Outbreak

Chapter 13

Ivy

I haven't stopped smiling all morning. Neither has anyone else, I don't think. We finally have hope. After five months of surviving in hell, we have hope. 

After we received the transmission, everyone leapt up, some accidentally knocking their chairs over. We left our breakfast untouched, any thought of eating abandoned. 

Taylor, Quinn, and I all sprinted to our room. 

We barely had any belongings in the first place, and since we all sleep in our clothes all we really had to throw into our packs were stray guns or knives, sweaters, and our phones. While Quinn ran off to grab her medkit and find some form of crutch for Mal, the rest of us grabbed any spare backpack or seal-able bag we could find, and began to throw any long-lasting foods into them.

After an impressive thirty minutes, we were ready. 

Eric, despite his apparent zero hours of sleep the previous night, divided the group into two smaller ones. One would be made of stronger, faster people, to scout ahead. He led this one, consisting of myself, Jason, and Michael. In the less fast group went Ezran, being the co-captain, his sister, Mal with his broken leg, Taylor, and Emmett. 

And so we set off.

After ten minutes, we reached the outskirts of the small suburb, our groups still one large clump. We all crouched on the edge of the roof, the beautiful forest of Ontario lying before us. A few cars lay scattered on the long road stretching into the trees, and Austin turned to us. It was clear he had a plan.

"Okay. Ezran, you and I are going to get down there and sprint to those cars. You remember how to drive, right?" Ezran rolls his eyes. 

"Pfft. When you've taught yourself to drive in five minutes while escaping from a zombie horde, it's kind of hard to forget." Eric grins. 

"Good. Once we find two with enough fuel and keys, we drive them back to the building, where the rest of you will get into the car that whoever's leading your group is driving. Ezran, stay behind me. Jason, set up your sniper and everyone else watch our backs and shoot anything that chases us. We'll stop for fuel as soon as we reach a petrol station, and I'll find directions on my phone to the base and send them to Ezran. Make sure your phone's always plugged in. We can't afford to lose each other. Sound good?" We all shout in determination. Ezran and him nod at each other. 

"See you on the other side." 

"Ditto."

With that, the two slide off the house (lucky it's only one story), and sprint to the cars. 

Instantly, three or four zombies emerge from behind structures and make a beeline for the two boys. Jason takes out two of them while I shoot the other two with my handgun. The cracks echo in the silent atmosphere, and are sure to attract more zombies.

We don't have much time.

Ezran and Eric have reached the cars by now, and the sound of the start of an engine comes from a black Dodge Ram. The car turns and rumbles towards us. The car that Eric ran for makes a sputtering sound, then dies. I see him fling open the door and sprint the extra twenty meters to the third car. 

I pray that it works. 

Suddenly, a zombie appears from behind the car. Jason shoots at it, but somehow misses. I focus and aim at the zombie, which is significantly faster than Eric and gaining on him. I squeeze the trigger, and thankfully it falls the the ground, just missing his feet. He gets inside the car, a Ford Everest, and starts it up. By the time he reaches us, Ezran's group has piled into the truck and are waiting for us. I slide down the vertical wall, land smoothly on the pavement, and dive into the passenger's seat. 

The collective snarl of a massive zombie horde comes from the streets, and I know that what must be the entire infected population of Norfolk County moves towards us.

"Hurry!" I scream, and the split second Michael and Jason land themselves in the back seat, Eric speeds off, Ezran right behind us.

Emmett

I stare at Ezran, trying to get my head around the fact that he is fourteen and driving a truck in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, while I am sixteen and don't have half the experience he does.

He has his eyes trained on the road, and I decide against talking to him. He probably wants to focus anyway. I turn my body to see Quinn, sitting in between Mal and Taylor. She's gripping her arm and a pained expression in formed on her face, but when she sees me it's quickly replaced with a smile. 

"How's it going?" 

I shrug. "Not too bad. How's your leg doing, Mal?" My brother, who had his face pressed up against the glass and was watching the blur of towering spruce trees fly by, turns to me, startled. 

"Huh? Oh, fine. I can't feel a thing if I don't move it. I'm just glad I'm not wearing a cast, people always say those things are nightmares." I grin. "Yeah, lucky we live on an infected apocalyptic planet and all the doctors are dead, or else you'd have to suffer with a cast." 

The whole car bursts into laughter. Smiling, I turn back to face the road. Eric's truck is about ten metres in front of us, and I can make out Michael, Jason, Ivy, and Eric all talking. I pull out my laptop and open Google, hoping to go over my online list of things that would be in the cure, but curse myself when I remember. "Right, no WiFi," I mutter. As I shove it back into my pack, Ezran looks at it for a second, before looking back at the road.

"What are you working on, anyway?" he asks curiously. 

"I've been going over the list of ingredients," I say tiredly. "And trying to find substitutes for the less easier to find ones. I've also been calculating measurements and running schematics, looking at what would happen if I added too much or too little, and seeing if the results would have a larger or smaller difference." 

He nods, thinks for a second, then looks at me. 

"Hey, don't overwork yourself. It's not like we're in a rush, anyway. And I'm sure there'll be some brilliant scientists over at the base. Seriously, don't stress." 

I force a smile, but lower my eyes when he looks away. I catch Quinn looking at me worriedly in the side mirror, and all I can think is how wrong he might be.