After recovering from the heart wrenching business of making phone calls, I thought we should try to get some information on what was happening. After all, it had been over 24 hours since we left the cinema, there had to be news. I walked into the living room again, and sat on the couch, flipping over magazines on the coffee table looking for a remote. I found it beside the seat cushion. I clicked on the TV, which was a little older and took a few seconds to warm up. Once on, we got a nice clear shot of static. I hit the channel up button a few times, but got nothing. As I let out a defeated sigh, Thom piped up.
"Denny, look. She has a PVR."
Sure enough, sitting under the TV was a black box that just might contain some answers. I put the TV on AUX and turned on the PVR. The menu sprung to life, a list containing a few episodes of American Idol and Grey's Anatomy, but also had one listing named 'news'. It was a long recording, some 3 hours or so. I looked over to Thom and Isabel, and they looked as pensive as I felt. I selected the news and pressed play. For the next 3 hours, we sat riveted to a newscast that didn't seem to be real. I felt like I was dreaming, the world was going hazy and surreal. It seems that the outbreak started around the time we went into the first movie, and when it hit, it hit hard. For the first couple of hours, they speculated on many causes, from the ridiculous--rabies--to the scary--terrorist viral attacks. In the third hour, they seemed to get some information that the source of the infection might be a vaccine. In particular, the swine flu vaccine. An expert on the news who had his face obscured claimed that the vaccine was rushed out to satisfy public and government demand when the swine flu hit, and that it never went through the proper channels of testing. But of course, they never thought it could do anything like this. They figured there could maybe be some side effects, but not a full blown, fast acting, contagious viral strain. It had manifested first in hospitals and clinics, and then, in a terrifying announcement, daycares. As soon as that word reached my ears, I broke into a dizzying sweat and thought of Jordan. Had anyone at her daycare been infected? Diane mentioned Jordan had a cough the previous morning, but she didn't say anything on the phone about her getting worse. Surely she would have shown signs by then. The report continued, saying that the military was called in to secure towns and cities, mainly to ensure people were not travelling to loved ones, and therefore increasing the risk of the virus spreading. The military were also confiscating and/or immobilizing all unauthorized vehicles so that people wouldn't try to get to family members and take the virus with them, spreading it like wildfire. That would make our journey difficult. In the footage shown on the newscast, the military seemed to be rounding up anyone found outside of their homes, putting them into controlled safe houses. I had to make sure I didn't end up in one of those, at least not until after I got home.
I got up and reached for the phone again when we all heard an engine roar to life outside. It had been quiet but for the newscast that it startled us. I rushed to the window to see three men getting into our car. I yelled as Thom ran out the front door with his gun out. Thom's exit from the front door was greeted by a gunshot shattering the wooden doorframe to his right, spraying shards of wood into his face. He ducked reactively, and backed up into the house again. The car kicked up dirt and started to pull away, Thom leaned out of the door and fired two random shots at the car, but they just flew through the air over the fields.
"What the fuck are we supposed to do now?" Thom screamed.
I walked over to him and put my hands on his shoulders.
"Calm down, its okay. We can just walk for a while, I'm sure we'll come across another farm soon, and we're bound to find another car."
I wasn't sure I believed my own words, but Thom seemed to, as did Isabel. I tried calling Diane again, but just got a busy signal. We stuck around for another hour, but I couldn't get through. We searched the whole house again, hoping to find a cell phone to bring with us, but came up empty handed. I brought the cordless phone anyway, figuring I would keep trying until it got out of range, which wouldn't take long, and we continued down the road heading east. It was getting late in the day now, and I was hoping we would find some sort of shelter before dark. None of us really wanted to be walking in pitch-blackness in this infected world, that much was certain.
