𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐬𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐬.

ii. 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐮𝐧𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰𝐧 .

day five .
location: between nashville and gatlinburg, tennessee.

It had taken almost a full day to get to the mountains, between the never ending line of traffic attempting to get out of the city and the sheer amount of time it took to clear the main roads at all.

No matter which way they'd turned, miles of cars lay between them and the comfort of being out of the heart of the city. Fights on every corner, police and military-grade blockades. But they managed well enough.

Nothing a quick flash of an ID and stern glare didn't help with. Caleb was happy to lend his expertise in the latter.

They'd stopped not long after they'd cleared the first wave of traffic, parked in the lot of a long-abandoned storage facility while they stopped to eat.

For the most part, Nora was not overtly restless, and didn't really seem to question what was going on. She was content to color and sleep and stare absently out into the chaos devolving around them.

Perhaps it was just the comfort of having so much time with her mother, after longs days of hardly seeing her. Or perhaps she was just so in-tune with her mother that she could understand the tension coiled in her shoulder blades.

Ana, on the other hand, was about as tightly wound as her mother, and couldn't keep her gaze off everything around them, tense and ready to pounce. She'd hardly spoken a word the whole trip, but she listened adamantly to whatever was broadcasting on the radio.

"Are you okay to keep driving?" Jesse had asked hours later, the trio of adults tucked closely between their two vehicles while Rocky went a short ways away to do his business. Her gaze shifted warily to the large group of people seemingly gearing up for a fight across the street and Natalie understood the direction of her questioning.

"If I can work 24 hour shifts, I can handle being in the car for a while longer," she answered, smile light on her lips though her voice was void of any humor. "We should go while we still can."

And they had, beginning the long journey deep into the mountain, passing more cars than they were following. Most were using the mountain road to get to the other side, to find a haven in North Carolina, or from North Carolina to Tennessee. Neither were safe, it seemed, if what the radio announcers were saying was true. But it wasn't long before they stumbled upon cabins left unattended in the peak of summer.

None of them slept much those first few days, sans Nora and occasionally Ana, as they spent long hours sat in front of the TV, changing channels when the one they were watching seemed to flicker or cut out. And they all did, one by one.

All they could do now was plan and wait.

—

day twenty-three .
location: a cabin in the great smokey mountain range, tennessee.

It'd been over two weeks since they'd planted themselves in the cabin, pulled the cars behind it and locked themselves up inside. There was still power, minimal as though it was, and it seemed as though it was kept in good condition for the summer tourists. The ones that refused to stay through the cold months, came to see the sights and left in a matter of weeks.

From the back windows, giant plumes of thick, dark smoke could be seen curling up from the city, where the military had taken to dropping bombs in an attempt to eradicate the dead that were quick to swarm it. It did little to help the situation, at the end of the day, as they only seemed to get back up again, charred and in pieces.