She took a deep breath, closing her eyes tightly as she willed herself to calm down. She needed to be clear headed and focused if the looters found them.
“We’ve got company!” Her father’s voice echoed down from the roof.
She opened her eyes and pressed the rifle more firmly against her shoulder as she focused on the street. She was ready. She could do this.
The roar of the engines and the beams of headlights cut through the night a few moments before three trucks came screeching to a halt at the top of their street. Bright spotlights were mounted on the trucks and men stood in the flatbeds, all of them shouting in delight as they waved around their guns.
It was like a movie, all they needed were some torches and pitchforks and they would be a classic mob.
She studied them through the scope of her rifle as they unloaded from the trucks. She could see that in addition to carrying guns, more than a few of them had bottles in hand. Great, just what they needed, a bunch of drunken gun-toting assholes.
Except she was wrong on the drunk part. One of the men flicked a lighter and the rag she hadn’t noticed stuffed in the bottle caught fire. The man didn’t hesitate as he hurled the bottle onto the roof of the Singh’s home, blue and orange flames spreading across the shingles. They hadn’t even bothered to go inside to take anything from the house. This wasn’t about looting, at least not anymore. They were just bent on destruction and mayhem.
The others began to toss their own Molotov cocktails, cheering as each blaze came to life. The acrid smoke drifted in the window, stinging her nose, and she had to blink away tears. She didn’t know if they were caused by the smoke or from watching the homes of families she had known for years burn.
One of the men raised his gun in the air and fired off a couple rounds, whooping it up and the others joined him, gunfire ripping through the air. It wasn’t until one of their own dropped to the ground that they realized not all of the shots were friendly fire. When another shot went off and another man dropped, they finally realized they were not alone and dove for cover.
She could hear them calling to each other and soon the spotlight on the truck was swinging around frantically, searching for the enemy fire. She was momentarily blinded by it as it passed over the house and settled on the roof. They must have spotted Quinton and Dad, as they started to fire at the roof.
She tuned out the shots she could hear coming from upstairs and focused on her own aim and began returning fire. She did not have a clear shot on any of them, but she was able to riddle the trucks with bullets which kept them from getting their own clear shots. Her world narrowed down to only her scope sight, everything else fading away as she emptied the rifle into the trucks.
It was only when she had to pull back from the window and reload that she heard her father yelling above her, followed by thundering footsteps down the stairs. Claudia and their mother burst into the living room, looking panicked.
“The fire is ready to jump to the house,” Claudia cried out. “Dad says we gotta get out now!”
She nodded and abandoned the window, heading to the back door where they had parked the Explorer. They had taken down the fence between their yard and the yard of the house behind them, giving them access to their driveway and a back way out of the neighbourhood.
Veronica took a look out in the back yard, looking for any signs of a threat but it was empty.
“Load the last bags and get in the car. I’ll go cover Dad and Quinton. We’ll be out in a minute.”
She didn’t wait for an answer, taking the stairs two at a time as she ran to the bathroom to find Quinton already clambering down the ladder. His face was pale, his eyes wet with tears and it took her a moment to notice the blood spattered across his shirt.
Veronica froze on the spot, her throat tightening up as she looked at him. He didn’t need to say a word, his anguished look said it all.
“No, no, no, no, no.”
It was the only word she could get through her constricted throat, tears filling her eyes as Quinton reached out to her. A wave of grief slammed into her and she doubled over from the pain, Quinton catching her around the waist so she didn’t fall.
“I don’t know what happened,” he told her, his voice tight with anguish. “One second he was taking them out and the next he was down. They got him right through the eye.”
She choked back a sob at his words, shaking her head as if not believing his words would change anything.
“I’m sorry, V, but we don’t have time. We’ve got to go,” he told her, pulling her out of the bathroom and down the hallway to the stairs. “The fire is already on the roof and some infected people must have heard the gunfire. They are out there right now.”
As they hit the main floor and headed to the back door, a scream ripped through the night and they both recognized Claudia’s voice. When they burst out into the yard they were met with another scene of carnage. Claudia was on the ground, halfway between the house and the car, screaming in horror at the two infected men who were bent over their mother’s body.
Before she knew it was happening, the rifle was at her shoulder and she picked off both of the men without hesitation. Quinton ran to scoop up Claudia, forcing her into the back of the car as she fought against him, trying to get to their mother.
Veronica lowered her rifle and went to her mother, bile rising in her throat as she saw her injuries. The infected men had torn into her face and neck with their teeth, ripping away chunks of her cheeks, her throat a gaping, bleeding hole.
“Mommy, I’m so sorry,” she whispered, reaching down to stroke her hair before moving down to close her blank, empty eyes.
“Veronica!”
She turned her attention to Quinton, who was standing at the driver’s side of the car, rifle aimed towards their escape route. Several more infected were coming up the driveway and Quinton fired at them. The shots were enough to shake her out of the grief, her adrenaline taking over and giving her the focus she needed to realize they didn’t have time to mourn right now. They needed to get out of here.
She took aim and dropped two more of the infected before dashing to the passenger side and jumping inside. Quinton hopped in the driver’s seat and gunned the engine, peeling off and swerving several times around the infected that had filled the streets. It looked like they had been wrong about most of the town heading for the evacuation centres. While they had been locked up in their house, the disease had swept through the town.
It belonged to the infected now.
She was glad that Quinton did not ease up on the gas, speeding like a madman through the town, the entire place passing them by in a blur. She didn’t want to see it the way it was now. It had been the place that her family had called home, the place they had built so many memories. And now, just like her family, it was broken.
She scrubbed a hand over her face, needing to gain her composure before she fell apart. They couldn’t afford it right now. Once they found somewhere safe, then she could lose it.
She turned to look at Claudia, who was curled up in the fetal position in the backseat. “Claud, honey, are you okay?”
Claudia did not react at all to her words, just staring unseeing at the back of the passenger seat. Veronica reached out and laid a hand on her arm.
“Sweetie, say something,
please
.”
Claudia remained unresponsive and Veronica glanced at Quinton, who was watching them in the rear view mirror.
“I think she’s in shock. Get a blanket on her and elevate her legs. Check her for any injuries,” he instructed and Veronica climbed into the backseat and did as he told her. Claudia behaved like a rag doll, letting her move her around at will as she checked for any injuries and found none. It sickened her to see her sister like this and she once again fought back the grief that clawed its way into her throat.
“What do we do now?” Quinton asked her when she had settled back in her seat. She looked out at the sky that was beginning to lighten, signalling the coming dawn. She thought about all of her father’s contingency plans that he had hammered into them over the years. If you lose your safe house, you get as far away from civilization as you can.
“We do what Dad taught us,” she said, “You remember how to get to the cabin?”
Subject File # 745
Administrator - How have the girls handled everything that has happened?
Subject - Better than most, I guess. They’re strong. Shouldn’t ya be askin’ ‘em that question?
Administrator - I did and I agree with you. They’re strong. I think that’s because you’ve made them that way.
Subject - Don’t know about that. They were pretty damn strong when I found ‘em.
Jackson had managed to make his way through describing
Rocky
and was half way through
Rocky II
when both girls had fallen asleep on him. Full night had set in as they continued down some back road he hadn’t gotten the name of when they had turned onto it. All he cared about was that it was pointed east, towards the ocean. He’d worry about finding the right roads when they got closer to the coast.
The only light came from the van’s headlights and the moon when it peeked out from behind the clouds. The neon blue numbers on the dashboard told him it was just after two in the morning. It had been nearly twelve hours since they had left the trailer park but it felt a lot longer than that. He couldn’t see any twinkling lights in the distance, no sign if they were driving by a town or more farmland. All he could see was the stretch of yellow lines dividing the pavement in front of him and they passed by him in an easy rhythm.
Suddenly the loud pinging of gravel hitting against the undercarriage sounded and he started awake. He had drifted off at the wheel and the van gone off the pavement and towards the ditch. Panic had him wrenching the wheel hard in the opposite direction, the van swerving wildly before he brought it back under control and slowed it down.
“What happened?”
He looked in the mirror and saw Audrey had woken up during the commotion.
“Nothin’,” he grunted. “Gonna look for a place for us to park. I gotta get a few hours shut eye.”
He found the perfect spot only half a mile up the road where it spanned over a narrow creek. The creek had suffered from a dry spring and the waterline was much lower than normal. He drove the van off the road, carefully navigating the embankment to where the bridge supports met the ground.
Normally the water would meet the supports but the low water line meant it was just a dry creek bed with plenty of space to park the van under the cover of the bridge. No one passing by would know they were there.
He killed the engine, shifting around in his seat to find a comfortable position as he rested his head against the window. It wasn’t long after he shut his eyes that the little one began to fuss in the back.
At first it was soft mewling that turned into whimpering as she began to thrash in her seat. Audrey reached out to her and the moment she made contact with Hannah’s arm, she bolted up in the seat, an ungodly scream tearing from her mouth.
Jackson cracked his head against the window as he jumped in surprise, cursing up a blue streak as he rubbed at the rapidly forming bump on his skull. It took him a moment to find the button for the interior light and when it clicked on, the scream was choked off by a sob as Hannah began to bawl, babbling all the while.
“I want Mommy! Where’s Mommy? Where’s Daddy? I want Mommy and Daddy!”
Girl didn’t seem to remember anything about what had happened, at least not while she was still half asleep.
Audrey did her best to console the girl, trying to hold her and shushing her softly but Hannah fought her, trying to scramble out of her arms as she called out for her dead parents. Audrey looked at Jackson, her eyes filled with tears and pleading with him to do something. Problem was he had no idea what the hell he was supposed to do.
He turned around in his seat and leaned over the centre console to come eye to eye with the crying child.
“Hey!” he boomed in a loud voice, causing both girls to jump and the sobs to stop. Hannah stared at him, eyes red and wide, her bottom lip trembling and her gutted look had him reaching out to take her hand.
“Ya remember me?” Hannah bobbed her head as she sniffled. “Good. Ya remember we talked ‘bout how your Ma and Pop had to go away and how I’m gonna be takin’ care of ya now?”
She nodded her head again and he sighed in relief to see the matter was handled. Maybe now they could get some real sleep.
“Where are they?”
He tried not to glare at the girl. It wasn’t her fault she didn’t understand his shitty explanation from earlier. How the hell was he supposed to explain death to a six year old?
“They went to visit Grandma,” Audrey answered for him and he breathed a sigh of relief. If she wanted to lie to her sister, it wasn’t any business of his. They were the family, not him.
“In Heaven?” Hannah asked and Audrey nodded silently. He could see tears filling her eyes, one of them slipping out to creep down her cheek. “I want to go there. I want to be with Mommy and Daddy and Grandma.”
Audrey squeezed her eyes shut, biting her bottom lip and Jackson knew that he couldn’t leave this thing solely in the girl’s lap.