The Infected.

Chapter - 2 -

2.

Max's favorite movie The Matrix was just coming to an end when my dad walked through the door, holding a bag of apples and a few cans of something.

"Max," His voice was commanding and stern, causing me and my brothers eyes to both snap to him in confusion. My dad being a generally a happy guy and only stern when he has to be.

"Go and get ready for bed." He placed the cans and apples on the table with a grunt, as Max awkwardly got out of his seat.

"But dad, it's only 8:30.." Max whined, my dads eyes narrowed as his eyebrows furrowed. "Now." My brother took off up the stairs, and I winced when I heard his door slam.

"Come here Francesca." My dad never uses my full name, usually calling me Fran, Franny or Francis. My eyes looked at him with concern, his brown eyes looked into mine, stress, worry, panic. My dad is an open book, you can tell exactly what he's thinking or if he's lying.

I took heavy steps towards him, my feet weighing me down and feeling like sand bags.

He pulled out a dining room chair for me and I sat on it, looking at the dark oak of our table, scratches decorating its surface.

My dad pulled out a chair of his own, beside me. Sitting himself down, he reached out and clutched my pale hand in his tan ones.

"One of them was at the market." My heart dropped and a surge of panic whelmed up in me. One of them, he means one of the infected.

My eyes snapped away from the table and to him, biting my tongue. This is getting worse faster than expected.

"Are you okay?" My voice was thick with anxiety and fear, searching his face for any sort of problem. He looked tired and worn down, and I just now realized how much older my dad looks, stress lines and worn out eyes, sleepless nights showing on his face.

"I'm fine. I'm just worried about you two, what if one of those things get into your schools?" I myself have thought about that, what if one of those things did get into our school, and did end up hurting one of my class mates, my friends or even my baby brother.

I've never seen one in person, but there are people who have, many in fact but not many here in the U.S. It's scary to think one day I'll have to face them, protect myself against them.

"What happened?" His hands lightly squeezed mine and he sighed, leaning back in the creaky old wooden chair.

"It was a woman, or a man. I'm not even sure, it was so rotted."

I sat quietly and viewed by dad as he thought back to this thrilling experience, before all of the craziness went down.

"No one even realized it was there until it took a chunk out of the man beside me." I placed a hand to my mouth, realizing just how close I was to losing my dad.

What would I do without my dad?

"He was screaming bloody murder, and it pulled him to the ground like--like it was some animal." His voice shook, and he suddenly stood up, cutting the story short as he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.

"Go get ready for bed time yeah? I'm going to go tuck in your brother." I nodded, gulping, trying to visualize what my dad just saw hours ago.

"Alright." He turned away from me and quickly brought his feet up the stairs, leaving me alone and staring at the pale blue wall of our dining room.

One was in town.

I tried to grasp the reality as to how close we are to world domination of this disease, but I couldn't. I couldn't fathom what the world has come to.