The First 30 Days (PUBLISHED)

Thirty-Five - Day 20

I carried the last of our bags into the garage. Bill and Shawn were already there, trying to figure out the logistics of fitting seven people, a dog, and the small mountain of supplies we had gathered into one van.

We had rested for long enough that everyone felt like they had at least some of their strength back. Devon's leg wasn't really any better, but at least it wasn't worse, and we knew that we were out of options for trying to treat him here. It was time to move on.

We were hoping to find a settlement of some sort. There had to be one out there somewhere. It seemed impossible that the only people left alive would be like us, a small group that was barely hanging on by the tips of their fingers. There had to be people out there who were doing better. Maybe they would even have a real doctor, not a girl with limited first aid training and a few years spent observing the veterinarians in an animal clinic.

"Good riddance to this place," Maya walked into the garage with Devon limping along behind her. She had never gotten rid of her dislike for the creepy little town, not that any of us blamed her. Something about it was just off.

In the end, the two largest members of our group took the seats up front. Fallon and I sat in the middle, with Rex taking up most of our floor space, even too thin the dog was big. Carrie, Maya, and Devon squished into the back seat. The hatch had barely closed on all of the stuff that we had shoved back there. I was really glad that we had found the keys to the van in the kitchen, instead of having to try to carry all of the heavy bags ourselves.

We may have gone a little overboard with packing, but as far as we knew, we would be living out of the van for the foreseeable future. To that end, we had gathered gallon jugs of water, all of the canned or boxed food for a several house radius, and a few comfort items such as blankets and hair brushes. We'd even made room for a giant sized bag of dog kibble. Leaving Rex behind wasn't really an option for any of us.

The sound of the garage door opening must have drawn the zombies. There weren't many of them here, whoever had gone on a spree with a gun had seen to that, but there were a few. Three of them, shambling along and rotting to the point that strips of their flesh were peeling, met the van as Bill drove it out of the driveway. They offered no real threat to us. The doors were all locked and the windows rolled up, but I still flinched when one of them banged on the window by my face. For a second, I thought I felt the stinking, hot breath of the zombie, even though I knew that that was impossible. I rubbed my shoulder reflexively.

Low growling from my feet pulled me back from my thoughts. Rex had climbed to his feet and was watching the zombie alertly, the hint of sound rumbling from his chest. "It's ok, boy." I patted his back in an effort to keep him quiet. That was going to be the only drawback to having a dog. We'd already talked about it. Sometimes dogs made noise, but noise made at the wrong time could get us all killed. Rex was going to have to learn to be quiet when there was a threat nearby.

The plan was simple. South seemed like the most likely option for finding a settled group. With no electricity, the north would be a harsh place to try to survive in the winter. If anyone was going to manage to eke out a living in this new world, it would be in the south. A road map found in the glove box had provided our route. We would go back the way we had come, get on the highway, and just keep driving.

It may have taken us days to walk the distance between the camp and the town, but in what felt like the blink of an eye, I saw the turn off for the camp up ahead. As we drove by, I craned my neck to try to get a view of the place that, for a short time, I had thought would be home.

That wooden bridge that I hated flashed by. The brief view I had of it told me that we had made the right choice when we ran. Several zombies ambled across it's surface. Their heads snapped in our direction and I was sure they gave chase, but the trees stole my view.