I don't own the Walking Dead or anything else you recognize.
An older woman in a periwinkle frock two seats in front of her, turned back to her and smiled randomly before looking forward. A small child cried, as a
mother quietly sang her a sweet melody. There were maybe a dozen people making the trip from Florida to Atlanta, bus driver could be heard swearing under his breath, as he relentlessly scratches at his side.
Madison narrows her eyes at the movement, before turning her eyes to the passenger seated next to her, a wrinkled old man with the words Semper Fi written across his cap, as well as Vietnam POW, and rank. His eyes were also focused on the bus driver, and he held one hand close to his hip. Madison would bet a million he was packing heat - once a Marine…always a Marine. She frowned thoughtfully and thumbed a pair of dog tags hanging around her neck.
"What are you running from, kid?" The old man was now staring her down with grey blue eyes.
"More like Running to, Gunny. I've got some family heading to Atlanta… My dad's pretty sick." she broke eye contact, her dad was sick. But she doubted he was en route to Atlanta at this bus driver coughed loudly, and the bus swerved slightly. Her frown deepened as she scouted how close the two were to emergency exits. She guessed he had already done the same immediately after boarding the vehicle.
"Uhhm,huh. Sure thing, kid." he didn't comment on her awareness of military rank. They both were quiet again. Madison pulled her cell phone out, and stared at the most recent text she had received from her sister.
Sis, where r u? I'm getting freaked. my dorm. A couple ppl got that virus every1's talking about. Mom said dad is weird too. Hurry. :(
She simply replied, I'll be there, hopped on the first bus out of Pensacola… and hoped she wouldn't get her ass handed to her. Now, 15 miles from her destination, she was getting worried. Her sister had stopped replying to texts, and her mom and dad's phones had been turned off since last night.
Twisting her ankle, she felt calm with the weight of the knife she had tucked away in her boot. A woman with bright red hair turned in her seat at looked at them. "He's just hacking away up there, isn't he?" she pointed a finger towards the driver as he again scratched his side and coughed up what sounded like mucus. "Scratch, scratch, scratching. wouldn't you say?" she was pale, thin, and from the slight shake of her hands… either was stressed out, or strung out.
"Calm down lady." Madison replied simply, noting that several heads turned their way as the woman got louder. The redhead's eyes were bloodshot and incredibly wide,pupils dilated.
"Look, look at this?" she shouted hysterically, pulling up her sleeve. Several puncture wounds were on her arm from some drug or another. Blackened veins were trailing from the injection points. "You think I got it too?" She laughed, and got up walking towards the mother and small child, "You think I got the virus?" She was interrupted from her hysteria, by the bus crashing. Glass shattered, people cut and injured. The woman was laughing, impaled by a rather large piece of glass, through the stomach.
Madison gasped as the woman started pulling her own intestines via the hole in her torso. The bus driver was convulsing on the floor of the bus. People were screaming, the old Marine veteran was half conscious. They were two rows away from the closest emergency exit. But they would half to pass Big Red to get to it. As the bus driver suddenly got back up and grabbed a hold of a small child leaning over him, She threw her bag onto her shoulders, and made a judgement call….
"You did the right thing, kid." The old man said, staring at her wisely from the passenger seat. "When I was in 'Nam I…"
"Don't." she said in a quiet tone cutting him off. Her hands tightly gripped the steering wheel of their stolen Jeep as they neared the her sister's dorm. People were running from their dorms, throwing bags and boxes into cars. She peered in her rearview mirror at the weeping woman in the back seat.
"Stay here, old man."
"Yeah right, you saved my ass. Now I'm the pain in yours." he said gruffly, attempting to get out of the vehicle with her.
"I may have saved your life, but I ruined hers." the woman in the back didn't even look up. "Please, stay with her."
