Brains

Chapter 8: California

     The trailer was as silent as the sleeping seas as we drove on with disappointment. Jason was at the wheel again because Craig was injured and Amanda refused to leave his side. Small, sincere tears steadily slid down her flushed cheeks as she cleaned Craig's wound. It wasn't bad, but he took a chair to the head, and was obviously not acting like himself. I was sitting on the couch having a staring contest with Wilson while Liz was on the floor lying face-down with boredom, and Lylla was reading a book with Trevor. We had stopped at a pharmacy and got Craig some pain-killers and about 50 cans of  soup to keep us going for about another month. I knew that the cure was a long shot, and that it would probably just make it worse, but we had to try! Almost the entire American population, and possibly more, was now mindless creatures, roaming forever on the streets that I once called home. In my mind however, that wasn't going to happen. I was going to fix this.

     "Liz! Get up! We're here!" Lylla said while Trevor jumped on Liz and showered her with kisses. 

     "Ugh, good!" Liz replied.

     We all gathered as much as we could carry and filed out of the trailer. The lab was big and there were 2 people sitting on the front steps looking extremely depressed and lonely. One was a big, burly man with a bushy beard and his hair in a "Man Bun". The other was a girl, my age, with straight blonde hair that was about shoulder length. She also had big, blue, nerdy glasses.

     When we approached them, the girl stood up, looking almost scared, but she soon smiled when she saw that we were good people. The man, on the other hand frowned and stood up. He looked like he was at least 6'8. I looked up and smiled. He frowned even more. The girl spoke up first and introduced herself.

     "I'm Parker, I'm 13 years old, I like the color blue, and I lived in Layton, Utah before this whole, crappy thing happened." She stated very directly. Then the dude spoke.

     "I'm Thatcher, and you need to leave." He said gruffly.

     Nobody said anything. Then I cleared my throat and smiled.

     "I'm Astrid, and we're trying to find a cure." I said cheerfully. He frowned even more so Lylla, Wilson, Liz, and Amanda introduced themselves, too. Jason was frowning and looking Thatcher up and down and Craig was still really weak from the blow. Parker walked towards Trevor and was patting him on the head when Thatcher screamed out of nowhere and pulled out a knife!

     "Oh My God" Jason whispered. He moved towards Thatcher and disarmed him then kneed him in the gut. Thatcher fell to the ground in pain then slowly got up and ran into the airport.

     "What the heck was that!?" Lylla yelled. Parker was staring blankly at the forest behind us and Wilson turned to look too. Then, he opened his mouth to say something but was frozen on the spot. I slowly turned around to see what was happening. There, limping towards us from the forest, was an army of the undead. There were at least 1,000 of them and they were all after us. Trevor started barking and trying to yank the leash out of Lylla's hand but he was no match for her strength. Amanda was already trying to get Craig inside the airport and Jason was loading his two pistols. 

     "EVERYONE INSIDE!" I screamed. We all turned and started for the door. Wilson ran to help Amanda and Liz was helping Lylla with Trevor. Parker and I bolted to help too. We were all together now and making our way up the stairs, but Thatcher came back and was standing in the doorway. Soon, there were about 20 other dudes about the same size as Thatcher standing in the doorway. We all stopped. Parker stepped up and started screaming at the lumberjack people about humanity and Trevor was, once again, trying to get out of Lylla's grasp. Then, all hell broke loose.