Entry Twelve

Dear Diary,

      We left the jewellery store at dawn, me with my BOB in one hand, and my gun and Thomas' hand in the other. I wore April like a backpack, Deathbringer stuffed behind her and through one of the leg holes she was too small to use. We grouped the kids the best we could between us, taking an equal share of the under 5s and over 5s. Joe's bright idea of painting our HAZMAT suits black seemed pretty redundant, at least from were I was relegated to the back of Joe's Disney parade. The shopping mall was empty and blindfold black, only Joe had his torch on, we made the kids keep theirs off, and I didn't have a free hand for a light source. I'm still kicking myself for not getting a helmet one from Thumbs Up Joe!

      We crossed the undercover car-park, keeping an eye out for any suitable vehicles. That place was beyond creepy, especially with the howling. I haven't heard it before, but Joe had, and the kids had. They were terrified – the kids, I don't think Joe's scared of anything. They kept pulling on us and begging to go back inside. The look on their faces made me want to do that a whole lot more than my repeated “It's okay!” let on.

       The carpark was one of those multi-decker ones with a view toward the city, back along the highway, and home. With the sunrise and the distance I thought the bright flashes were reflected sunlight on windows. Then Thomas said– “Fire! 911!” Just like Mom taught him. He was right, it was fire, but there isn't a 911 to contain it. The wind changed direction and smoke boiled between the skyscrapers, carrying debris high into the sky, in our direction.

       “How far away is it, Jenny?” Casey asked.

       I squeezed her arm and told her not to worry, the city was a good 25 miles away at least.

      Joe made a pretence of adjusting April to whisper to me. I agreed with what he said. There was no going back, we had to get out of this sector, to the bus and away before the fire arrived. We hurried the kids up, got them to run down onto the street and hide behind a set of parked cars while Joe scanned the route ahead with his scope. It went on like this, scan and hide, scan and hide, until we hit the highway.  Here there were several burnt out wrecks from a week or so ago, and as we crossed an overpass, the Yellow bus where we had left it, a mile and a bit in the distance.

       By now smoke blew thick across the road making it hard for the kids to breathe. Joe and I were fine, we had filters. We wet the kids t-shirts, had them breathe through the cloth. We travelled three quarters of the distance this way. I had to wear my BOB and carry April, walking with a spare wet onesie pressed to her face. That's why I tripped on Vanessa, she squatted on the road, trembling. Joe raised his hand for everyone to halt.

 

       Loping down the highway, between us and the bus, were a pack of reanimated. I couldn't see any real detail, but the way they moved, hands to ground, stretched way out front, legs pulled up under them– bums up, legs, hands, legs, hands, legs, hands– nightmare in motion. They hadn't seen us, what with the smoke. But we were trapped. They would pass us soon, their rolling gait so quick, the overpass prevented us going over the side. Several ugly crashes from the first week of the virus slowed them now and again. One would break from the pack, leap onto a crumbled bonnet, stick its head through a broken wind-shield. If it found something, it howled to the others. If not it rejoined the pack. Then there we no more cars left between us and them. We had nothing to hide in but smoke. We turned to go back, but the wind changed with a rush of clean air, giving us oxygen and stealing our cover.

       The reaninmated saw us, I don't know what I expected, but they didn't charge us. They stopped, sniffed the air, hands pulled up to their chests.  Four of the pack spilt off, two down each side of the embankment. I shoved April at Vanessa, shoved Thomas at Casey, and fired my gun. Pop, pop, pop. One, two, three, of the five remaining reanimated yelped, the last two sped toward me. Joe was beside me, pop, pop, pop. Finally a head shot. Then another. The two frontrunners fell bum-over-head and didn't move. The last three bounded over them and crashed into me. I grabbed Deathbringer, smack! It found an eye, I shattered the rest of the socket getting DB free. The two clawed at me, thin white needles for teeth snapped at my face, sliming the plastic. I tried to escape, tried to roll out from under them, tried to find DB. Then Joe was there, he grabbed one, then another by the hair, shot them in the back of skull. The last one howled, limped back the way it had come. Joe, arm steady, tracked it.  Pop! Reanimated brains splattered asphalt.

 

       We ran, Joe carried Thomas and Casey, plus his gun, plus his BOB. We got to the bus. I still had to fix the fanbelt. Joe waved the kids on board, I tossed my pack on the ground to get the toolkit and Joe grabbed me, spun me around. He didn't talk, held my HAZMAT head in his hands and tilted it side to side, checked each and every seam of my suit for splits. Then he sighed, rested his visored forehead against mine and looked into my eyes. No one has ever looked at me that way before. It was also the first time I really noticed how dark Joe's eyes are.

     “I'm okay, Joe, the suit held. Let's do this quick.” I told him.

      He squeezed my shoulders and asked me to hand him the spanner. It's midday now and the city's a distant glow. The going's been slow, a lot of abandoned traffic to navigate but no reanimated, and we are heading in the right direction, things could be worse. I'm sitting at the back, I said it was to lie down, but really, I can't shake the sense that something's watching us. Okay,  Joe needs me to watch for signs, we have to take the next turn off.

     Update Soon.