Two Alive, стр. 38

“Grant please, try to calm down.” Francine sat up trying to calm the boy down from where she was, “Everything is going to be ok. Ms. Michelle said she called the police and they’ll be there soon to help everyone.” She brushed at her eyes with the back of her hand.

“What happened? Who were those people? What was wrong with them? Why were they attacking other people?” Grant just continued on, pulling at the mess of wild hair on his head, frantically. The boy next to him rocked even harder.

“Shit! Please hurry, Rachel!” Amber was rocking too in front of Grant. She was going white in the face and was grinding her teeth so hard you could hear it.

“But what about…” Grant turned around and pointed behind them.

“Grant! That’s enough!” Johnathan shouted, and his booming voice reverberated through the van, even settling some of the other kids.

“John…” Francine started again, trying to whisper, “What makes you think this is…”

“My god…” Brandon was staring at his phone and the sound coming from it made Johnathan lean forward to look. “This isn’t just happening here. It’s happening everywhere! It’s all over Instagram!” Brandon scrolled through his timeline on the screen and videos were popping up from people all over the world.

People were recording attacks at beaches, in malls, shopping centers and festivals. There were images of men being chased through a corn field in the middle of nowhere. A video started with a woman jumping from a two-story window trying to escape the vicious individuals in her office. Even after breaking her leg when she hit the pavement, she still tried to flee as people came crashing through the windows after her, with no regard to their own injuries. Another short clip showed two boys standing on the roof of some home, speaking Italian, and pointing down at a mob of demented people. It was a mosh pit of insanity and fighting.

“What the hell is goin’ on?” Rachel leaned over to look but slammed on the brakes when she came to a stop light. A van was turned over in the intersection where a truck had T-boned it. It was one of the vans from the school. Rachel moved a strand of blond hair from her eye and pulled it behind her ear.

“Holy shit!” Brandon was jumping around in his seat, frightened.

Rachel pulled around the accident but couldn’t see anyone inside the van or in the truck. No other cars were in sight and no bystanders were trying to call the police or lend aid. The intersection of Havenscourt and International was vacant of life.

“Oh my god.” Rachel’s lip was trembling.

“Go Rachel. Go to Kaiser or Highland,” Johnathan said.

“Kaiser, please!” Amber moaned from the back.

The van turned right and sped down International heading northwest. Johnathan sat back down and wiped at his eye again; this time looking at his hand to see the bleeding had stopped. “It’s that LRS-10 shit.” His voice was low with contempt. “It’s turning people crazy and violent.”

“The vaccine for UGEN?” Brandon swallowed hard, still watching the videos on his phone and feeling his stomach turn. The footage kept increasing in violence. He put the phone down and ran a hand over his brown face, now turning green with disgust.

“They were talking about that vaccine on the news! People were taking the drug and having crazy side effects. I don’t know what the hell is going on, but this has to be that LRS-10 shit. Damn near half the world used UGEN for everything. Then when that started fucking people up, they shipped out LRS-10 and if fucked people up even more.”

“And that shit turning people into zombies?” Antonio was catching up and asked Johnathan for clarification, his eyes fixed on the old man.

“They aren’t zombies. They’re sick. They’re violent… incoherent.” Johnathan shook his head. “In the hallway, Ms. Dottie didn’t even look like she knew who I was.”

“Ms. Dottie got infected?” Francine’s eyes shined with tears.

Miles started to wail again with his lip poked out. “Ms. Dottie was a zom-bee!”

“No, she wasn’t a zombie. Those people aren’t zombies, they’re not the undead.” Johnathan grabbed the boy’s shoulder but locked eyes with Francine. “She took UGEN for her Parkinson’s.”

“But what happened to Mr. Sam?” Antonio asked. “Ms. Dottie bit him and he went crazy like them other people.”

Johnathan looked at Antonio but couldn’t say anything. The boy was right about that. “Sam wasn’t a zombie, and neither was Ms. Dottie. These people are sick and they’re spreading the sickness.”

“Through bites?” Francine asked in a low voice, “Do… do you think that’s how it’s spreading? How it’s happening so rapidly?”

Johnathan looked out the windows of the van. Rachel continued through the light on High Street, maneuvering her way through the busy traffic. From the looks of it, the streets were normal here. The chaos must’ve only been in the more eastern part of Oakland. Johnathan looked over his shoulder at Amber’s arm and for a full ten seconds, he didn’t look away. There was a pale-yellow glare in her eyes that made him nervous.

“There’s some kind of facility in San Francisco where they quarantine people who got the side effects.” Brandon was flipping through his phone after googling “LRS-10” and “violent behavior.”

Johnathan measured his words. “We should take Amber to get checked out there.”

“You think I’m infected?” Amber’s eyes were paranoid and foggy. “Am I going to change into one of those people?!”

“I’m not sure of anything right now, ok. But Hector was using LRS-10 too and those scratches of yours are pretty bad. We should just be careful and take you to get checked out.”

“Oh c’mon.” Grant was in the back, flabbergasted. “You guys are just… you guys are just pulling my leg and I’ve had enough. There’s no such thing as zombies. You