The Boy

Chapter Three : Exodus

Chapter Three : Exodus

Outside again he could breath and his heart was slowing from the fever pitch that it had been next to the corpse. The front door was closed now but no matter, the house was no longer a safe haven and the thought of spending the night here chilled him. Better to move on than be here if that woman resurrected, not that she would. Now that he thought about it, he didn't know how they turned or if a dead person could return. Personally he had seen living people consumed by sickness to the point of death only to reanimate. But could a corpse become infected postmortem? If she did resurrect he wouldn't stand a chance of taking her on, she would overpower him easily. The thought sickly dawned on him that it might be prudent to disable her now.

Not sure how he was going to do it and not even sure of the best method either. If he destroyed her head would she be unable to come back? He would like to think someone without a head was never going to arise but he wasn't betting his life on it. He sat in the kitchen quietly thinking of his next move. After a minute the ticking of seconds passing from the clock on the wall made him aware that for three and a half days, time had had no bearing on his life. It was mid morning now and the day was slipping away. With no way to remove or even be sure that the dead woman would never rise again, it made his next choice easy.

Racking his brain for a safe place to go seemed a futile endeavor. Before the event there were lots of places he would be safe, people he could rely on and ways to get there. Now the he was sure of nothing and the loneliness was haunting him. Being here was the all time low of his life and there was no bright side to the situation. Nothing good could come from this, not for him anyway and for a moment the thought of giving it away, just letting go and passing on flicked through his mind. Really he didn't have the strength to follow through with any thoughts of suicide and every impulse in his body was telling him to survive at all costs, no matter what. The next two hour he spent snacking and drinking, trying to regain some of his strength. Really a couple of days would be best but he didn't have the time. It was already after noon and he hadn't decided on a house to shift to. He had searched all the rooms for a bag to carry supplies in and found nothing with the exception of a collection of old supermarket bags made from thin plastic. Not the most stealthy thing to be walking around with. He would need a backpack if he was going to brave the streets. He thought of his school backpack next door and shuddered. Not knowing the danger was better than returning to his home, never again in his life would he set foot in that house. The next place he could think of that would have a backpack was another kid from his school that lived at the end of the street, his house was on the corner with a large fence running around the side and enclosing half the front yard. With a lack of other options he made his mind that this would be the next place he would venture. Hopefully the house would be vacant or even better have survivors. He hadn't seen any since this hell started but he was sure there were some out there. For the first time he realized that he had no idea how far the outbreak, if that's what it was, had spread. So little was known and it happened so fast. family's were told to stay indoors, national emergency protocols broadcast, non of it mattered, people turned anyway and all major communication went down.

Now that he knew where he was going he started thinking about what he would need. Water was the first thing that came to his mind, he had no wish to be stuck without water again. And maybe a little food, something easy to carry. So far the garden fork was the best weapon he had come across. It would be nice to have a couple of pointy sticks so he set about using a knife from the kitchen to sharpen the broom handle. Deciding he had better go soon, he jammed the water bottle into one of his pants pockets and a bag of lollies into the other pocket. He detached the broom head and put the fork by the front door. Finally he used a scrap of newspaper to make a seal on the first bedroom. He had seen it in an old bond film, how to use a hair to tell if the door had been opened while you were out. With no need to conceal the seal he spat on a strip of news paper and stuck it across the door and frame. Taking the keys he found on the kitchen bench he checked the lock. He felt confident that if things went bad he could make it back here. His fear of something getting into the house outweighed his fear of being locked out in an emergency and with that he locked the front door behind him.