| Some soldiers were pulled off of the Jeeps and torn apart by the zombies. The rest jumped to the ground and began firing their weapons. It was a grisly affair, but eventually the Army, with their technological advantage began to finish up the zombies. Davis and Jaina were so intently watching the firefight that they hadn’t noticed that there were other troops approaching them. Without warning they found themselves staring into a GI’s flashlight. “Looks like we got some live ones,” said a voice from the darkness. They could make out three shapes in the illumination of the light. One of them approached and addressed them: “You two are going to have to come with us. For your own safety.” Jaina stepped back. “Please ma’am,” he continued, “we can do this the hard way or the easy way, it’s your choice.” He raised his hand to grab her when Jaina suddenly plunged her knife deep into the soldier’s stomach. Shocked into action, Davis fired his shotgun at the soldier with the flashlight. Then they ran. There were only a mile from the highway, and Davis and Jaina were going as fast as they could. The soldiers from the cleanup crew had fired a few rounds after them, but they had left the road and were able to get away. Soon they saw lights. At the junction to the interstate a camp had been set up. They saw rows of tents and an enormous partition of chain-link fence. Within were hundreds of people from the city, milling around, caged in. “You think that’s standard operating procedure for smallpox?” asked Jaina. “All right, I believe you. But cover-ups are traditionally impossible to escape from. If they have a camp here, then they’ve gotta be camped out all along the interstate. The highway isn’t going to get us out. Take the gun, I’ll scout ahead.” So, skirting the camp, they began to slowly approach the highway. The camp had been positioned just where the onramp joined the interstate, so that the Army could stop any cars pulling onto or traveling along the highway. The travelers climbed the hill on which the onramp was located, giving the camp plenty of girth. A half-mile down from the camp, they began to cross the interstate. There was no traffic, but they could see the lights of the next camp down the road. Keeping low, they scurried across the first few lanes. Ducking down in the median they ascertained that the coast was clear and made for the other edge of the interstate. Even if they couldn’t follow it out of town they could get out of the city in general and disappear into the countryside outside of the city. They had crossed the interstate and were climbing over the culvert when suddenly they were bathed in light. “STOP. YOU ARE VIOLATING QUARANTINE. SHOW YOURSELF AND COME QUIETLY.” A patrol had come across them just as they were making their getaway. There was no turning back now. Davis started running as fast as he could, Jaina followed. The light found them. They were twenty feet from the brush at the edge of the highway. There was gunfire. Ten feet from cover, they could lose themselves in the heavy foliage and disappear until morning. Almost there. Then Davis heard Jaina scream. In the corner of his eye he saw her fall to her knees. There was blood on her shirt. The gun fell from her hand. |