Adenine revved the engine of her mustang. In front of her Mrs. Dine, her fifth grade teacher, stood erect in the mid morning fog. She could see her breath from the condensation forming around her mouth. "Adie, oh little Adenine, why are you being this way?" Mrs. Dine's overly nice voice brought back long forgotten memories, "Don't you remember when we hatched those little chicks? They were so cute, and the eggs were so small." Adie's memories flooded with the little chickens, Mrs. Dine had placed one in her hands and had told her how to feed them. This wasn't the same Mrs. Dine though, she was the skin, the memory, not the human. This is what happened to people who were infected.
"I know what you are and you aren't my fifth grade teacher." Adenine growled through her teeth, and began to inch her foot off the clutch. The smile on her old teacher's face began to wane as she saw the hatred in Adenine's eyes. Mrs. Dine hissed and prepared herself for the impact. The black mark against her pale skin was the trademark of the infection, where it had entered her system. "One more down." Adenine whispered in the loneliness of her car. Her feet switched and the car was in gear, full throttle and pedal to the metal. As she sped toward the hunched over teacher, she saw other signs of the infection.
The normal circular pupil was replaced with cat like slits, scale like skin, and long hypodermic nails. In the beginning this sight had scared her senseless, now she was a mindless machine. Once she switched from thinking of them as people she could kill, anything, anyone. She just needed to remember that she was saving man kind. Nothing could break her concentration, her grip on the wheel was turning her knuckles white. She felt the car beginning to strain and shifted until the fifth gear was in place. This would give her enough power to wipe out the infected.
Suddenly the car lurched, something had hit her, hard. The tail end of the car swerved, and she lost sight of Mrs. Dine. Adenine tried to regain control of the car but it was as if she were stuck in a rut. The car was revving but not moving. She tried to locate where the crazy infected was. Now she wondered what had hit her, if it was an infected she was out of luck with the car. Her hand slid across to the glove box, she opened it and found her gun and cell phone. She cocked the gun and checked the barrel, the cell phone began to ring and buzz. As she turned it over she saw twelve missed messages, three voicemails, and six missed phone calls. She slid the phone open, "Hello."
A slow sigh made the speaker buzz, "You can't go offline for that long." Landry's voice sounded almost hysterical. "We don't have enough people as it is when you go off we all worry." a whispered voice followed and she could hear her sister's voice, she was sniffling from her cold, the colony needed medicine.
"Danielle, how is she doing? I have been fine, found another and then my baby got hit. Something big but I haven't seen it again." Her voice was slow and steady, perfectly masking her own hysteria. Something had hit the car, something huge, she hadn't seen it and it was still out there. As was the infected Mrs. Dine, somewhere. She rocked the car back and forth as Landry updated her on Danielle's condition.
A silent groan came from underneath the car. Adenine screamed, and accidentally closed the phone. She cocked the gun at the floor of her car, and waited for another sound. The car and everything around her grew deathly silent and still. Her breathing slowed to where she could hear any change. The bottom of the car lurched and formed a lump the size of a basketball.
Adenine did the only thing she knew, she shot the damn lump and screamed. The bottom of the car was now furnished with new bullet holes and a green sticky substance. She revved the car again and rocked it forward, the wheels finally touched the desert ground and accelerated forward.
Her eyes met the review mirror and she saw the lump she had been stuck on. It was a dark gray and bumpy mound, no movement came from it. Adenine was in no hurry to stay and find out what it was, she searched for the land marks that would lead to town. The small phone in the passenger side began vibrating again, Landry, she thought to herself. She grabbed and put the phone to her ear balancing it between her shoulder and cheek.
"Hello?" she whispered into the receiver. Her voice was barely audible, and she heard the shake in her voice and cursed herself for not being in control. This shouldn't have shaken her up at all. After what she had seen for the last three years, nightmares came easily to say the least. "Adie are you ok?" a small cough followed by a fit of them flowed through the ear piece. "Danie? Get back to bed, I'm fine." her sister's small sigh, was followed by a hushed conversation.
Adenine stayed on the line but turned the speaker lower, she was approaching town, the epicenter of the infected. They crowded in these cities, and waited for prey, it was also the only place to get simple medication. Allergies were killing the colonies, and the flu was not much better, and starvation was beginning to set in. If she could pick up some seeds and other packaged foods maybe she could save the colonies for at least another month if not longer. "Adie are you still there?" She nodded her head and continued driving. Her eyes scanned the horizon for bodies, nothing yet. The sun was to her back and she tuned in the radio. A static frequency was all she could hear, no one was broadcasting anymore. The voice on the other end of the phone fizzled back "Did you just nod at the phone?" Landry laughed, not the hysterical one he used to have, it was the guarded one, the one that had developed after the colony had been established.
Adie sighed to herself and tried to remember the last time she had laughed, or even been truly happy about anything. Nothing recent came to mind. "Yeah." Adenine sighed to herself, after the epidemic no one found reason to laugh anymore. "Town is approaching, the convenience store, bye." She closed the phone and turned off the car, she would walk from here. "Good luck to me." she whispered as she left the car on the outskirts of town.
