Valerie

Mallory thought about it for a minute. She didn’t want to abandon her family in case they were still alive. However, she couldn’t deny that it was a slim chance they were still among the living. The more Mallory thought about how she had barely survived, the more unlikely it seemed to her that her family had done the same.

“We should get out while we can,” Mallory said, “It’s a stupid idea to go off on some heroic mission for people we don’t even know if are alive.”

“That’s what I’m saying,” said Valerie.

“Alright, if that’s what you think is best,” Miles replied, “It probably was a long shot anyway that we’d be able to find survivors.”

With that Miles took the turn away from town, speeding away from the danger there. The signs of the town quickly disappeared as they drove away. The neighborhoods turned into woods, and the signs of the outbreak gradually disappeared. This wasn’t the main way out of town, the highway bypass that ran alongside the town was the main route. This was a backroads route that wound through a forest before eventually rejoining the highway in another town. Mallory was thankful that this route was the closest way out of town, she didn’t want to think about the state of the highway bypass right now.

The group sat in silence for a while, as they drove down the twisting road through the woods. Mallory thought about the absurdity of the situation and tried to ignore some problematic feelings she was having. Miles thought about Grace and wished he could have done something to help her instead of abandoning her. Valerie tried to think happy thoughts and not have a panic attack.

After a while, the forest started thinning, and signs of the next town over began popping up along the road: a small gas station, a few houses, and park appeared alongside the road. Hartsville was a small town only around 20 miles away from their home town of Franklin.

Wait only 20 miles?

The thought suddenly struck Mallory. 20 miles wasn’t that much, your average person could cover that distance in less than a day. And it had been more than a day since the virus started. Also these weren’t movie zombies, they weren’t shambling around barely moving at all. No Mallory was all too familiar with these zombies ability to sprint. So, what was stopping the virus from spreading outwards from the town? After all, they had literally just left the town without any resistance. There wasn’t anything or anyone stopping the virus from spreading.

Mallory began carefully watching each building they passed, looking for signs of zombies. She didn’t see any, but then she realized something else: she didn’t see any people either. This edge of Hartsville had no signs of people, zombified or otherwise.

“Hey guys,” Mallory said worriedly, “I’m not seeing any people around.”

“That’s werid,” responded Miles.

“Yeah, and I just had a thought,” said Mallory, “We kind of just left town thinking that if we got put everything would be fine, but what if the virus has already spread from town? I mean it’s been a few days since the outbreak, and hell we don’t even know if the virus started in Franklin, it could have started somewhere else and spread there.”

“Ohh… well shit,” said Miles, kind of dumbfounded at the rashness of their planning.

“So you’re saying we could be driving into another hive of zombies?” said Valerie panicked, “What are we going to do? What if the whole world is infected? What if there’s no place that’s safe left anywhere? What if we’re the only people left alive in the universe?”

“We’re not the only people left alive,” scoffed Mallory, “If the virus started somewhere else we would have heard about it on the news before it got to Franklin, it must have started nearby.”

“Then we should go far away,” said Valerie, “We should drive a hundred miles away and never look back.”

“I think she’s right,” said Miles, “We could probably put some more distance between us and the zombies.”

“Then by all means avoid Hartsville and keep on driving,” said Mallory.

When the time came, instead of entering Hartville, Miles took a road around the perimeter of the town. The road went along a ridge above the town, and from there Mallory could see the zombies swarming the streets. Seems they had dodged trouble.

“Nice thinking Mal, you really saved our butts,” said Miles, elbowing Mallory as he said this.

Miles, who was watching the winding road, didn’t notice that he had accidentally elbowed Mallory in her chest, however Mallory noticed. The brief contact of Miles’s arm on her breast made her hot and created some deep set desires in Mallory that she had to quickly repress. Mallory couldn’t understand where all of these feelings were coming from, but she did know that they wouldn’t lead anywhere good.

So Mallory turned and looked out the window at the passing scenery to distract herself from her problematic behaviors. Valerie fell asleep in the backseat and the cat became quiet again. They drove for an hour like this, passing through another town briefly before realizing the virus had made its way there too and quickly making an exit. Eventually, after a while had passed, Miles spoke up.

“We need to stop for gas.”

They were about 30 minutes out of the last town, but there was a gas station on the side of the country road. Mallory nodded in agreement and Miles pulled into the station. As he did this Mallory woke Valerie up.

“Was happenin?” she said groggily.

“We have to stop to refuel,” said Mallory, “We should all be on our toes just in case something happens.”

“O..Ok,” Valerie stammered, a quiver in her voice, “Just be fast ok.”

“Don’t worry we’ll be in and out,” said Miles grinning.

He pulled the car up to one of the pumps and hopped out. As he went to fill up the car, he turned to Mallory,

“Go get some food from the store, it doesn’t look like anyone’s here so just take as much as there is,” he said gesturing to the small convince store attached to the gas pumps.

Mallory nodded and hopped out as well and began walking towards the store. When all of the sudden the door to the store opened on its own.