The Wilderness Within: A Fanfiction (Draft)

Chapter 4

After a few hours of speeding down the lonely highway, we stopped to take a break. We pulled over on the side of the road in a long stretch of plains, where we could easily see all around. Kami was sitting silently on an old tree stump while Alex sat in the driver's seat with the door open. I was about ten feet behind the car, burning the bloody sock and bandages with an old lighter I found deep in the glovebox. We watched the little flames envelope the soiled cotton, the fire turning it black and then into wispy ashes.

None of us spoke for a long time.

"Where are we even going?" asked Kami.

Alex looked at her. "What do you mean?"

Kami shook her head, looking at the sky before replying. "Those were zombies," she turned to me and I was shocked to see tears in her eyes. "Yesterday they were people like us. Do we even know why? Does anyone know?" She hugged herself tighter. "What if we go home and home isn't safe anymore? If we go back we could never get out. We don't even know why anyone changed, and any of us could just change too." She buried her face in her arms. "I don't want to die."

I left behind my smouldering ashes and sat beside her on the tree stump. "Look, I'm scared too. And I don't want to die either." I stared ahead, my eyes unfocused. "But we have nothing. We probably have a better chance of surviving if we go home than if we stay here in the middle of nowhere with no food or water or anything. We don't have to stay, but we do need a plan and I think home or at least somewhere we know is the place to go. Agreed?"

I turned my gaze on Alex, who was watching silently. He nodded. I looked at Kami. She sighed and let her shoulders drop. "Agreed."

"Then we keep going. We live on the edge of town anyway, so there shouldn't be many people around."

Kami let her head rest on my shoulder. "But I don't want to die," she repeated.

I said nothing.

It was odd to see how stoic myself and my goofy companions became over the last day. We hardly spoke for the next hour as we drove. Alex had all of his attention on the road. Kami was taking advantage of any remaining cell service to scour local and national news websites for any information at all.

"This weekend several hundred thousand people are reported to have developed rabies-like symptoms after severe seizures, causing them to attack and consume human flesh. They tend to congregate together in areas of a large human population. Other characteristics of this infection are red irises and apparent lack of speech or complex thought. These traits appear to occur after a short period of intense sneezing. The bodily fluids of any infected person, transmitted such as through a sneeze or bite, are very contagious. If you see an infected person, contact the authorities and stay inside. If you believe you are infected, stay away from others to keep the infection from spreading. Several other cases are being reported in other nations around the world. The Public Health Agency of Canada, the World Health Organisation, and various other organizations are studying the outbreak in order to prevent further spread of this pandemic."

Several versions of the same article floated around the internet, paired with shaky footage of red eyed people tearing others apart. It made me sick. Every story sounded the same, so eventually Kami stopped reading them aloud.

Around noon as we made it to the outskirts of our hometown, the car started sputtering and rolling to a stop. Alex pressed on the gas and tried to turn over the engine, but nothing happened. "No, no, no!" He slammed his fist on the wheel.

"What's wrong?" I looked around the dash helplessly.

Alex kept pressing pedals and turning the key. "I don't know!"

Kami smacked my shoulder frantically. "Up ahead!"

We stared through the windshield, where a small horde of zombies were sluggishly running down the street, straight for us.

Alex kept trying to start the car, but I grabbed my bag and shoved as much gear around as I could; water bottles, my extra jacket, the map from the glovebox. "We have to leave it." Alex gave up on the engine and I heard Kami shove some things in her bag too.

Right as I opened the door to make a run for it, four loud cracks echoed through the air, and as many zombies in the coming horde collapsed. I looked around in panic and saw an older man standing in the window of a two story house, a heavy rifle in his hand.

"Move it!" he shouted to us. "Come on 'round back, and lock the door behind you!"

I didn't stop to think about it. I leapt out of the car, my bag swinging on one shoulder, and dashed to the tall gate of the property. I pushed it open and slipped inside, shutting it only after Kami and Alex were inside too. More cracks reverberated as the stranger fired more rounds into the horde. We ran around the other side of the house and jumped in the back door. There was a bolt and a metal bar that we were able to lay across the doorframe once we were safely inside.

I leaned against the wall and tried to catch my breath. "I hope this little stunt doesn't end up killing us," I muttered shakily. After a minute I noticed that my bandaged ankle was throbbing.

I glanced at a wall and saw a picture frame hung on the wall. Inside was a photo of the bearded stranger from upstairs smiling with a young woman, probably his daughter.

Kami had already started making her way to the front of the house, so I followed her. In the front room, the door was heavily barricaded and the windows were boarded up. Several supplies were stacked up on the table, left in the middle of what seemed to be an attempt at organizing. I collapsed on a couch and put my leg up.

Alex regarded the large stacks of bottled water and MREs. "We have lots of shops in town, this can't just be a normal food store. This guy must be a prepper," he said softly.

I nodded lightly. "We'll probably see that as a good thing," I said.

Kami rubbed her arms nervously, "If he intends to help us at all. He could be a creep."

We remained crowded together in silence, glad to be off the street but anxious in our new surroundings.

Soon the popping sounds from upstairs stopped, and we heard heavy footsteps go down the hall.