Before the Storm

"What do you mean you don't want us to go?" My dad asked, somewhat confused at my request.

"Please? I - I don't feel comfortable with knowing you're gonna be in the city." I began lightly chewing on the inside of my bottom lip and felt my heart thudding violently against the inside of my chest. "It's not safe."

"Honey," My mom spoke up in a sympathetic voice. "Everything is fine. What are you so worried about?" She came up next to me and wrapped her arm around my shoulders, seeing that I was clearly upset about this.

"No, nothing is fine, Mom." I shook my head back and forth. "The virus is getting worse! A girl died right in front of me yesterday at the mall. She had the symptoms of it and she was dead before the ambulance could even get there to save her!"

"Why didn't you tell us about this sooner?" My mom asked, the concern growing on her face.

I just shrugged my shoulders, not really knowing how to explain myself. "To be honest, I was still tryin' to comprehend everything myself. It was scary, and it was hard for me to wrap my mind around."

My mom looked from me and over to my dad, who almost immediately began to shake his head back and forth. He placed his hands on his hips and stared straight at my mom. "Viv, what do you want me to do? I'm required to be there today!"

"What's goin' on?" I heard Zack ask from behind me who had made in appearance in the living room.

"Jaycee's trying to make it to where your mother and I can't go to my very important conference meeting today. The same one that she's known about for the past week now?" He said, phrasing the last bit of his sentence in a questioning format as if I had forgotten about it all together until just now.

"Jack, it makes sense on why she doesn't want us to go." My mother insisted.

Zack shrugged his shoulders, taking a large bite out of the apple he had in his hand and speaking with his mouth full, cheeks puffed out because of the food. "I don't see the problem with it." All I could do was stare at him in disbelief. "I mean, what are the odds of something really bad happening in the first place?"

I felt my throat begin to close up slightly from how much stress I was under right now, making it a bit harder for me to breathe. My head was beginning to hurt again, the headache that I had from last night not completely going away in the first place. I honestly couldn't believe this right now.

"Jay, it's only gonna be for a couple of hours. They'll be back before we even leave tonight." Zack continued.

"I don't care if it's just for a few minutes! You didn't see what I did yesterday, Zack."

"Honey, it's going to be fine." My dad said, coming closer to me and placing his large, warm hands on either side of my face. He was so close to me that I could smell his cologne mixing with the smell of the piece of peppermint gum he was currently chewing on. "You have nothing to worry about."

I closed my eyes, my muscles tensing up and I sighed deeply. It was obvious that nobody was listening to me and they were just going to go anyway, despite my own intuition telling me that it was a very bad idea. "Okay."

I felt defeated and like anything after this that I had to say was just going to be a wasted effort on my part. I felt like they weren't taking this as seriously as I was. Maybe I was just over thinking this whole thing. I had a knack for doing that with a lot of things. I could take a minuscule problem that shouldn't have even mattered and turn it into a problem the size of Texas within the matter of minutes.

"That's my girl," My dad said with a smile, and leaned forward and gave me a kiss on my forehead. "We'll be back later today." He pulled me in for a quick hug before pulling away and grabbing his car keys off of the kitchen table next to us.

My mother then came up next to me and wrapped her arms around me, giving me a hug as well. "I love you, honey. We'll see you in a little bit."

It seemed as though everything was moving faster than it really was, but at the same time everything was moving in slow motion. I was cemented to the floor in my spot as I watched my mom go over and give Zack a hug before following my dad out the front door. I wanted to scream, to reach out for them and hold onto them so that they would just stay here with me and my brother.

I blinked my eyes and I was thrust back into a normal speed as the front door closed behind them and they got into the car before driving down the long dirt road. I looked over at my brother just standing there. The entire house was overly silent and it was actually pretty eerie. Even more so, there were no sounds coming from outside, either. Normally I would be able to hear the cattle from our neighbors, or even just a bird tweeting carelessly in the trees. But there was nothing.

I shook my head back and forth, not even uttering a single word to Zack. I had nothing to say to him right now, and I just wanted to be alone. I sprinted up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time and went into my room, shutting my door a little bit louder than I had originally planned on. I glanced at my clock and saw that the time was just barely 8:30 in the morning. I sighed, figuring I had a good few hours before they'd even be on their way back.

My stomach was churning uneasily as I walked over to my bed and grabbed my guitar to try and play something, anything to keep my mind occupied. However, my mind was moving a mile a minute and there was no way that I was going to be able to keep my thoughts straight. Each note that I played was a mess and it got to the point that I just gave up, leaning the instrument back against my bedside table and I flopped back onto my mattress with a groan.

I stared up at my ceiling, finding many different made up figures in the textured paint. I tapped my fingers against my abdomen mindlessly and wiggled my toes back and forth. This was going to be a long day.



A coupe hours had dragged on slower than I had ever thought they would. I had done everything possible to keep myself entertained including, but not limited to, emerging myself into the internet, reading, writing, texting Madisen, etc etc.

At one point in time, Zack had come up to my room asking if I had known anything about one of the cows from across the river. Apparently, our neighbor had come over at some point when I was listening to music and had said that one of his cows was dead; Looked like something just came up to it and ripped it clean open. It was then that I told him about when I saw the bushes rustling late last night but just figured it to be an animal of some sort and didn't really think much of it.

It was very unusual to hear of that happening, considering that it never happened for as long as we had lived here. But at the same time, it surprised the that it didn't happen sooner with what kind of animals we have living around these parts. You're just asking to have your animals attacked at some point in time by another.

I pulled my hair up in a pony tail and headed downstairs to grab something to drink from the fridge. I noticed that Zack was sitting on the couch, staring intently at the flat screen that hung above the fireplace. His elbows were resting on his knees and he hand his hands clasped together in front of his mouth.

I was curious, as I rarely ever saw my brother like this before, and walked around behind the couch and looked up at the tv, resting the cold can of Pepsi that I had gotten on the back of the couch.

"We are coming to you live from Atlanta right now. The situation with the virus has practically doubled overnight and is beginning to become more than Atlanta PD can handle. We have received word that they are struggling to keep the virus contained ..."

I felt my heart drop and the voice of the news reporter faded out into the background as I watched on the screen people running and screaming in downtown Atlanta, being chased by other people who clearly looked like they had the sickness.

"We advise everybody to stay indoors until this situation can be handled appropriately. Keep all doors and windows locked and do not under any circumstances make contact with someone displaying signs of the virus including breaking out in a cold sweat, shallowness of breath, blood secretion of the mouth or nose areas and a temperature of more than a hundred and two. More information to come."

I looked down at Zack, burning holes in the back of his head from my venomous stare. "What was that about nothing bad happening?!"

He lowered his head and ran his hands through his thick, brown hair. "Try their cell phone, see if you can get through to them and find out if they know of anything else that's happening."

I was already way ahead of him and I ran over to the home phone that was hanging on the wall next to the refrigerator. My fingers fumbled around over the numbers, completely surprising me that I was able to dial my mom's number properly the first time. I held the phone up to my ear with a shaky hand and listened to the ringing.

Once. Twice. Three times. I felt my heart pounding harder and faster with each second that she didn't answer. I was beginning to see tunnel vision and everything else was beginning to fade out around me. By the the time it rang for a fourth time and she still didn't answer, the phone had gone to her voice mail and I hung the phone up hastily, picking it back up and beginning to dial my dad.

This couldn't be happening. There was no way this was happening! Everything was falling apart and going to hell all around us. My dad's phone went to voice mail then, and I slammed the phone down with a loud groan.

"Keep tryin'! They've gotta answer sometime." Zack ordered, turning the volume up on the tv a bit to better hear the reporter that had come back on.

"S.W.A.T and the Military has been called in as reinforcements to help bring this situation to an and. Everybody in the surrounding area is being reminded to keep all doors and windows locked. Do not make contact with the sick. If things around you become too overpowering, it is encouraged that you all head towards the refugee center here in Atlanta where you will be protected."

Once the report had ended, it was immediately followed by an emergency broadcast system with all the information the news anchor had just told us scrolling on repeat at the bottom of the screen. I could barely believe my eyes as multiple S.W.A.T vans, Army vehicles and Police cars flooded into the city to try and gain control of the situation that was quickly getting more and more out of hand.

I felt myself beginning to hyperventilate and go even more into panic mode. If they were calling in the Army for reinforcements, then that means that it was only a matter of time before Zack got called back in. I would be left all alone. The backs of my eyes began to sting with the threat of tears. Zack looked over at me and quickly got up to walk over to me.

"Hey, hey, calm down, okay. Nothin's gonna happen to ya." He said soothingly, pulling me into him for a tight hug.

He picked up the phone behind me and punched his thumb down on a couple of the numbers. I assumed he was dialing either one of our parents. I was so overwhelmed with everything that was happening that I couldn't even control myself anymore, I just let myself sob uncontrollably onto his shirt.

"Fuck!" He said harshly before slamming the phone back down onto the receiver, just as I had done moments ago. "Okay ... Okay .." He began to say over and over again, trying to think as best as he could on what we should do.

I felt a deep pang of guilt strike into my pit of my stomach and it was almost enough to make me puke. Why hadn't I tried harder to keep my parents here? If I had, they probably wouldn't be there in that mess that was going on. They would be here with us, and they would be safe. I glanced back up to the television on the wall and saw everybody running around in a panic, breaking into stores and grabbing whatever they could as far as food and water went.

So many thoughts clouded my mind and all I wanted was for the world to stop moving for one damn second so that I could get my bearings on everything. Zack pulled away from me and placed his hands on either one of my shoulders and held me out at arms length, making sure that I looked him dead in the eyes.

"Okay, Jay, this is what we have to do."