Outbreak ('Them or Us' ,Book one)

Chapter 2: The Plan

On our third morning at my Grandmothers house I was shook awake by my brother, I looked at Molly who was still asleep next to me, then to the clock on the bedside table it was quarter to ten in the morning.

I ruffled my hair and sat up in bed, I hadn’t slept in anything but my boxers so I pulled the covers up to my chest, “Sup lil’ bro?” my voice was groggy and I rubbed the sleep from my eyes.

“Nana made breakfast, she told me to wake everyone.”, he looked confused. 

“What’s up pal?”, I said shoving his arm gently in a playful manor.

He shoved me back, I sleepily fell into Molly waking her up, “G’mornin’” she grumbled, turning her back to us and falling asleep again. I looked at my brother, still waiting for his answer. 

My brother chuckled and said, “well she’s made us porridge and chicken.” he pulled a funny face and we both laughed out loud. 

Though I laughed I knew it wasn’t funny, it could mean Gran was having one of her notorious bad days, I asked Max if she was happy and he seemed to think so, so I help him wake the rest of the house and warned them about breakfast, it took us six attempts to wake Molly (she wasn’t exactly a morning person, though I‘d never met an 18 year old who was!) but she finally surrendered when we pulled the duvet off the bed and refused to give it her back. 

Though half asleep and worried about the after effects we were all sat around the dining table  by five past ten.

Luckily, the chicken wasn’t in the porridge it was on a side plate and we were able to eat the two separately, it was still strange to eat chicken after porridge, but it was all cooked well and I wasn’t hungry, so I guess all worked out well. 

When my Grandma’ was washing the dishes and my brother playing with some of his action figures I turned to my mother and Molly, who were sat across from me. 

“We need a plan.” I’d been thinking of ideas before I’d slept the night before, but I wasn’t the oldest nor the most intelligent and there was no saying that everyone would agree with my plans, so I’d decided to turn to my mother and Molly, together we could create a strategic, logical plan, hopefully one that was risk free. 

I didn’t mention that I thought we needed weapons, preferably a gun, because I knew they wouldn’t approve of having fire arms around a six year old and a fragile 73 year old woman. So I told the two women what I thought we needed, the necessities and between us we decided that petrol,  food and water were the most important, for we already had enough clothes with us.

Then we began devising a plan on how to get and contain them. 

Water was easy for now, the supplies to the house were still running, which we were grateful for we had heard on the emergency broadcasts on the TV and radio that as the infection spread down in the South of England that many places had begun losing electricity and water, At least in the North of England we still had electricity, gas and Water. We decided that we would store  water in any empty plastic bottles we could find, luckily there was a recycling bin full of them outback and within an hour we had twenty-four  plastic bottles (varying between one and three litres) full of fresh tap water loaded into the boot of my Grandma’s old Land Rover. She hadn’t drove since before she’d gotten ill, but my mother had driven it till two months ago when she bought her own car. We decided that as her car was only a Ford Focus the Land Rover would be more suitable, it was roomier and had a larger tank, a larger tank meant we wouldn’t have to stop to fill it as much, broadening our chances of staying safe from whatever was out there. The further we got without stopping, the further we were from danger.