Dylan stared at space he’d occupied moments earlier and fought back the despair that threatened to weigh her down. Ben. The first friendly face she’d seen since this whole nightmare began. Gone. Just gone.
“Alone again,” she whispered. “Always alone.”
Chapter 5 - Dylan
Dylan took a few seconds to collect herself. She had to face the facts. She was infected. Within three days, after suffering through the various symptoms presented by the virus, she’d die and turn into a flesh-eating monster unless she ended things herself.
“Well,” Dylan huffed, wiping away her tears. “I’m certainly not dying in this shithole.”
With fresh determination, she walked toward the staff room next to the supply room. The manager’s office, Ben’s old office, abutted it. They were the only other rooms in the building besides the toilets.
Susan’s locker was open, her car keys and handbag discarded inside. Dylan took the keys and ran back to the exit. A quick look through the windows showed her it was all clear for the moment, and she located Susan’s sedan with ease. It was parked nearby, and after a moment’s hesitation, she slipped outside.
With her heart banging in her throat, Dylan opened the driver’s door and left it ajar. Then she opened the trunk before running back inside the shopping center. “I’ll be damned if I starve to death before I die.”
Grabbing the cart that had doomed her, she pushed it to the car and loaded the contents into the trunk with supersonic speed. The hair on the back of her neck prickled. The longer she was exposed and out in the open, the more scared she got. Once it was done, she slammed the lid shut and jumped behind the wheel. “Time to get out of here.”
The car was ancient, but Susan had looked after the old thing, and the engine started without a hitch. She edged out of the parking, her head swiveling as she searched for zombies, but they hadn’t found the back of the store yet.
Not wasting a moment further, Dylan gunned it, racing out of the parking lot with a squeal of burning rubber. In the rearview mirror, she watched the undead pour out of the store’s entrance like cockroaches. They trampled each other in their haste to chase her down, their jerky movements at odds with their speed.
“The fuckers just had to be fast, didn’t they?” Dylan muttered while rummaging in her pockets for a cigarette. “Like the end of the world isn’t bad enough already.”
Dylan left the lot behind and headed deeper into town. She lit a smoke and dragged on it until her lungs burned, still unable to wrap her head around her imminent death. She glanced at the bite mark on her arm and shook her head. “Unbelievable.”
There was an icy chill in the air, and she cranked up the heat, grateful for the warm air that blasted through the vents. It was still early, around ten in the morning, but the gray clouds promised little sun. Winter was here to stay, its presence made clear by the skeletal branches on the trees and the cold wind that cut to the bone.
At first, Dylan drove blindly, not caring where she went. The golf course streamed past, followed by Starbucks and McDonalds. A couple of teens ran across the street, not sparing her a glance, and she wondered where they were going. It was dangerous out on the streets, and they were likely up to no good.
A mob clamored at the doors of a gunshop, screaming to get in. The owner had locked up tight, however, the reinforced doors repelling any looters. She knew the place. A few days earlier, she’d been lucky to get in and buy the Glock 17 she now carried on her hip, complete with a holster and seventeen round magazine.
The owner had been kind, probably because she’d spent so many hours on his gun range practicing. It’d had been mostly for fun, a hobby she enjoyed, at first. Now she was glad she’d done it and was a fair shot with most weapons. She only had twelve bullets left, though, which placed her at a decided disadvantage.
“Ah, well. I’ll just have to make do until I can get more,” she muttered.
With a tight grip on the steering wheel, she navigated the clogged streets. It was a mess of abandoned cars, wrecks, and groups of undead that wandered about looking for a meal. Any living people stayed well out of sight, hiding behind boarded-up windows and locked doors.
She’d already decided not to go home. Nothing waited for her there. Nothing but rusted water pipes, possibly undead neighbors, and peeling wallpaper. “Face it, Dylan. You live in a dump. I guess some things never change.”
Her mind wandered back to her childhood. The little that she’d had of it anyway. Abandoned on the church steps as a baby, she’d never known her parents, never had the luxury of a real home. Passed from one foster home to the next, she ended up in juvie when the latest foster dad got too friendly, drawn by her dark red hair, blue-green eyes, and budding curves. It earned him nothing but a stab wound to the gut. The asshole survived and made sure she was blamed for the incident.
At eighteen, she aged out of the system and was tossed into society with little to her name but the will to survive. Six years later, she still hadn’t made her mark or achieved anything of note, traveling from one place to the next as the fancy took her. At least, I never became a junkie or a prostitute.
Now Dylan had no idea what to do or where to go. She rolled to a stop at a crossing and stared in every direction. Behind her lay Springfield, Illinois, the town she’d called home for the past year, though it had never truly felt that way. Not that any place felt like home.
