Tooth and Nail (Draft In Progress - Book One)

Chapter 5 - Stationary Trucker

On the second morning, there was a fuzzy sort of static sound traveling through the hollow halls. Jezebel walked along the wooden floor between the carpeted living room and the different hardwood that had been water sealed beneath the bar and in the kitchen.Tamerlyn wasn't out there making noise, and Allen hadn't been beside her when the sun woke her.  She turned the corner from her path into the front corridor that ran to the front door, and past Connor's room. She winced. The sound was coming from there.

Avery and Drew hadn't yet left the residential hall's guest room, so she knew it would only be the three of them in this part of the house. Jezebel stepped across the emotional threshold from the main corridor into the short hallway that only had two doors adjacent to each other, on her right and ahead of her. To her left on the solid wall were three hooks holding his quick-access things: Bookbag, coat and jacket, bicycle helmet, and below these hanging things, propped against the wall, was his red beat-up Ripstick. The doors were closed, but Jezebel could hear the faint mumbling of people in Connor's room, probably sitting on his bed. She felt an angry tingling rise from her toes and rush through her body, a painful adrenaline. They were in his room. She knew she couldn't tell them that his room was off limits because that would be stupid. She couldn't tell them that a whole bedroom wasn't allowed to be used because she was sentimental, and clinging to the hope that her brother would come home from Band Camp in San Marcos, more than an hour's drive away.

A drive that was now too long, too dangerous. A rescue mission wouldn't be an option, even if they thought they had a chance of finding him in the hilly college terrain, looking for one among hundreds of fourteen year old boys, surrounded and dwarfed by the students living on campus during the summer. The small college city would be chaotic. There was no chance of finding the boy.
Jezebel gingerly opened the door to what was half what she expected. Allen and Tamerlyn were sitting on her bed. But they weren't talking to each other. That wasn't the source of the mumbling she had heard from the hall. Tamerlyn was holding the microphone end of a CB Radio receiver to her mouth, asking if anyone had any news about the situation outside.
Allen watched her with rapt attention as she turned the pinkie-sized volume dial and listened carefully to the static voices coming through the ancient speaker. Jezebel caught fragments of things people were saying.
Families advised-
Chasing cars-
Fire at UT-
Central Texas - ... - lock down-
Walkers all over-
"Walkers?" Jezebel asked aloud. Allen and Tamerlyn each jumped with surprise. Neither had seen her walk in. They looked distraught.
Tamerlyn opened her lips to speak but Allen's voice croaked out first. "That's what they're calling them." Jezebel cocked her head, confused. "Anyone with a CB is broadcasting what they know. And so far, we've heard people call them Walkers."
"Yeah. Police have been sending out messages all day about how to avoid being bitten." Tamerlyn added, a small smile creeping into her frown. It snagged the corner of her mouth upwards in a flinch, and her nostrils flared. Jezebel knew the look. She was trying not to be amused. She found this very exciting and was trying not to be disrespectful by showing her twisted pleasure of getting to use a CB Radio in a seemingly apocalyptic situation.
Jezebel felt sick. Sick to her stomach. They were listening to the radio, possibly communicating with the outside world, and no one thought to tell her. No one asked her if she had anything to say. Suddenly, a loud and clear voice came over the radio. "This is Big Wheely to Haven. Come in, Haven."
Tamerlyn, who had been looking intensely at Jezebel with apologetic eyes, quickly broke her strong gaze and just as soon pressed down the "send" button on the side of the mic. "This is Haven," she said, sounding very professional and uncharacteristically mature.
"We have just received a message from a science lab at TSU," the voice said before the message ended and was replaced by loud, fuzzy, radio silence. Tamerlyn stammered and held down the button again.
"What's the word?"
"Well," they began. "The people at the lab say the campus is mostly empty. A lot of the kids who were there got picked up, and only a few got bitten. Which is a surprise, considering."
Tamerlyn looked confused. "Considering what?"
Nothing for a moment. They held their breath for the suspense to end. "Considering that the disease started there."