Infection

Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

“…along the Central Highway, and the authorities will be sealing off the South and East highways to prevent the infection from spreading to the quarantined North. The North and West have been relatively cleared of the infection…” Ashlyn sat at the table listening to the radio broadcast.

After Jake had left, she rummaged around the room more and found an old portable radio in the back of the storage room. A couple of digs at the teachers’ desk had got her some batteries for the radio, which was surprisingly still functional. It was a small black radio, roughly the size of a small notebook, and had a broken plastic screen and a slightly rusty antenna.

A chill had run down her spine as she realised that they were currently all the way down south. Getting up to the north normally only took a couple of hours, but that was by car. It was relatively fast, but they had no means of transport and on top of that, it would be dangerous to travel on foot. There wasn’t much of a choice though; if they didn’t make it to the quarantine zone in time, the highways there would be shut off. Part of her began to feel that the layout of the city was completely ridiculous, though she had never felt that way prior. Only three large, main highways to the north region, over a small sea which cut through the city.  

If she could get back home, perhaps she could get the spare car in the garage. Her father had two vehicles, one which he usually drove to work, and another larger SUV meant for the family. Ashton also had a smaller sedan. She prayed that both of them would have safely escaped the infected. Her father worked up north, he should be at the quarantine zone by now…

Sebastian could probably drive them all up to the north.

Sebastian!

In the midst of the chaos, she had completely forgotten about her butler back at home. The house only had four occupants: her father, brother, herself and her butler. She gasped. Was he alright? If he was, he would have already escaped by now. Perhaps he might have even taken the car. In such a situation, she couldn’t blame him for wanting to save himself.

Two knocks on the door.

Ashlyn got up and went over to the door. “Jake?”

“Yeah, open up.”

She stepped back and opened the door. Jake entered, with another girl behind him, smiling at her shyly.

Ashlyn returned the smile wearily. She closed the door after the both of them had entered. “So you did find the girl.” She said, relieved.

“Hi, my name’s Jessica…”

“Ashlyn.”

Jake nodded. He was about to say something, then heard the static of the radio.

“Oh, I need to tell the both of you something. What I heard on the radio. They also said the report would be repeated in a while, so leave the radio on first.”

They sat down at a table and Ashlyn told them about the radio broadcast; about the routes shutting off, the quarantine zone, and the infection.

“That’s… wow.” Jessica said, wide-eyed.

“Then we’ll head up straight from there after checking out your house.” Jake nodded, with a grim expression. It was going to be tough, now with a time limit of two days on top of the dangers lurking around. It was quite unlucky that they were in the south.

“I’m not sure if there’s a point getting back to my place. Dad works in the north, he has no reason to head back down home. He’ll probably have gone straight to the quarantine zone. And my brother has his own car, and his campus is slightly further up toward the north. I also doubt he’ll head back down if he heard the radio…”