“I think I’ve just met the happiest person in the world!” My teenage daughter piped as she burst through the door. “Oh, who?” I said, trying to cut carrots and keep my youngest from sticking out his hand into the cutting board. “The new girl, Carrie,” Billy said brightly, plopping her backpack onto the kitchen countertop, “She bopped around all day, hugging people, laughing, talking to anyone who would listen...and she passed around these!” I hadn’t noticed before how she held her hands very carefully behind her back as she burst through the doorway. They were seven Easter lilies, a bright and joyful red. “Her family moved into the Silver Bell farm, the one next to the Knox’s. They have these flowers everywhere up there.” As my little guy Eddie attempted to crawl into the sink, I asked, “Didn’t that place burn down a few years back?” Billy shrugged, busy taking her books out of her backpack. “ She said they were building it back up,” She chortled a little, “When she wasn’t chatting up the lunch ladies.”
Lightning crashed across the sky as Kyle tried to focus on his book report. Thumps from the kitchen as his sister practiced her ballet. Scratches as his cats ran around the house like cars on a race car track. Crashing and cursing as his mother dropped the chicken pot pie she was making. A sigh as he realized that it would not be a calm, easy, quiet night.
As Lynn laid, sprawled, on the ground staring up at the dark blue sky, she wondered about the past events that lead up to this. She was six when the plague broke out. She remembered hiding around a corner as the news blared, “WARNING, WARNING, IF YOU SPOT ANYONE WITH THE FOLLOWING SYMPTOMS....” She remembered her mother piling her into the car and the long drive into the mountains. She was fifteen now, her mother gone like a ghost in the wind. Lynn tried to drown out the memory of her mother walking into the river, to her death, with the smell of grass and dirt. She was broken out of her stupor by Meg’s barks. Lynn stood up, slightly alarmed. Meg was a retired cadaver dog, trained to alert their partner when they caught the smell of decay. There must be a zombie nearby. She popped open the car door and slid into the driver’s seat. Her mother had been teaching her how to drive ever since they had left for the mountains. She used to call Lynn her little wild thing. She sped down the little path that used to used for bikes. Meg sat beside her in the passenger seat, not barking but still whimpering. She came to a crossroad, and pausing for a moment, she chose the one that led to an paved road. Meg was finally calm, whatever zombie she smelled long gone. Lynn slowed down. On the paved road, the trees covered the sky, blocking out whatever light it would have given. Suddenly a figure bolted out of the trees. It was a girl, maybe around her age. Meg began to howl. Behind the girl a lumbering figure staggered on her heels. Lynn didn’t need light to know what it was. Not thinking she yanked open the passenger door. Meg leaped out, and channeling her old police dog tackled the lumbering shadow. The girl soared into the passenger seat, Meg right behind her. Just when Meg was crawling to the back seat, the strange girl gasped. “Drive”.