Race to Refuge by Liz Craig

soon as the plane goes up. There doesn’t seem to be much intel on what this epidemic is and they’d like to put a label on it, since zombies don’t sound scientific, you know?”
    “I know,” I said absently. I couldn’t get over how fast this was spreading and over different places all at once.
    “It’s basically some sort of plague that’s highly contagious. Most of the time the victims turn immediately, but sometimes it takes a few hours. Nobody knows why. And the ones that don’t turn immediately are a real problem because they end up becoming part of an uninfected group, turning, and then attacking the uninfected. In our briefing, the brass was saying maybe some sort of disease that’s been dormant for a millennium or two and has reawakened. And it’s just like the zombie movies you’ve seen … shoot ‘em in the chest and they just keep coming like a bad horror flick. But if you shoot them in the head? You got ‘em.”
    Good to know. Although I was hoping I could hide out and avoid the whole head shot thing entirely.
    “What’s the official response been like?” I asked.
    “Lousy,” said Steve. “The local authorities were all slow to respond today. Overwhelmed. Clueless. Some cities are trying to solve the problem by setting up checkpoints to keep citizens in their towns. This hasn’t exactly go over well with uninfected people who are trying to escape. So lots of stories of the police losing it today and gunning down desperate people. The citizens who were forced to stay in the towns felt like sitting ducks. Naturally, this created a panic. People stampeded other people trying to get out. Really awful stuff.” His voice was heavy.
    “When did the National Guard and the military get called in?” I asked.
    “There was delay with that, too. The municipalities were just so shocked by the whole thing that they didn’t take the next logical step of immediately calling in the big guns. They should have done that at eight o’clock this morning. Although I’m not sure that we’re all that much help. We’re too late for containment (which just goes to show how fast this thing is spreading), but we’re trying to create safe areas, some camps where it is safe. We could quarantine people trying to come in to make sure they’re not infected and then we allow those people in.”
    I said, “Any hope for some kind of immunity or vaccine or something?”
    “Nada. And even though it’s early, it’s such an epidemic that something needs to be developed like yesterday. I guess somebody in a lab somewhere is working on something, but who knows how long that’ll take. Hold on.” He spent a couple of minutes listening to someone and then barked out orders to another group. “Sorry. Okay, I’m back. But listen, I probably gotta go.”
    “Just one thing. Is there anywhere I should be heading? Anywhere good to go? Anywhere safe?” I asked.
    He sighed. “Knowing you? I’d say head out to the woods and either lay low there for a while or else go somewhere out in the country to a well-fortified house. ‘Cause I don’t see you meekly hanging around in some camp for rationed food, supplies, and stuff. That would drive you nuts.” He broke away to speak to someone again and when he returned to the call, his voice was grim again. “Take care, Charlie. Watch your back.” He clicked off.
    It sounded worse than I’d hoped. I’d hoped to hear that the epidemic was moving slower. I knew it wasn’t, though. Not after that patient turned on me in the ambulance. No, it was spreading fast and it sounded like the authorities today had been slow to contain it. By the time they did try to contain it, it was already too late. Now I knew there really wouldn’t be a safe spot anywhere. I needed to watch my back in the woods, in rural communities, and anywhere else that Mojo and I went.
    My stomach growled and I raised my eyebrows in surprise. Had I been so wrapped up that I hadn’t realized how hungry I was?