecided, she blew out a frustrated breath. “Why is this so hard?”
Dylan banged her head against the headrest of her seat until she remembered something. Or rather, someone. A familiar face from the past. “Frankie.”
Frankie, short for Francine, was probably the closest thing she’d ever had to a friend. During a brief stint in Sharpsburg, they’d worked together at a diner and even shared an apartment for a few weeks. Though total opposites, they somehow clicked and hit it off. Many of Dylan’s best memories stemmed from their brief friendship, but, after a few months, she’d grown restless. Driven by some inexplicable need, she’d moved on to the bigger and brighter city lights of Springfield while Frankie stayed behind. Time passed, and the two spoke less and less until the conversation dried up completely. Now, Dylan wondered if Frankie would even remember her. Guilt flushed her veins, and she sat frozen in her seat until a loud thud caused her to jump. “Holy shit, what was that?”
A little girl clawed at her window with bloody fingertips, her teeth bared in a vicious grin. Dylan pressed a trembling hand to her chest, trying to still its frantic beating. The child’s snarls filled her ears, and she closed her eyes for a brief second. “To hell with this town. I’m out of here.”
Jamming her foot on the gas, she roared away, leaving the zombie child stumbling along in her wake. Three more figures joined it, all trying their best to catch her, but she soon left them behind. Even they were no match for the speed of a car.
Dylan lit another cigarette to calm her shattered nerves, sucking on the filter until her hands stopped shaking. The countryside flashed by her windows, but she paid little heed to it. Her brain kept circling the little girl. Around every zombie she’d seen so far. Soon, she’d be one of them unless she killed herself before she turned.
That wasn’t even the worst of it. As the virus progressed, so did the symptoms. While it started as mild flu, it quickly changed into something far worse as the tissues in the body began to bleed at random. The veins blackened until it resembled a road map beneath the skin. Your eyes darkened until they became pitch black and psychotic episodes presented in even the most mild-mannered of people. Many reported increased hunger too. A craving for meat that turned cannibalistic in the end. And what about Frankie? What if she’s one of them? Could I kill her? Shoot her like the zombie at the supermarket? No!
“That’s enough!” With a shudder, Dylan shook her head to rid it of its morbid thoughts. When the time came, she’d do what had to be done. She was strong. A survivor.
Minutes later, she climbed onto the 29 and headed toward Edinburg. It wasn’t far, and she’d reach it soon enough. Behind her, Springfield continued its slow collapse into anarchy. A blanket of smoke covered the city as key installations burned, either through the actions of looters or an accident. Though it had never felt like home, it was still a shame that so much history was being lost: The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, the Lincoln Monument and home…all of it gone.
Just outside of Rochester, a crude cardboard sign announced that fuel was available at the next stop. Dylan eyed the board with mistrust before pulling up to the gas station, wary of a trap.
The place was ancient. Weathered and peeling. A single pump stood in front of the shop with its shuttered windows. She parked next to it and hesitated, one hand resting on her gun. Before she could get out, an old man carrying a shotgun walked through the door and strode over.
He gave her the once-over before nodding. “Looking for gas?”
“Yes, Sir,” Dylan replied.
“Got something to trade?”
“You won’t take cash?” she asked, thumbing the last few hundred dollar bills she carried in her pocket.
“Cash is of no use to me, Miss,” he said.
After a moment’s hesitation, she opened her door and climbed out, taking care to hide her bite mark from him. “I’ve got food in the trunk. I’ll give you half of it for a full tank.”
“Show me first.”
She unlocked the back and revealed the supplies she’d grabbed at the supermarket. They haggled over the contents for a few minutes with Dylan insisting on keeping the water. “You must have some stored away.”
“Yeah, alright. Keep the water,” he relented at last before carting away his share of the food. After he filled her tank, he shook her hand and stood back. “Be careful, Miss. The world’s a dangerous place now.”
“It always was,” she replied, before driving off in a cloud of dust.
Edinburg was next, but she passed through without mishap by sticking to the quieter roads. The population in this part of the country was sparse, consisting mostly of tiny villages, a definite boon in these awful times. A lot of people had fled their homes too, heading toward one of the many quarantine zones set up by the government. She hadn’t bothered. Her trust in the authorities didn’t stretch very far, and she imagined the safe zones closely resembled concentration camps. “No, thank you. Not for me.”
She found herself enjoying the drive, the quiet roads, and the countryside. It was a definite improvement over her dingy little apartment and the chaos of Springfield. Not long after Edinburg, she rolled into Sharpsburg. It, too, was quiet. The streets deserted and empty. Luckily, she still rememb
ered where Frankie lived and found the house without too much trouble.
It was a typical suburban home, tucked away in a quiet cul de sac and fronted by a fenced garden. The eaves were painted green, the walls white, and the driveway was paved in stone. A beautiful place of the kind Dylan wished she could have grown up in.
Instead, Frankie had. She’d had the loving parents and stable home that Dylan never got to experience. Still, Dylan didn’t envy her. When Frankie was barely out of school, her parents died in a car crash. She inherited the house and a sizable chunk of money, but it was never the same, the rooms empty of life and laughter.
Now, as Dylan faced the locked gates, she wondered what waited inside. Was Frankie still alive? Did she even still live there? Dylan took a deep breath and steeled herself. “Only one way to find out.”
As she got out of the car, a cold breeze lifted the hair from her neck. Dried leaves swirled around her feet, and shiver worked its way down her spine. Not for the first time, she wished she’d grabbed a jacket on her way out that morning. As she turned to walk toward the gate, Dylan glanced at her watch and blanched. Sixty-nine hours, forty-two minutes, and ten seconds remaining.
Chapter 6 - Dylan
Dylan tested the gate with a tentative hand. It was locked. There was no bell to ring. No buzzer or intercom, and calling Frankie was out of the question. The networks had crashed days ago, and standing around in the open made her a target for any passing undead.
“Here goes nothing,” she muttered before climbing over. Her feet landed on the ground with a soft thud, and she pulled out her gun, just in case. “Let’s see if anyone’s home.”
With all her senses on high alert, she made her way to the front door. Along the way, she cast her gaze across the garden, noting that the grass was knee-high and the flowerbeds were overgrown. That didn’t mean her friend wasn’t there, though. Gardening wasn’t exactly a top priority during the apocalypse.
Dylan reached the front porch and walked up the steps with slow deliberation. She wasn’t at all sure she was ready for this. The thought of Frankie jumping out at her as a zombie was almost enough to make her turn around and flee.
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