Lorna blew a strand of black hair out of her eyes. The lock of hair responded by falling back down on her face less than a centimeter from its original position. She unfolded her arms from across her chest, relishing the twinge all the soldiers had as she reached up to brush the hair behind her ear. Perhaps they feared she might reach for one of the guns strapped to her waist, which had been left on her person as a sign of good faith by the Councilors of Golden Hills Citadel. Perhaps they were afraid that she had some unknown affliction she could release upon them as her legend said she could. Lorna really did not care what they thought. They flinched once more as Lorna shifted her weight against the exterior of the car trying to get into a more comfortable position, and then crossed her arms on her stomach.

            Underneath the car, Alfie snorted. Lorna wanted to turn to flash him a grin, but she had to maintain her façade of disinterested fugitive, plus he could not see her anyway as he did some last minute tinkering to the vehicle. She could see how her attitude ground against the Golden Hill Citadel Council Members who stood arguing with Matthias, her boyfriend, over her fate. The councilors grew more and more agitated by the minute, and Lorna knew she was part of the reason why. Lorna’s attitude unnerved the soldiers who stood guard over the council members.

            She would have liked to defend herself as Matthias did—give some heartfelt speech about how she was no murderer and certainly not someone who would think up a plot of genocide, even against the Plagued. Lorna wanted to reason with the Council, to say that they all fought the Sick Ones, casualties happened. If she had asked any one of the men and women in uniform in front of her, they would have had to admit that they also had deaths on their conscience. Those soldiers knew what it was like to fight through the hordes of the Plagued, when others stayed safe in the citadels which mimicked life before the outbreaks. People like these councilors almost tried to pretend like their horrific post-apocalypse had never happened.

            But Lorna had run out of speeches—appeals of logic, fact and emotion. So she stuck to the one thing she knew worked each and every time—fear. Her legend had spread among the citadels as someone to fear. She knew that no less than ten people were supposed to take her on. Lorna had even seen the wanted posters, and heard some of the stories that people spread along the streets and even in little pamphlets. She could almost imagine a mother standing over her children saying, “If you don’t eat your vegetables, the Huntress—Lorna Cays will come and snatch you out of your bed.” It almost made her smile.

            So, Lorna leaned against the car, hyper aware of her surroundings (just in case the argument didn’t go Matthias’ way). She inhaled and exhaled the scent of engine oil permiating the large garage and sweat from them all. Lorna imagined they were sweating because of fear, and also because the councilors had ordered they shut the large, metal sheet doors that allowed cars into the garage. She flicked her eyes to the other exit—a door that led to other parts of the government building—also blocked and locked by the soldiers. She listened to Alfie finish the last minute adjustments to his magical, elf-made car, tightening a screw onto something. At last Lorna tuned back in to the conversation at hand.

            “If your worry is what the Tribunal shall do to you, then let me take Lorna with me to Evergreen,” Matthias said. His voice took on more of his southern German accent, which happened any more only when he was tired or upset—or in this case both. His arms stretched out to the councilors in supplication, almost like Jesus preaching to a crowd. With Matti’s new beard and untrimmed hair, he did look something like a Renaissance Jesus, Lorna thought.

            “Ms. Cays is your betrothed,” one of the councilors pointed out. He had a bulge beneath his shirt, like he used to be fat in the times of plenty before rations came into effect. Lorna imagined him with a rounded belly sticking out far past his pectorals and hips. Now he had all of the excess skin there without any of the fat. “Do you think we have not guessed that you might let her go in between here and Oregon, if you should take her with you on this trip? Or that once you arrive in Evergreen your father will not already have the other Tribunal members in his pocket? And so the great Huntress will slip through the fingers of justice once more, avoiding any punishment for her crimes. We are not fools, Master Braun.”

            Matthias heaved a sigh which nearly came out as a growl. “I am willing to take a guard with us in this car and have a company of soldiers follow after us. I am not willing to let her wallow in some cell so der verdammt Elfen Herrn kann von weit her ihr herichten!”

            Magic crackled, like small bolts of lightning, between Matthias’ fingers. It smelt like something, flesh and wood melting together, burned. Gasps rang out, partly because it felt like their oxygen was burning up with Matthias’ magic, and partly because they thought he might lash out at them. Lorna took a step forward, and threaded their fingers together. Matthias turned to look at hear and realized what he was doing. He took a breath in, and the lightning began to dissipate from his fingers. When he exhaled, it was gone completely.

            “Danke,” Matthias told her, still not settled enough to speak English.

            “You’re welcome,” Lorna replied.

            “Master Braun,” said a lady councilor, drawing out her words, as if still formulating her thoughts to be offense free. “We all understand how much you care for Ms. Cays, and not all of us are fully convinced of her guilt. These are difficult times and we must do what we feel to be best for the good of many people, and not just one person.

            “However,” continued the lady councilor, “we all have a duty to obey the commands the Tribunal gives us. They work admirably to keep us all functioning in this time of unrest. If they say she is wanted for crimes, even ones so heinous it would be difficult to believe anyone capable of such actions, we must give her over to the Tribunal for trial, and if deemed guilty…”

            “I’m not saying we musn’t,” Matthias replied softly. “Or even, do I mean to imply I shall not.”

            Lorna tried not to tense, or jump, or even look at Matthias when he made such an announcement. She had not thought that Matthias would actually give her up to their marshal law overlords.

            Matthias continued, not sensing her unrest, “I only mean that I shall be the one to give her up, because then I shall be assured that Justice given up to her.”

            The councilors all looked to one another, frowning but without protesting.

            Lorna, however, said fuck that. She turned to Matthias, dropping her attitude of cool and collected, and opened her mouth to begin shouting about betrayal when it hit her. A smell of not quite decay mixed in with metallic, bloody odor. She looked toward the large garage doors shuttered down in front of them.          

            “Master Braun,” said the skin-gut councilor, “I must object, at least to Ms. Cays being allowed—”

            “Shh!” Lorna called, releasing her boyfriend’s hand and taking a step forward. She put a hand on the gun strapped to her left hip, which made all of the soldiers in the room reach for their own weapons.

            “Ms. Cays, interrupting will not help your case,” the skin gut councilor told her. “This is a moment in which we decide your future.”

            “This is a moment in which all of our futures shall be decided. Which is why you need to be quiet,” Lorna retorted. She turned to the soldiers on one side of the garage and then to the automotive technicians on the other. “Can’t you smell it?”

            Lorna watched as those with the preternatural senses of smell opened themselves up to their greater surroundings. As they breathed in the scent of decay and blood, they realize what she meant, and when they did all of them went pale. One technician even knelt over a trashcan and threw up, beginning to cry as he wretched.

            “What is it?” asked the captain of the company of soldiers, an elemental without any such abilities.

            “A horde,” Lorna replied. “Nearby—my senses only extend a couple hundred feet in any direction so they have to be close to here for me to smell them.”

            “But—there is no way any of the Plagued could have gotten into the Citadel without our knowledge,” said a council member. “There cannot be an outbreak otherwise.”

            Lorna and Matthias shared a look. “No,” Lorna told them. “Nobody got into Golden Hill that you didn’t know about. But they didn’t infect anyone by the usual means—this outbreak was airborne.”

            “It’s impossible,” said the lady councilor. “We’ve only ever seen person to person contraction—fluid based contamination. An airborne outbreak would turn us all into Sick Ones or kill us. We would have to quarantine the Citadel and let no one out—thousands of lives would be forfeit.”

            “Not everyone may be infected so far,” Lorna said. “On the first nights of infection, the plague had to have been airborne, even Lord Halcyon things so. But everyone in those vicinities was not infect airborne disease, only enough that they began biting others and spreading it around.”

            “And you know this because?” asked the Captain.

            “Because I was there,” Lorna told him. “I watched the outbreak start, so I know. Plenty of people got out of the infection site, and they didn’t become Sick.”

            “It’s true,” one of the soldiers whispered. “Where she goes the Plague follows.”

            Lorna ignored him. “Councilors, you still have time to declare an evacuation before everything gets out of hand. Warn the people now and get the Guard out on the streets containing those who are infected. Please,” she added for good measure, “before it is too late.”

            The council members gave side long glances at one another, communicating with their eyes and hands before anything could be said with their mouths. At last, Skin Gut opened his mouth to speak when a dent appeared in the sheet metal, garage doors, making a sound like a thunder clap.

            At the noise, Lorna, half of the mechanics and the entire company of soldiers turned toward the large shutter doors weapons drawn. Another thunderous sound, and two dents formed in the door, far enough apart that one could tell two fists had made the imprints. A pause of a few seconds fell over them, before another set of imprints formed at one end of the shutter doors, and then at the other end, and then many fists together pounded away like large hail stones cracking against pavement or a car roof.

            The chorus of hands collided against the door beginning to dent it in so many places it began to grow thin. Lorna could hear the cries and gasps of the council members. She heard her heart, beating like a war drum in her ears. As she tried to calm herself, Lorna realized that she could not only hear her heart, but everyone's around her. They beat like a symphony of timpani, together but with different melodies.  Lorna steadied herself, feet shoulder width apart, arms relaxed, breathing in and holding her breath until she could no longer hear the noise in her head.

            At last a hand came blasting through the metal garage door. The soldiers fired at it, and the Sick One retreated away from the door. The banging came to a sudden halt. Lorna realized she was gasping for air, as she whirled around looking for a way out. The others in the room appeared similarly winded, though most of them kept their eyes on the large metal door, expecting some further action where all now lay silent. 

            Instead, a body careened through the glass door that led from the garage to the rest of the state building. A Sick One, bloody from the glass, grabbed the soldier who stood guarding it, biting at the man’s covered neck. The soldier cried out, and began firing, eventually and miraculously shooting the Sick woman through the head. He pushed her off and jumped down the steps which lead from the door into the garage.

            “More coming!” he shouted.

            “Well fuck,” Lorna cursed. She ran forward and grabbed Matthias pushing and pulling him until he stood between their magical, elf car and the wall. “Have you gotten any better at shooting?” she asked him, unclipping the guard on her holster.

            “No,” he replied, forming a ball of blue light in his hands. “Alfred, get the car ready. We’re leaving.”

            “Rodger that, Chief,” said Alfie as he climbed into the passenger seat of the car, booting up its artificial intelligence and starting the engine.

            “Matthias, we are not just leaving these people to the Sick Ones,” she told him, bracing her elbows on the roof of the car, pivoting between the small door in the front of the garage and the metal sheet doors which were slowly becoming mincemeat under the barrage of the Plagued horde.

            “No, we’re not,” Matthias agreed as he stood and threw his ball of light up into the air. It exploded and came down around them as a force field to block out any who were not already in the room. “Captain, councilors, I advise you take to the vehicles. There are enough here to get us all out safely, if a little cramped.”

            The mechanics rushed toward the vehicles (two large vans and three state cars), as the captain and the lady councilor met them in front of their car.

            “What will you do?” the lady councilor asked. Lorna felt bad that she did not know the Lady Councilor’s name, since she seemed fair and wanted to give Lorna a chance.

            “We will do what we intended to do in the first place,” said Matthias. “Get the samples from the hospital, as well as the data we ran on the woman's blood and tissue samples. We’ll take that to Evergreen Citadel and try to work out a cure for the Plague from there. I suggest you either go to Evergreen as well, or perhaps down south to Santa Maria.”

            “How do we know who’s infected and who’s not?” the Captain asked.

            “Spend some time in the wild,” Lorna advised with a shrug. “It’s a quick infection as we all know. Anyone who becomes infected will turn after a few days tops. Give it a week and you’ll be sure. Also, we can seat two of your people, Captain.”

            The Captain stared at her for a moment, gauging her intent, before he nodded. “Herring! Sanchez!” He turned and called to two of his people. “You’re with Master Braun and Ms. Cays.”

            The two soldiers looked at each other and back at their Captain, their brows furrowing and mouths turning into frowns. But the force field around them was starting to break, the Sick Ones piling up behind them. They hurried across the long garage, crossing the paths of the councilor and the captain.

            “Lorna, you drive,” Alfred ordered, climbing into the front passenger seat. Matthias and Sanchez took the back, while Herring climbed in through the hatchback and settled himself in the space behind them.

            “Why me?” Lorna asked as she took the driver’s seat.

            “I’ve programed the car so it can only be driven by you,” Alfred replied, strapping himself in. “It’ll take certain commands from  me too, but I figured it might be a unique safety measure for the future.

            “A future where she escapes,” Sanchez said from the back seat.

            Lorna buckled her seat belt, and shut her door. “Well then, Lt. Sanchez,” she replied to the other woman as she put the car in gear, “you’ll just have to stop me.”

            The large metal doors rolled up and all of the vehicles backed out in a mad dash for the gates of Golden Hill Citadel. When many of them had left the garage space free, Lorna reversed and then spun around so she would drive straight out. Speeding out onto the street, they quickly encountered a problem. Those people not infected by the plague sought to drive out of Golden Hill, and those infected gummed up the street and launched themselves at cars in an attempt to get at the people within.

            “We’re gonna need an alternate route to the hospital!” Lorna shouted.

            “Acknowledged,” chimed a voice from the dash board.

            Lorna looked down fleetingly at her dashboard and saw the AI there computing a path to the hospital. “Well that’s neat.”

            “Nice isn’t it?” Alfred asked, as he gripped the handle above his head, his white knuckles punctuated by the red skin around them. “Much better than the old GPS system too. Self-updates, responds to requests—the whole nine yards.”

            The AI interrupted them. “Route shown now. Make left turn as soon as possible.”

            “Hold on!” Lorna instructed as she pulled the car into a sharp left turn.

            “Turn a little sharper next time!” Herring called from the back of the car.

            “Can do!” Lorna retorted.

            The car’s AI took them through the back streets of the citadel. Lorna tried to drive as fast as she could, but it took nearly a half hour to navigate around abandoned cars, left behind luggage, and still a few stragglers trying to get out of the city, begging for them to stop. The streets in front of the hospital were eerily empty, a few cars still left lingering around, but no bodies any where in the distance.

            “Somehow this doesn't inspire me with confidence,” Sanchez told them as they exited the car.

            “It doesn't inspire any of us,” Lorna replied. She inhaled deeply, taking in the air around her to see if she could smell rotting flesh. “Bad news,” she reported. 

            “Can you guess how many Infected there are in the hospital?” Matthias asked.

            “Not exactly, but I would say a lot and since there are—“

            A shrieking mass cut Lorna off as a horde of ten or more Plagued Ones burst out of the ground floor of the hospital, breaking both the windows and  frosted glass doors. Sanchez and Herring both pulled their guns and began to fire. Still some reached the group and tackled the two soldiers, as well as Matthias and Alfred, to the ground.

            Lorna grabbed the two Plagued Ones on Matti and Alfie by their collars and pulled them off of her friends. Throwing them around, Lorna made sure that the two infected bodies landed in front of her and away from their group. Pulling Matthias and Alfred behind her as she went, Lorna moved to Sanchez and Herring. Sanchez had pulled her gun, acting quick on her feet to shoot the Sick One through the head. Herring, however, had been so started he lit his on fire, and the Sick One ran screaming back to his fellows, rolling on the ground to put out the elemental flame. Not wanting to risk them being attacked again, Lorna pulled Matthias and Alfred so that she could stand in front of Herring and Sanchez as well.

            “What are they doing?” Sanchez asked, as she helped Herring to his feet.

            “Stay behind me,” Lorna replied, locking eyes with the Plagued Ones.

            “Why aren’t they attacking?” Sanchez asked again.

            “Just stay where you are!” Lorna shouted, every muscle in her body tensing up.

            “So it’s true…” Herring whispered. “They don’t attack her…she brings the Plague wherever she goes…gods she may not be guilty as the Tribunal charged her, but there’s no way she’s innocent in of what the people whisper when she leaves everything in ruin.”

            “She is keeping you alive,” Matthias reminded him. “You might want to remember that.”

            Lorna tried not to pay attention to them. She focused herself in on the six Plagued ones in front of her who still stood. “Get out of here,” she told them with a jerk of her head.

            They snarled and gnashed their teeth, but she kept her eyes on them, and very slowly they began to move. They all backed away from her, as if she were the monster, retreating into the hospital.

            “Well,” Lorna said. “I don’t think we’ll be getting those samples after all.”  She  looked toward her companions. Herring and Sanchez stared at the hospital doors, almost like they expected more of the Plagued to jump out at them. Matthias moved beside her, pressing a hand into her lower back as a gesture of comfort. Meanwhile, sensing no further threat, Alfred went to fiddle with the car.

            “What…do we do now?” Herring asked, turning his eyes on Lorna again.

            “We leave,” Lorna answered, avoiding his gaze. “I’m sure your Captain certainly did not intend to send you on a suicide mission.”

            “No, I don’t think he did,” Sanchez agreed, also looking Lorna. She still had her weapon drawn, and while she pointed it to the ground, Lorna knew it would only take Sanchez a moment to aim and shoot her. “What did you just do? How did you just do that?”

            “I don’t know,” Lorna answered, focusing on Sanchez’s eyes. “I’ve never known. It’s something that’s happened since the beginning, though, since the first night. I…” Lorna did not know how to finish her thought, or even if there was more to say. She felt her heart beat pick up and a pressure mounting in her head as the number of bodies behind the door increased. “More are coming after us,” she told them. “We need to leave now.”

            “You can feel them though?” asked Herring, narrowing his eyes, hand resting on the holster strapped to his chest. “Like how a mother can tell where her children her.”

            “No, not like that,” said Lorna. “Look, we can talk about this later—I know it’s strange, I know it’s not right that they don’t hurt me, that they leave me alone. But right now we need to leave.”

            Sanchez and Herring shared a look, and then nodded. Sanchez slid her gun back into the holster at her hip and said, “We’re going to leave, alright, but we’re not going to leave with you.” Herring jogged away from them and began to look inside of the vehicles, probably for one that still had a set of keys attached to it, or one he could hotwire easily.

            Matthias spoke up at last, “But your captain told you to come with us.”

            “Oh, we’ll get court martialed for this,” Sanchez agreed. “We may even get kicked out of the corps. But I can tell you one thing—we won’t die because we’re in her company.” She raised a finger of accusation in Lorna’s direction. “And that’s good enough for me. You and the elf can come, but we have to leave her. Hell, we might even get a medal if we lock her in this city to die.”

            “Not happening,” Matthias replied as he and Alfred stepped up alongside Lorna

            “Found one good one, Sanchez!” Herring called next to an all-terrain vehicle, where he stood, breaking into the door.  “Come on, leave’em if they want to die with the Huntress.”

            “Suit yourself, Mage,” Sanchez replied, jogging over to where Herring had managed to get his car started. “You’re all going to die here!” she called, as she slipped inside.

            The three of them watched the two soldier’s drive away, tearing down the abandoned streets.

            “I hate when people call me that,” Lorna muttered. “And did they forget that they left us the magical elf car?”

            Alfred snorted. “Come on, while you all were gabbing I programmed it for Evergreen Citadel. We’ll live through this, just you wait.”

            Lorna nodded, and turned back to the car, climbing into the driver side. Alfred walked around to the passenger side as Lorna started the car, but Matthias hadn’t moved. Lorna rolled down the window and called, “Matti, come on we’ve got to get moving if we want to see tomorrow.”

            Matthias walked toward the car and Lorna raised the window, rolling her eyes and shaking her head at her boyfriend. How had he survived when she wasn’t around? She turned to the other side of the car, to ask Alfred a question, when she realized that he was standing outside of the car as well. “What are you doing?” Lorna asked.

            “Do it, now, Alfred,” Matthias said.

            Alfred nodded. “Computer, recognize command Alpha Gamma 03.”

            “Command recognized,” the computer chirped. The power locks clicked as they slammed down in the door.

            Lorna tried to pry the lock open, and then yanked the door handle back and forth. “Matthias, Alfred, what are you doing?”

            “Computer, recognize command Alpha Beta 05,” Alfred replied.

            “Command recognized,” the computer chirped, and a gas began pouring out of the ventilation system.

            Lorna’s eyes went wide and she banged her fists against the window. “Matthias! Let me out of this car!” she screamed. “You are not doing this to me!”

            “I’m not trapping you, Lorna,” Matthias replied, crouching down to be eye level with the window. “I need to make sure you get out alive, though, and you can’t do that with Alfred and I.”

            “I’m not leave you behind!” she insisted, slamming her fists against the window again.

            “It’s too late for us Lore,” Alfred said as he walked around the front of the car, to stand next to Matthias. “They got us before you could save us.”

            “Who got you?” Lorna asked, though when the words left her mouth she knew what they meant. The two of them didn’t need to move back their clothing to reveal the bite marks on Matthias’ arm and Alfred’s neck. “It doesn’t matter,” she told them, tears filling her eyed. “It doesn’t matter, the Sick Ones don’t hurt me, you saw, you won’t hurt me.” She slammed her fists against the glass just once before she let them slip down. Lorna breathed in a lung full of the gas, coughing as she exhaled. “You can’t do this to me, Matti, you can’t leave me alone. I can’t be without you again—please don’t do this to me.”

            “I don’t want to,” Matthias confessed, tears streaming down his own face. “I don’t want to, but it has to be this way, Lorna, you have to leave us behind. You have to survive because they’re all right about one thing: you are the key. You’re different, the Sick Ones listen to you. I think because of that, because they don’t try to hurt you, you might be the way to cure this, you know? So you need to get out of here, and we can’t go with you.”

            “Matti, let me out!” Lorna cried, renewing her bombardment against the glass. She coughed as she started to sob and take in more of the anesthetic gas that nearly filled the car.  Lorna began to feel faint, as her arms dropped down against her side and her vision blurred. “Matti, don’t do this, please, don’t do this to me.”

            “I love you, Lorna,” Matthias replied. “I love you and I always have and I’m always going to.” He bent and pressed a kiss against the glass, and Lorna wanted to lean over and return the kiss, but all she could do was see an image of a blurry Matthias turn to Alfred and nod.

            “Computer, recognize command Alpha Delta, continue on set course,” came Alfred’s voice through the dizziness invading Lorna’s brain.

            “Command recognized,” the computer chirped.

            As she felt the car begin to move all Lorna could do is slump over in her seat. The anesthesia coursed through her lungs into her blood, making her body felt light, as if she were floating in water. Lorna began to feel cold, a temperature shift crawling over her skin as tiny bugs. She fought to hold open her eyes, thinking if only she could do that, she would stay awake and none of it would be real. But soon, her eyes, her head, her body, all of it felt so heavy, like she was at the bottom of an hour glass filling slowly with sand. Her eyes closed, drifting into starbursts of bright pigment set against a background the color of the night sky.

            A hand rested against her knee, shaking it to wake her up. Lorna inhaled as her eyes opened and she looked around. Her mother smiled at her from the driver seat as she leaned over and unbuckled Lorna’s seat belt. “Hey sleepy head,” her mother said.

            “Hey,” Lorna replied, sitting up in her seat. She looked to the car sitting in front of them and then over to the grocery store front lit up in the newly dark sky. “This is not home,” Lorna pointed out.

            “No, it’s not,” her mother agreed, reaching into the back seat of their van to get her purse. “We need to get some things, and I thought since we were passing by the grocery store we could stop and do it now.”

            Lorna dropped her head back against the seat’s headrest with a thump. “Momma…” she whined. “We’re gonna be here forever, and I’m so hungry I might just start eating other people.”

            “Tsch, Lorna,” Maggie-May retorted, opening the car door. “You’re not going to starve just because we’re eating a little late. Your father and Jack probably haven’t eaten yet either.”

            “They probably have,” Lorna said, opening the passenger door and stepping out of the car. “Listen, can you promise me that we are just getting a few things that we need for dinner and not everything we need for the next month?” Lorna walked around the side of the car and raised her eyebrow at her mother for dramatic effect.

            “You know when you do that, you’re raising both eyebrows and not just one,” Maggie-May told her.

            “Damn, really?” Lorna asked.

            “Hey! Don’t curse at me!” Maggie ordered, raising a hand and waving it around as if to dispel evil energy. “Fifteen is not so old that I can’t wash out your mouth with soap, and yes, I know you’ll be sixteen in a week—”

            “Nine days,” Lorna corrected, rolling her feet from her heels to her toes and back again.

            “Nine days, whatever,” Maggie-May continued. “Sixteen isn’t too old either. Don’t go cussing, do you hear me?”

            “Yes, I hear you,” Lorna replied, biting the inside of her cheek, as her mother began to walk toward the supermarket. “It’s just, listen, I haven’t eaten since lunch, and I put up like three of the sets and I know you’re irritable because you’ve worked twelve hours today and—sorry, I’m in a mood or whatever.”

            “I’ll make you a deal,” Maggie told Lorna as she took Lorna’s hand and pulled her closer. “It is…” Maggie trailed off to check her watch. “It’s 7:17 right now—”

            “No it’s not!” Lorna protested, checking her own watch. “It’s past 8:30 look.” She held up the watch face for her mother that read “20:35 2012 03 21” in two rows. “Yours even has the year wrong—it says it’s still 2011.”

            Maggie frowned at her watch, before taking her daughter’s wrist in hand to look at the time. “Alright, so it’s 8:35, Ms. Smartypants. If we’re not done in fifteen minutes, I owe you twenty dollars, but if we’re out in fifteen or less, you cut the grass, do the laundry and clean up the living room area—including the dining room.”

            “That doesn’t really seem like a fair bet, but sure, since I’ll probably end up doing all the chores anyway,” Lorna agreed, shrugging her shoulders and pulling her wrist away from her mother.

            “Jack would have helped; they’re his chores too,” Maggie-May insisted, as they entered the store.

            Lorna snorted and rolled her eyes.

            “What does that mean?” Maggie asked.

            “It means Jack’s slippery-er than a fresh caught salmon—if I don’t end up doing all of the chores this weekend, in addition to my own homework and going to church—I…I dunno, I’ll eat black licorice.”

            Now it was Maggie who rolled her eyes in response. “Sure you will. You hate licorice.”

            “But I’m a person of my word,” said Lorna. “Jack’ll weasel of things—he always does, he’s the youngest. He makes up some excuse and it doesn’t matter what I’ve got to do, his thing is more important. Anyway, I’ll time you starting now.” Lorna clicked the timer button on her wristwatch as they walked into the front doors of the grocery store, making it beep as the numbers began counting up.

            Her mother harrumphed, taking a cart and wheeling it into the supermarket. Lorna followed after her, occasionally pulling things off the shelves for her mother, or running off in search of loose items. After a while, she relegated herself to trailing behind Maggie-May, eating from a red bag of potato chips.

            “Stop that,” Maggie ordered. “You’ll ruin your supper.”

            “It’s almost nine o’ clock,” Lorna retorted, crunching on an especially loud chip, “I’d say it was ruined a while ago.”

            “Don’t sass me, Lorna Prudence. Put the chips down and put your mind off of eating; you’ll forget you’re hungry before you know it.”

            “That never works,” Lorna told her mother, though she deposited the bag of chips into the basket of the cart. “I’m human, you know, I’m sort of programed to think about when I’m hungry so I don’t starve to death.”

            “You’re hardly in danger of starving,” Maggie hissed, pushing the cart ahead.

            Lorna winced, thinking of the times her mother had hinted at going without food in her childhood. “Then I need to get out of here,” said Lorna. “Or I’ll just keep eating. I’ll go look around the shops—maybe go to the book store or Hal’s.”

            Maggie-May cocked a hip to the side and rested a hand there. “And what business do you have going to a gun and ammunition store, Lorna Prudence?”
            “Daddy said he might get me a gun for my birthday,” Lorna replied, walking backwards out of the isle.

            “Now I didn’t think you were old enough to own a gun yet. Should you really be getting ahead of yourself?” her mother replied with a snort, turning away to pull a can of peas off the shelf.

            “I’ll look at the knives then,” Lorna replied with a wave. “Oh, and Momma?”

            “Yeah?”

            Lorna held up her wrist, though her mother would not be able to see the stopwatch. “Sixteen minutes and counting—you owe me twenty bucks.” Lorna giggled as she ran down the last few feet of the aisle and around the corner, dodging a few people with their shopping carts. She ignored her mother’s cry of her first, middle and last name and only slowed to a walk when she reached the exit, walking out into the damp, spring air.

            Lorna inhaled deeply, smelling the sweet scent that indicated a drop in pressure that always came before a rain storm. She stretched her arms out over her head, her tense muscles expanding and relaxing. Shivering, she dropped her arms down by her side, folding them across her chest to tighten her sweater around her. Inhaling once more, Lorna tried to find the sweet smell, but instead a foul scent invaded her nose.

            “Ugh…” Lorna muttered shaking her head and moving out of the grocery store entry way. She wondered if the store had thrown away some rancid meat, and the wind blew the smell of rotting flesh out to the front of the store.

            Lorna walked along the sidewalks of the shopping pavilion that encircled the parking lot like prey. Hal’s Firearm and Ammunition Distribution Facility (With Two Lane Range!) stood caddy corner from the grocery store, but it was late enough that Lorna decided to take the long way around. Hal’s was a nice enough place, even if it was a little odd that the only ammunition store in town was in the same pavilion as the largest grocery store and the clothing outlet. If Hal, who was in fact a real person, did not have whatever you wanted to shoot in stock he knew a guy who did. He grew up local, and had served in the military and as a police officer as evidenced by the decorations and a boxed American flag he hung behind the register. Lorna’s father talked with Hal about “the service” whenever he came in to get ammunition to take one of his kids shooting.

            Lorna loved to shoot and she loved looking at Hal’s artillery. But, she hated listening to Hal and her dad compare metaphorical dicks, as they tended to go on and on about who could make the best shot or who had gone on the most dangerous tour of duty. Which was why she relished a chance to visit Hal’s on her own, when no one else was around so she could just look. And maybe manhandle the glass, pretending that she held the weapons in her hands. Just a little.

            A bell chimed above her as Lorna entered the shop. A young man stood at the counter. Lorna recognized him from school, but he had graduated at the end of her freshman year. He leaned against the counter reading a magazine, his bangs falling into his eyes, while the rest of his brown hair hung against his back in a ponytail. He glanced up at her as she entered. “Evening,” he greeted, before reverting back to the magazine.

            “Evening,” Lorna replied, turning to the wall where the hand guns were mounted on display. God, she wanted a gun so bad. She didn’t even know why, and she knew that her parents would make her keep it unloaded in the gun safe. Maybe there was something powerful in saying that she owned the gun, instead of that her parents owned a gun.

            “Can I help you with something?” ponytail asked.

            Lorna jerked her chin up when he spoke, and realized that he had probably been watching her for a minute as she walked around the shop. She swiveled her hips around, rolling her feet from ball to toes, veering toward a case with a rifle mounted (in pieces) in side.

            “No,” she replied, firmly. “I’m just looking around. I might come back later to get something as a present, but right now I’m just weighing my options.”

            “Present for a boyfriend?” he guessed.

            “No, present for me, from my dad,” Lorna told him. “It would probably be in his name and everything, but it would be mine.”

            The boy snorted at her. “Can you even shoot a gun?”

            “Hell yes,” She gestured to the assault rifle in the case next to her. “I could shoot that if I wanted to.”

            He snorted again, looking back down at his magazine while he shook his head.

            “What is your problem?” Lorna asked, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

            “What do you mean?” he asked, looking up at her, his face pinched together.

            “I mean, what crawled up your ass and died to turn you into such a dick?”

            He blinked, once, then twice and then said, “Alright, you think you can shoot that rifle? Prove it. I’ll bet you can’t even put it together and the reverb knocks you on your fucking ass.”

            “You’re on, dick face!”

            The boy snorted at her again and pulled out a pair of keys from underneath the counter. He unlocked the case, gesturing to the gun. "Well, then, put it together if you're so hot."

            Lorna's father and mother had only ever let her touch a rifle twice, but both times they had shown her how to dismantle it, clean it, and then put it back together. Plus, she had assembled plenty of other guns in her short life, and so she went to work. She certainly wouldn't win any awards for times, but judging on the boy's face when she finished, Lorna had put the gun together correctly.

            He grunted at her and said, "Alright, then, pick it up and follow me."

            Lorna did as directed, though she almost had to jog after him as he strode out of the store show room and thru a door that stood behind the sales counter. Behind the door was a long hallway that stretched out maybe twenty feet. There were three doors in the hallway--one to the left labeled, "Office," one at the end labeled "Range," and one on the right labeled "Store room."

            "Wait here," said the boy, holding up a hand to stop her in front of the store room. He unlocked the door, pushing through and returned a moment later with a box of bullets in his hand. "Alright, we can go." He walked on until they got to the range, but this time Lorna almost ran into him because he stopped just short of the second door, so he could peer through. "Coast is clear!" he announced.

            It occurred to Lorna that maybe they were doing something they should not be doing. Her stomach growled, and she realized that she didn't care.

            Grabbing head phones and glasses, they set up in LANE 2, the boy giving her a human target to shoot. Lorna loaded the gun, and shot right through the target's head.

            The boy whistled. "Damn, I didn't think you could actually do it. Where did you learn to shoot like that?"

            "Do you mean where did a girl learn how shoot like that?" she asked, grinning at him.

            He ducked his head, but replied, "No, I mean you. Where did you learn to shoot like that?"

            "Mom and Dad are both retired air force." Lorna shrugged. "They take us shooting every now and then, and I’ve shot a lot of guns. Dad lets us practice shooting with BB's, but the real McCoys, well, they're different. I like them better."

            "Naturally," he said. The boy held out his hand, "I'm Richard, by the way."

            Lorna juggled the gun to balance it against the lane door so she could hold out her hand. "Lorna. Do you go to Lincoln High School? You look familiar."

            "Graduated a few years ago--we had health class together, I think." He scratched the back of his neck. "You probably get this a lot, but don't hate your high school years. You won't know what you have until you work a job like mine."

            One of the doors on the range swung open, banging against the wall, making them both jump. A middle-aged, pot-bellied Lorna recognized as Hal stepped out onto the range and turned to look straight at them. "Ricky, what the hell do you think you are doing?"

            "Just showing a customer around a weapon she was thinking of buying," Richard said. "She was thinking of getting it as a gift."

            "Like hell," Hal retorted. He stalked toward them, belly bouncing as he went. "Young lady, hand over that rifle. Ricky you are lucky I don't fire your sorry ass this instant. The bullets will be coming out of your pay and so help me, if I don't ever sell that gun because someone knows that it's been used, I will have your hide, I don't care how far back your Daddy and I go. And where the hell is--"

            The emergency exit door creaked open, which Lorna thought could have been creepy, if the act had not been done already. In shuffled a boy about Richard's age, his head drooping and his feet dragging. Hal turned to look at the boy, whose company polo read "Jimmy" on his left breast, and said some words Lorna thought would get her mouth washed out with soap if she repeated them.

            "Jimmy!" Hal screamed, turning virulent shade of red. "How many damn times have I told you? You get one smoke break per shift--not two or three--and so help me God, boy, if you have been smoking weed again--what the hell is wrong with you? What is it about working that is so hard for you to grasp? I'm fucking talking to you, look at me!"

            Jimmy lifted his head, and Lorna wondered if the boy should have come to work today at all. His skin had run pale, where if he were well, he might look rather tan, and bags had formed under his eyes. As she studied his eyes, Lorna realized his pupils were blown wide, which was strange, given the bright, fluorescent lights of the shooting range. Maybe he had been getting high, she though, especially given how unfocused he looked.

            But then Jimmy turned his gaze on Hal, cocking his head back from side to side, almost like he was a loaded spring. He looked Hal up and down, rocking back and forth on his feet. Just as Hal opened his mouth to yell again, did Jimmy finally move, jumping on top of his boss and biting down on the common carotid artery in his neck. Hal screamed, but Jimmy only bit down harder, blood spewing everywhere.

            Hal sank to his knees before slumping all the way to the ground, his body only giving a few twitches. Jimmy fell with Hal, teeth still imbedded in his neck, resting on top of the man for a moment, heavy growls coming from his throat.

            The sound of retching diverted Lorna's attention. She turned to see Richard, bracing his hand against the wall, head bowed as he puked. He coughed and sputtered when he didn't have anything else left to puke. Sniffing at the snot dripping down his chin, Richard looked up, and Lorna saw he was crying. "James, what the hell?" Richard asked. "I know he was a shit boss, but what the fucking hell was that?"

            Jimmy tilted his head to the side again, turning at his waist to look at Richard. He licked his lips, smearing the blood there. He then scrunched his face, drawing his nose back and squinting for a moment, before he shook his head. Lorna and Richard looked at one another, Richard's brief shrug indicating that he had no idea what the hell Jimmy was doing either.

            Jimmy stuck his tongue out several more times, not lapping up any blood, but almost like how a snake tastes the air. Wiping the blood off of the his face with his forearm, Jimmy stood, turning to Richard. His eyes narrowed at the sight of his coworker, and he let out a little growl, more like a purr than a roar. He kicked Hal's body, stepped over and began walking slowly toward Richard.

            "James, what are you doing man?" Richard asked, his eyes going wide. When Jimmy kept walking, Richard began to back up against the wall, though he had only a little space to move before he was completely confined. "James, come on now man. It's okay. He was a shit face--we can say he was trying to hurt you, and you didn't mean to hurt him. The cops will believe us, all of 'um always talk about what a dick Hal is. James, James, please don't hurt me."

            Lorna felt routed to her spot as she watched Jimmy's slow advance, but as she heard Richard beg for his life, she could no longer stay immobile. Her arms acting almost on their own, she cocked the rifle and raised it up.

            Jimmy stopped in his tracks at the sound of the rifle. He looked toward her, squinting. He inhaled a deep breathe, before his squinted eyes went wide. Then, Jimmy ducked his head and brought his shoulders in to himself, like he was trying to make himself appear smaller.

            "Stay right there," Lorna ordered. She swallowed, feeling her vocal chords scratch together as she spoke, making her waver. "Or I will shoot you, do you understand?"

            Jimmy, eyes still cast to the ground, nodded. '

            "You're not going to hurt Richard, do you understand? No biting him," Lorna continued. She had no idea why he was listening to her, but she guessed that people did things when you held them at gun point.

            But when she had spoken for a second time, Jimmy looked up at her and whimpered. He looked over at Richard and then back at her, his feet shuffling more toward his friend. Jimmy's pupils had grown a little smaller, and Lorna wondered if she could keep him under control until he came down from whatever high he was on.

            "I told you no!" Lorna said, and she took a step closer to him.

            Jimmy whined a little again still fidgeting in his spot, but he did not move toward Richard.

            "That's right," Lorna told him moving a little closer. She began to lower the gun reaching out toward him. "You'll be okay. We'll be okay." Lorna stretched out a hand and let it fall on his shoulder. At her touch, Jimmy leaned toward her and curled into Lorna almost like they were hugging. Lorna stiffed, but she allowed Jimmy to rest his head on her shoulder.

            Behind his back, she gestured to Richard to leave the room. Richard nodded rising slowly to his feet. He stepped toward the door, careful that his shoes did not squeak on the concrete, while Lorna ran a hand through Jimmy's hair to soothe him. She kept her other hand still wrapped tight around the rifle.

            Just as Richard reached the door, pulling it open with a tiny squeak, Jimmy went stiff in Lorna's arms. "Jimmy?" she asked. "Are you okay?"

            A low growl issued out of his throat. Jimmy placed his hands on Lorna's shoulders and pushed her away from him. Lorna flew back into the stall of lane two feeling the air rush out of her as her back collided with the wood. She dropped the rifle on impact. Lorna's head began to spin, but she shook it out trying to focus on the scene in front of her.

            Jimmy stood, body hunched, hands curled into fists, facing Richard. He no longer appeared small, but he had expanded himself out to his full height and width. Lorna thought that he couldn't be any more than five foot nine, but he looked taller, more impressive. From where she sat slumped on the floor, Lorna could only see Richard's legs as he stood backed up against the door.

            Lorna stood, and grabbed the rifle. "You stop right there, Jimmy, or I'll shoot you!" she shouted.

            Jimmy snorted and snarled, and Lorna realized he was laughing at her. "I'm not fucking kidding. I will shoot you right where you stand, so back away right now!"

            Jimmy took a step forward, and then another. Lorna could hear her heart beat in her ears as she aimed for his right leg and pulled the trigger. The shot went clean through, and Jimmy fell to his knees with a howl.  Richard took the opportunity, to open the range door and duck through. Through his pain, Jimmy tried to crawl toward the door as he watched Richard escape.

            Lorna breathed hard thinking that nothing short of a bullet to the brain would stop him from keeping on. She wondered if she could go that far, and quickly came to the conclusion that she could not. Instead, Lorna turned the rifle around in her hands, and brought the butt of the gun down on the back of Jimmy's head. The boy crumpled to the ground with a groan, but then he made no more sound.

            Taking a deep breath, Lorna closed her eyes. She swallowed wetting her mouth which had gone dry from panting. She swallowed again taking another deep breath to try and prevent herself from crying, as she looked down at Jimmy's immobile form and then over to Hal's lifeless body. When she felt like she wouldn't break down into mindless sobs, Lorna moved around Jimmy's body toward the door.

            She moved in a wide arch, watching Jimmy's body all the while to see if he would move again. He did not. Lorna reached for the door, pulling it open and stepping through still facing the gun range. When she stood fully in the small room between the doors, she pulled the door shut as fast as she could. Lorna bolted through the second door, down the hall to the showroom door. She pulled it open, only to be met with two police officers pointing guns at her.

            Lorna gasped dropping the rifle. Her hands shot into the air onto the top of her head.

            "It's okay!" Richard came into view. "She's the girl I mentioned, she's not the one who was acting all crazy."

            The police officers nodded both of them lowering their weapons. "Miss, are you alright?" one of them asked.

            "I'm fine, he didn't hurt me," said Lorna. "I had to... I knocked him out, though--Jimmy, the crazy one. I don't know what Richard's already told you, or what you need me to tell you. But I shot him to. He needs a medic, but he needs to be restrained, and--"

            "Miss, slow down," said one of the officers. He placed a hand on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "You need to take a few deep breaths and calm down, alright?" 

            Lorna took a few deep breaths, although she did not feel any calmer once she had.

            The officer continued speaking anyway. “We’ll need to get your statement eventually, and we’ll call for a medic, but right now there’s a situation going on in the grocery store that has most of our force handling it.”

            “Wait what’s going on?” Lorna asked, as the second officer began speaking into his radio asking for a medic, and another officer for backup.

            “We don’t know, but there was some mention of people getting sick and acting rather irrationally,” the officer replied. “We can’t let you two leave, because there could be an outbreak here. We’ll need to see if the two of you have been contaminated from your contact with this person.”

            “And…that was supposed to encourage us to want to stay how?” Richard asked. “I just saw one of my best friends bite my boss so hard that he bled to death. Then a girl from my high school health class shot him in the leg.”

            “And fuckin’ saved your life!” Lorna retorted. She sneered at Richard, before she turned back to the officer. “My mother was in the grocery store before I came over here. Can I at least see if she’s okay? I mean, have you guys evacuated the grocery store at all?”

            “We’re evacuating right now, young lady,” said the officer.

            Just then, Lorna felt her pocket buzz. She pulled out her phone and unlocked the screen to show “one missed call from Mom” and “one voice mail from Mom.” Shaking, Lorna pressed play on the voice mail, and raised the phone to her ear.

            “Hey sweetie, something’s happened in the grocery store. They’re short on medics, though, so I’m going to stay and help. I’ve called your dad to come get you. Stay where at the book store and listen to the police, alright? I love you.”

            Lorna stared at the phone in her hand feeling her throat tighten up. She forced a breath through the clenched space, making it shudder and hitch when the breath left her mouth.

            “What’s a matter?” Richard asked. He stepped a little closer to her, placing a hand on her arm. “Lorna, you went all white—what’s wrong?”

            “My mother is still in the grocery store,” said Lorna—only it felt like she wasn’t talking, just listening to the words echo in her ears. “She says that she’s staying to help with the sick ones.”

            “Miss, if you mother volunteered to stay, then she knows what she’s doing,” said one of the police officers. He held up a hand in front of her, steadying Lorna from afar. But Lorna felt herself sway side to side, and her head spun at the very thought of her mother being bitten or killed, or bleeding and broken inside of the store.

            The idea came to her all at once, when she was still working through the thoughts of her mother dying in the produce section. Lorna ran forward, knocking into one of the officers, and stealing his gun from its holster. Without stopping, she sprinted toward the front door, leaving the shouts of Richard and the two police men behind her. Racing directly across the parking lot, Lorna stopped for nothing, dodging around vehicles with flashing lights and right through the yellow tape that covered the perimeter of the grocery store’s automatic doors.

            It was not until her feet pounded against the white linoleum that she stopped, spinning around, shouting, “Momma! Momma! Maggie-May, where are you?”

            “I’m here!” someone shouted back at her perhaps a few hundred feet away.

            Lorna fast walked up the aisles, noting each one as empty until she came to aisle 7. Bagged bread was strewn across the floor, and in the center Maggie-May knelt beside a patient, the sleeves of her leather jacket rolled up to the elbows. “Lorna Prudence, I told you to stay where you were,” Maggie said, glancing up to glare at her daughter. “Don’t you understand something is going on here?”

            “You told me to stay at the book store, but I wasn’t there so it doesn’t count,” said Lorna. She strode down the aisle, kicking aside a bag of bagels as she went. The woman on the ground groaned as Lorna drew closer. “And Momma, I do understand that something’s going on here. I had to shoot a boy tonight because he was infected with whatever these people are. Momma, their dangerous, and we need to go.”

            “You had to what?” Maggie asked, looking up from the woman. She glanced down Lorna’s front to stop at the gun in her hands, and then at her boots which were spattered with blood toward the toe. “Lorna, what did you do?”

            “I shot him in the leg, because he was going to attack someone,” said Lorna.  Her heart raced in her chest as the woman on the ground groaned again, this time, louder and longer. “It’s okay, I missed anything vital, and it probably just hurt like hell. Listen, Momma, we need to go.”

            “No, you need to go, Lorna.” Maggie frowned at her daughter. She took her hand off of the woman’s arm, and smoothed back her curly hair, sticky with sweat, from her fore head.  “Give that gun back to whomever you stole it from, and pray to God the police don’t arrest you for this. I am with a patient, and I am going to stay with a patient until—”

            The woman reared up and bit Maggie on the wrist.

            Maggie screamed, and Lorna tried cocking the gun in defense of her mother, but found that the police officer had turned the safety back on. Instead, Maggie, with her free fist, punched the woman in the throat, making her let go. Maggie jumped to her feet, pressing a hand into Lorna’s chest, backing them both up. “Turn the safety off,” Maggie ordered, as they backed up out of aisle seven.

            Lorna obeyed, clicking the switch, her eyes never leaving the woman in the middle of the aisle. When she could, she cocked the gun and aimed it to where the sick woman was rising to her feet, spitting and snarling while she did.

            Maggie snatched the gun from Lorna when it was cocked.

            “You know, you shouldn’t grab loaded guns from people,” said Lorna.

            “You know, I’ve had a lot more experience than you. Keep going,” Maggie ordered.

            Lorna put foot over foot, occasionally stepping on a bag of bread. The woman’s snaps and snarls turned to a lower deeper growl. But then the growl grew louder and louder, despite the woman standing just where she was, playing back in her ears making them ring. Lorna looked to her mother who had her eyes trained on the sick woman, who had not moved since they began their vacation of the area. Maggie did not seem to notice anything abnormal.

            “Don’t you hear that?” Lorna asked.

            “Hear what?” Maggie glanced at Lorna briefly, before returning her stare at the sick woman.

            “The growling, it’s so loud…” Lorna murmured.

            “The only one here that’s growling is her,” said Maggie. “What do you hear?”

            The growling was louder than the woman had been before. Or maybe, Lorna realized, it had been louder than one woman could be. The feedback growl petered off, leaving just the woman, the two of them breathing and the silence of the grocery store. “Momma, how many people were left in the grocery store after the police evacuated it?”

            “Twenty sick people, maybe,” said Maggie. “Maybe ten medics and as many cops. Why?”

            “Twenty people or more might be standing between us, and getting out of here,” said Lorna. “Fuck…I wish I had stolen an extra clip…”

            “Don’t cuss.”

            “Really? Right now?”

            They reached the end of the aisle.

            Lorna looked toward the doors that would guarantee them some measure of safety. The path was clear. But then Lorna heard it, and this time the noise was definitely in their proximity. She turned her head left and saw a man standing in front of them, and two more people coming up behind him. “Momma,” she muttered.

            “I see’um,” said Maggie. “You go, Lorna, make a run for the door.”

            “You go, I can hold them off.”

            “Lorna, you are fifteen. I am not pitting my fifteen-year-old against a horde of zombie people. Now run!”

            The sick man ran for them and began to jump, but Maggie May turned and shot him right through the chest. He fell with a yelp, and the others descended on him, pulling him away. The woman in aisle seven, though, did not stay put at the sight of the fallen man. She let out a scream and began racing toward them.

            Lorna grabbed her mother’s arm and pulled hard. They both took off toward the doors, and as they ran, Lorna could hear the woman’s grunts as she struggled to keep up. They stopped only to go through the first set of automatic doors. Maggie-May kept running, but Lorna turned, looking for the switch that would close the doors. Only, since she was completely unfamiliar with how automatic doors worked, she faltered.

            As the sick woman ran closer and closer to her, Lorna did the only thing she could think of. “Stop!” she yelled.

            The woman skidded to a halt several feet in front of the automatic doors. She looked down at herself, raising up her hands and then reaching to touch her feet. The sick woman looked at Lorna, tilting her head and blinking several times. “Just, just stay there,” said Lorna. She looked around. Now that her blind panic had subsided, she easily found the switch that closed the doors. Pressing it, she turned and ran out of the second set of automatic doors to her mother’s side.

            “What the ever loving tarnation?” Maggie-May ran a hand through her hair, the other one holding onto the gun.

            “What happened?” asked a police captain who rushed up to them.

            “I’ll tell you what happened, one of the ladies I was treating tried to eat me,” said Maggie-May, waving her hands around.

            “Mom,” said Lorna, gesturing to the gun.
            Maggie huffed, but turned the safety back on, and held the gun out to the police captain. As he took the gun, she kept talking, “You need to get the CDC out here and quarantine this place, fast, and that is my opinion as a medical professional. I also need to see the medics you have out here and get every antibiotic they have before getting to quarantine myself.”

            “Mom,” said Lorna, reaching out to take her mother’s hand. “Please don’t go.”

            “You’re sure this is dangerous?” asked the police captain, hand on his radio.

            “Positive, and we have no idea how those people got sick, so whatever is causing this, it could be in the water, in the air,” said Maggie-May. “Trust me when I say you want to err on the side of caution here.”

            “Alright, alright,” said the captain. He gestured to an officer close by him, “She these women over to the medics, make sure they stay there,” he told the officer before he began speaking into his radio to dispatch.

            “Momma you can’t go,” Lorna said. She felt like she was shaking, like every muscle in her body was vibrating as the officer herded them toward the back of an open ambulance.

            “Lorna, I am probably infected with whatever they have.” Her mother didn’t look at her as she spoke. “That woman bit me. That’s a pretty good way to get anything that someone else has. And even if I don’t have it, you always want to err on the side of caution, you hear me?” Maggie turned and tried to offer her a smile. “Oh baby…”

            Maggie pushed down the sleeves of her coat and shrugged it off. She wrapped it around Lorna’s shoulders. “Things will be fine,” said Maggie, brushing aside an errant lock of Lorna’s hair. “The medics will check you over, and then they’ll send you home with your dad. Okay? This is gonna work out, I promise you.”

            “I don’t feel like it is,” said Lorna, pulling the jacket closer around her. “I have this horrible feeling that something is wrong, and it’s not going to go right.”

            “Ma’am?” a medic asked, touching Maggie-May’s elbow.

            “Just a second,” said Maggie, turning toward them for a moment. She looked the medic in the eye, and when she did, they let go. “Sweetheart,” said Maggie as she turned back toward Lorna. “Listen, I think there’s something that I need to tell you.

            “It’s something that my great-grandmother told me when I was only a little older than you. She said that one day I needed to tell my second daughter that there was something she would need to do. One day, Lorna, you’re going to be at your lowest point, lower than you are now. And when that happens you need to look for some trees growing where they shouldn’t be, and wake the man sleeping underneath them. Okay? And that will help.” Maggie smile so wide that her eyes and fore-head crinkled. “I don’t know how it’s going to help, but maybe you will know one day.”

            Lorna felt tears leave cook tracks down her face as her mother leaned forward to plant a kiss on her forehead. “I love you, Mom.”

            “I love you, too, Lorna.” Maggie patted Lorna’s head and whispered, “You be good, alright. No matter what, you be good.”

            “Yes ma’am,” said Lorna.

            Another medic came to her side, and took her by the elbow, “Miss, are you alright? We need you to open the car door.”

            “What?” Lorna asked.

            “Open the car door,” said the medic again. Then in a higher, synthetic voice, added, “Refuel required, ding, ding, refuel required.”

            Lorna’s head began to spin, winding around and around clockwise and then counter clock wise. Lorna gasped.

            She sat up in the front seat of the car. The car’s computer sat chiming at her “refuel required,” while two elves dressed in Mythic Corp. Uniforms knocked on the window. “Miss, are you alright?” they asked again.

            Aw shit, thought Lorna. Why do I get the feeling this isn’t going to end well for me?