Mark Clodi - Outbreak

At five am Diane seemed to regain herself and called out, “Amelia!”

Waking from her dozing Amelia rushed to Diane side, stumbling over Cory’s open suitcase and shoes.

“I am here Diane!”

“Amelia, I am dying.”

“No, no, Diane, you will be fine.”

“Amelia, don’t. I am too old and we both know what is going on.”

Amelia started to sob, quietly.

“Hey, cut it out young lady, I only get to do this once and I don’t want you to mess it up by being hysterical the last few hours of my life.”

Amelia pulled herself together, blew her nose into a tissue and tried to put on a better face for Diane. Despite her hounding Cory earlier to keep the lights off in the main room, she turned on her flashlight, keeping most of the glow covered with her fingers before turning to have a look at Diane. What she saw was ghastly, Diane was a pale, sweaty white, the painful red streaks up her arms contrasted sharply against her white skin and disappeared up past where her blouse covered her shoulders. Looking at Amelia Diane sighed heavily, “I haven’t got long now do I? I keep thinking, what if I had done something differently, defended myself instead of vomiting comes to mind, I should have done anything but that. It is foolish you know, what is done is done and, unfortunately, I cannot undo it. So what do you do? I am going to die and I bet when I go I will turn into one of them, after all I am dying because one of ‘em bit me. So I think you and the boy need to go, get into another room at least, okay?”

“Diane, I…can’t just…leave you here alone! I mean that would not be, that would be, not right!”

“Shush up, don’t say that, things have changed and leaving the room of a woman who is going to be a zombie very soon is the ‘right’ thing to do. Unless you want to either kill me now or risk me getting up and getting you and the boy. What other choices are there dearie?”

“I, I should have brought you to a hospital or a doctor!”

Diane made a pooh-poohing sound and said, “No, there is not anyone. We drove through most of the city the only people still around are keeping their heads down. What are the odds of finding a doctor? None, we both know it, a hospital? Yeah, more like an easy target for the hordes to snag some easy food from. Don’t feel guilty about anything we did good, you and I, and you have nothing to be ashamed of or sorry for. But now, you have to go. After looking at your face I don’t think I even have those few hours left that I thought I had.“

Amelia made as if to protest again, but Diane cut her off, “Amelia, you need to go. Don’t argue, don’t fight it, don’t even rationalize it, just go. Now. Please?”

Nodding 'yes' Amelia started to gather up the few things she had, making sure to get the keys to the Cadillac. After moving the furniture away from the door as quietly as she could she took a backpack that was obviously Cory’s and stuffed it full things she thought he would need. Amelia was amazed at how small some of his stuff was, his whitey-tighties were laughably tiny and the t-shirts and shorts mere weightless-spaceless scraps of clothing. This was not entirely true, of course, soon his entire pack was full with about all the clothing she could find for him. As for Cory he was asleep, he had thrown the covers off and was lying in an over-sized shirt and underwear, legs askew and arms wide open, one hand still clutching his game boy, his injured arm tightly gripping a blanket in a closed fist.

Amelia tentatively pulled the gameboy from one hand and the blanket from his other, stashing the gameboy into the top of his pack. She slung his backpack over her shoulder and didn’t know whether to take pride or be humiliated by the fact that a ten year old boy’s backpack fit over her shoulder without adjusting the straps. She half bent over the bed and lifted Cory up into a carrying position, he was far lighter than she had imagined and seemed to ‘fit’ and carry just fine. Amelia flashed the light back to Diane, who waved her off, making pushing gestures towards the door.

Looking back only once more Amelia eased the door open and stepped once again into the hallway. Cautiously she checked the hallway both directions, thankfully it was empty. Amelia had her hands full of small boy and flashlights and realized the best she could have managed would have been a lumbering shuffle if anything had been waiting for her. She made her way to the stairwell she and Diane had come up and after a few minutes she was back at the car. Amelia set her flashlight down on the hood and used her now free hand to pull out the car keys, pressing the button on the remote she unlocked the doors and put Cory into the passenger seat. After stowing the rest of the stuff in the back seat she moved around to the driver’s side, climbed in and started the car. The parking lot lights were still on and she decided to try and not call attention to herself by driving as far as she could without the lights on. As soon as she stopped she realized the brake lights still lit when she stopped, so she decided to drive, very, very slowly and use the brakes as little as possible.

As she crept back onto the highway, Amelia hoped someone was home at Max’s house and she hoped they had a spare bedroom where she could crash. The next exit was ‘Youngsfield’ and if Amelia remembered right it was not the exit she wanted, preferably she would take the Kipling exit, but she would settle for getting off at Ward road too. Of course everything could connect via the side streets too, it would just take longer.

As she passed the Youngsfield exit Amelia saw a large wreck at the bottom of it near where the highway turned into a street. A similar wreck was up ahead at the on ramp. Amelia saw a few shady looking people sitting near the on ramp, close to a gap between several wrecked cars, they saw Amelia creeping along and waved for her to pull over. Amelia waved back and hit the accelerator, preferring not to make any new friends just now. As she sped by she heard them lighting off fire works, only a second later she realized they were firing guns at her car! She tried to veer left then right to throw off their aim and while she might have been successful, it may have just been bad aim on the part of the men that caused them to miss. However the jostling woke up Cory and he gave her a series of looks, first of fear, then of recognition, then one of ‘where the hell are we?’. After getting his bearings he asked, “What happened? Where is Diane?”

“Diane didn’t make it honey, we took the car and left, we are trying to find my friend Max’s house, he has kids about your age.”

“Did you bring my stuff?” he asked.

“Yep sure did kiddo, it is in the back seat.”

Cory unstrapped his seatbelt and lurched ass end up over the front seat to grab his back pack. After going through it he seemed pretty satisfied with everything in the back, then looked again, stopped looked around on the floor and was obviously searching for something.

“What Cory? What is it? What did I forget?”

“You didn’t bring my shoes!”

“Ah, no they must be there someplace, look again.” still even as she said it Amelia could picture them in her minds eye sitting in the closet near the door. ‘Shoot.’, she thought followed by, ‘Is this really that big of deal? Well maybe he is a kid and maybe his mom bought them for him or something.’

After he finished looking again, Cory said, “No shoes, not in the car, unless they fell under the seats, sometimes that happens.”

“Well, uh, if I forgot is that okay? I mean it is summer and everything right now, I am sure shoes are more of a hassle for you than….”

“What if we have to go into a restaurant or a store? You have to wear shoes in stores, it’s the law! The police will arrest me!” Cory wailed.