This Would Be Paradise (Book 1)-A Zombie Novel

Chapter 11

If I had to listen to one more word about My Little Pony* I was going to shoot someone, literally. I had a gun now. I brought Chloe those Scooby-Doo books so I wouldn't have to put up with something like this for the whole ride but alas being a nine year old took over and the books no longer held her attention. So here we were listening to the epic tale of the Cutie Mark Crusaders trying to hook up their teacher and some dude with a magic potion. All I could think while listening to the story was we have something like that in real life and we call it alcohol.

I grinned out the window at my internal conversation and tried to drown out her rather demanding little voice. We had finally got out of the city using the back roads and absolutely horribly designed one ways. Luckily we didn't run into any infected just a couple of other vehicles heading in the opposite direction. They all had junk piled on their roofs as they sped into the city, no doubt trying to get to the emergency shelters. I knew most of those shelters would fall just like the school had but the travelers wouldn't listen. We even flagged down a mini-van and tried to tell them about the city being overrun but they refused to believe us. I guess if you hadn't seen it yourself, you would have a hard time swallowing the truth.

"Hey look it's a van!" Chloe exclaimed suddenly.

We all peered out the windshield to see a newer model of a Dodge Caravan barrelling down the one way. Unfortunately we were going the wrong direction on it so Ethan slowed and moved over as far as he could with the truck. The van would be able to squeeze through, if they slowed down that was. Just before they reached us they finally slowed down and stopped. The driver got out of the van and started to approach the truck.

"Stay here," Ethan said firmly to Chloe and she just nodded her head.

We all stared at the tanned, middle aged man walking calmly towards the truck. Ethan rolled down the window before hopping out, no doubt to allow us to hear the conversation.

"Ah, you're kind of in the way," The man said to Ethan.

"Sorry about that, had to use these roads to get out of the city," Ethan said back.

"Why not the interstate or main arteries?" He asked confused.

Ethan sighed, obviously not liking to be the bearer of bad news,

"We just came from one city shelter they had set up and it was overrun. We figured the safest thing would to lay low for a while in the country while we waited for the government and military to organize everything."

"We're heading to the stadium one, was that the place you guys were coming from?" The man asked.

"No the high school near downtown."

"Well maybe the stadium is fine."

"I wouldn't take that chance," Ethan looked over at the van, "Especially with your family in tow."

"We don't know what else to do," The guy shrugged helplessly.

Oh god, Ethan better not ask them to come with us. The last thing we needed were more liabilities, although in all fairness that's all we were to Ethan when he offered.

"You should turn back around and stay outside city limits."

"Thanks for the advice but I think we will stick with our plan."

Ethan looked really torn as he almost pleaded with the man,

"Look, I have a huntin' cabin 'bout another two-three hours from here. You and your family are welcome to come with us."