Before the Storm

I screamed. I screamed louder than I think I ever had in my entire life. I screamed so loud that I felt my throat begin to get that terrible irritation tickle like when you get really sick. I was crawling backwards with a start, the pain in my rib cage temporarily forgotten once I was faced with this new, more urgent problem. I kicked the sick man in the face, causing him to recoil away from me momentarily before making more advances towards me.

My head whipped around from side to side in search for my brother, my hair sticking to my face from the sweat that had accumulated on my skin. Both from being so close to the multiple roaring fires, and from the sudden adrenaline rush.

The man slammed his hand down around my ankle, grabbing hold and wrapping his fingers around my ankle. I screamed again and tried my best to shake the man off of me, but his hand was like a vice and there was no getting him to let go any time soon. He growled at me, his yellowed eyes darting all around and mouth wide open, ready to take a bite out of my calf.

Suddenly, a single gun shot sounded above all the other noise in the area, and the sick man fell limp at my feet, blood seeping out of the fresh bullet wound in his skull. I looked behind me and saw Zack running towards me, sniper rifle in one hand and the other held out towards me.

Once he had a hold around my wrist again, he dragged me the rest of the way to the SUV, me barely being able to keep up with him and stumbling over my feet every few steps. Once we were by the vehicle, Zack ripped the door open and practically threw me inside, slamming the door and running over to the other side to get in himself. He closed the door right in time for another one of the sick people to slam themselves against both sides of the car.

I jumped, looking on in horror at the multiple sets of snapping teeth and people literally trying to claw their way inside the car. "Get us outta here, now!" I screamed, not one inch of me not horrified.

Without a word, he slammed the key into the ignition and threw the car into drive, stomping on the gas pedal so fast that the tires actually squealed on the pavement as we left. The people that were up against the car were flung in all different directions with how fast we had taken off.

I sat in the front seat of the speeding car, feeling like I had just had a near death experience and on the verge of crying once again for possibly the millionth time today. My body was full on shaking and there was nothing that I could do to stop it.

"Are you okay? Did it get you?" Zack asked, trying to check me over and keep his eyes on the road all at the same time.

We were swerving in and out of people, cars, and other debris that had fallen into the road. I could barely even breath because I had started hyperventilating. All that came out of my mouth whenever I opened it were sobs and cries.

"Here," Zack leaned back into the back seat where our bags were and grabbed a bottle of water that he had in one of the side pockets of his back pack. "Have some water."

I grabbed the bottle from him with an extremely shaky hand and unscrewed the lid, bringing it up to my lips and trying my best to take a drink without spilling the rest down the front of me. He took a sharp turn to the left, which ultimately threw me into the side of the door and causing my ribs to throb once again, bringing my attention back to them.

I groaned out loudly and placed my hand onto the sore spot, trying my best to soothe them. I knew they weren't broken; At most they were just severely bruised. "I'm fine, except for someone kicking me." I said, finally answering his question. He looked over at me in both fear and confusion. "Someone kicked me when they tripped over me in the street."

Zack just looked forwards and kept his eyes on the road, staying silent after my explanation. We were nearing the freeway again, and that just meant getting farther away from the city. I began looking around me frantically when I noticed we were leaving.

"Wait, wait," I stammered. "Where are we goin'? We can't leave yet!" I said, my voice cracking.

"Are you crazy? We're getting as far away from this place as we can!" He shook his head and dismissed what I had just said entirely.

"No! Turn around, we have to go back! What about Mom and Dad?!" I screamed, getting more and more upset with each little bit of road that we put behind us.

"Jaycee, they're not coming! They're gone!" He yelled back just as loud. He slammed his hand down onto the steering wheel, not having noticed at first that the hand he used to punch the wall earlier at the refuge had been bandaged up. "They're either far away from here, or they're dead!"

I knew at that instant when he said the word 'dead', my entire body drained of all it's color and I had turned pale white. Dead? Mom and Dad couldn't be dead ... They couldn't be.

"I don't believe you." I whimpered.

"Tough shit, Jay. You know it's true, weather you wanna believe me or not."

I shook my head slowly back and forth, not wanting to believe it for a second. They were alive, they had to be. They were probably holed up in a building with other survivors, just waiting to be rescued. They were probably thinking about the two of us, hoping that we were safe and out of harms way. If only they knew we were here instead of back at the house.

Or maybe Zack was one hundred percent right. Maybe they were gone. They could have gotten out like we did and were on the side of the road somewhere. Or they could be dead. They could be one of the sick.

Another fit of sobs erupted from my lips, startling Zack from the silence being broken. I couldn't think like that because it would only make matters worse. I had to imagine them alive and well, otherwise I didn't think that I would be able to carry on at all.

"We're gonna need to get gas and some supplies." Zack said after a while of driving. "We can't afford to get low on anything until we know when this whole thing is gonna end."

All I could do was nod my head. I didn't trust myself to open my mouth again without bursting out crying. I couldn't even begin to explain what all emotions were swirling around inside me. My heart was hurting something fierce. I just wanted my parents back, but it didn't look like that was going to happen anytime soon. Who would have thought that when I saw them this morning, it'd be the last.

"There should be a gas station up here somewhere." He said quietly, more to himself than to me. I could barely hear him as is; Everything sounded miles away from me at this point. I nodded my head again.

We drove on through the night along with the rest of the cars full of angst ridden people just trying to get away like the rest of us. I glanced down at the radio clock and saw that it was roughly 10 o'clock. I had a feeling that the rest of this night wasn't going to be getting any better.



We pulled into an Exxon station that was on the side of the road about ten miles outside of Atlanta. It was crazy how many people had gotten here already. The parking lot was a total mad house; Zack had to squeeze his way in and even then, we barely avoided getting hit by other people. We pulled up next to one of the gas pumps and we both got out.

"Make sure you stick close to me." Zack instructed. I nodded my head and grabbed hold of one of the belt loops on his jeans just to make sure that nothing like earlier happened again.

We got inside the place and people were running around frantically grabbing whatever they could, not even bothering to pay for things before they had left. Not like we could have paid for anything anyway, from the looks of it, there wasn't a single store clerk to be found.

Zack went around back of the counter and grabbed a fist full of plastic bags that we could use to stock up on whatever we could get our hands on that wasn't already taken. He came back around and handed me a few of the bags and the first place that we went to grab stuff were the back coolers where all of the drinks were kept. There were only a few water bottles left, which wasn't anything too surprising. Still, Zack didn't look too happy about it, and instead grabbed a bunch of teas and juices that would suffice until we could find more. Soda just wasn't an option.

Next, we went to the food cases and he cleaned out what he could while I knocked a whole bunch of random snack foods. And jerkey. Lots and lots of jerkey.

Zack looked around for a few minutes when we were up at the front of the store and saw a couple gas cans laying around on the floor that had been knocked over. He grabbed one, before motioning for me to follow him back out into the parking lot. All in all, we were in and out of the store within ten minutes.

We threw our stuff into the back of the SUV and Zack began filling the car up with gas, making sure to top it off before moving on to the gas can that he had picked up, just in case we needed more in between towns.

Once we were finished, we quickly got back into the car and sped off, not even bothering to look back once we had left the parking lot.

"Where are we going now?" I asked, curious as to what our destination was.

"I don't know ... Maybe we could go a couple towns over? I'm not risking going back to the house."

"But what if it's not that bad?"

"I said no, Jaycee."

I slumped down even farther into the seat and crossed my arms over my chest. I looked out the window with a hard stare on my face. I felt like anything and everything that I said was being shoved aside and disregarded by him. If we were supposed to be in this together, he was doing a lousy job at it.

"We'll drive until we find somewhere safe. We'll sleep in the car if we have to." He looked over at me sympathetically. "I'm not lettin' anything happen to you, okay?"

I nodded my head, returning his gaze with a half smile before looking back out of my window again. I was completely at a loss on what we should be doing if we weren't going back to the house. I just hoped that my brother knew what he was doing.