Virus B-203
Classified Information:
Data breach: Date known
Retraction form requested

Year 2012: Hour 16:31
Date: May 25

"How much gas do you have left?"

Bianca turned to Adam with a frown, running her right hand through her hair and trying not to lose sight of the road ahead of them. She shrugged, allowing him to lean over and check the gas meter himself.

"That little, huh."

Nervous, the younger Torres brother rested his head on the back of his seat, releasing a worried sigh before rolling down his window in hopes that Fiona would follow suit. The four of them had been on the road for a whole hour since the group split up at the outskirts of Degrassi. Fiona sped up and rolled down her windows as well, glancing at the boy with a worried look on her face.

"You guys low on fuel too?" She asked.

"Yeah. I'm thinking maybe we should take the next exit off the highway and find some abandoned cars or gas stations to siphon some free fuel from." Adam replied.

The highway was completely deserted; he figured that since the towns were quarantined and blocked off at the very edges, the cars never made it far enough into the highway. The roadblocks lining up around the towns were huge, Marisol had told them before she and Drew followed Katie on the short walk back to Degrassi. Adam was worried for them; it had been an hour since that final conversation and he was scared that they might have been killed or infected by now.

"They're fine, Adam."

Bianca's first words since leaving the other students calmed the racing thoughts in Adam's head. She finally pulled her eyes off the eerily empty roads, giving the boy a worried smile before reaching over with her right hand, resting it gently on Adam's hair and giving it a friendly ruffle.

"So the next exit?" He heard Fiona call out from her car.

"Yup." Adam confirmed, feeling the tension in his shoulders relax as Bianca placed her hand back on the wheel.

"The exit's just around the bend." He heard Fiona say, "Roll up your windows. We never know what might happen once we drive into that town."

"Best strategy? I think we should park right at the edge of the town. Maybe in the more forest-like area of the place. Since all the people probably tried to evacuate, the town's streets might be crammed with cars and God knows what else. We should park, sneak in, grab some gas canisters, and get our butts back here," Imogen quickly stated, peeking out from the passenger's seat.

"That's not a bad idea." Adam gave a morose smile, "Although getting out of this car is the last thing I kind of want to do, but it's a good idea. If driving around in big, shiny cars in crowded streets doesn't scream "come kill me!" to zombies, I'm not sure what will."

"Virus, Adam. Not zombies." Fiona corrected.

"Zombies." Adam smirked, rolling up the window as Fiona rolled her eyes.

Bianca scoffed at the two as they made the next exit, driving a little longer before turning off the headlights and making a swift turn, parking between two large shrubs surrounding the road. Fiona parked as well, between a tree and a bush horizontal to Bianca's car. Quietly, the teenagers got out of their respective cars, regrouping in front of a large sign that led to a wide street.

"Welcome to Flora County." Adam said, reading the sign.

"Home of crazy, homicidal zombies." Imogen muttered under her breath, "Oh, sorry Fiona. I meant infected people."

"We don't know if they got evacuated here or not. Maybe there are only a few of them running around." Fiona stated, hoping for the best.

"Or maybe the whole town is filled with them." Bianca sighed, running her hands through her hair again, a sign of nervousness.

"And maybe they want to eat us." Adam added, "I really don't want to go in there."

"We have no choice." Bianca said, "We're low on fuel and we have zero supplies other than a few pieces of clothing from that cabin trip. We need to grab a few things or we'll never make it to the states."

"I know, I know," said Adam, raising his hands in defeat, "We'll make it. I think."

The four turned their heads towards the wide street. A toll booth rested on the side, a long, orange blocker protruding from it, a sight very common at the edge of many cities. Cars were lined up behind it, stopped by a long line of sandbags most likely dropped from a helicopter. The sandbags were on top of most of the cars right behind the orange blocker, forming a small sandbag mountain the height of a small hill. Walking towards it, Bianca waited until the other three followed her. She reached forward, one hand on one of the heavy sandbags and one feet feeling its way onto a stable foothold. Once everyone got into position, she nodded her head in approval.

They began to climb.

It had been an hour since the cars drove away and although a part of Drew wished he had been in Bianca's car watching over his brother, he knew that he couldn't just leave his girlfriend to save her sister in a town most likely ravaged by infected, dangerous people. If they could even be considered people anymore. Shivering at the thought, Drew tightened his grip on his girlfriend's hand. They were walking along the backyards of houses by climbing fences; walking along the sidewalk in front of the houses held too much risk for them. So far, it was working fine. They hadn't run into a single… infected. He knew the infected were there even though he couldn't see them; he could hear the faint muttering and groaning and he could occasionally hear the sounds of one of them puking or eating. The sounds disgusted him and he almost vomited his entire breakfast at the sound of bones crunching.

"Do you know where we are, Katie?" Drew whispered to the blonde.

"Yeah. I think we're almost in my neighborhood. I live thirty minutes away from the edge of town by car, so it shouldn't be long now…" said Katie, quickly looking back to make sure Marisol was still trailing behind them.

"Alright. God, I hope your sister's okay."

"She's a smart girl. She'll be fine." Katie said, smiling and trying not to listen to the small bit of doubt lingering in her mind.

"I wonder if Mo's okay." She heard Marisol whisper under her breath.

"Mo?" Katie turned back, "What about him?"

"I mean, it's not like I like him or anything. We worked on a project together and I guess I'm just worried. We, uh, we kind of became friends after that." Marisol replied, as honestly as possible, "I mean, I didn't tell people we were friends because he's… you know. Mo. But he's my friend and I'm a little worried… but I know it's stupid. Your sister's in danger and all I'm doing is getting off t-"

"Look, Marisol. You know what? I know I'm worried about my sister, but if you're worried about someone too, I'm not going to get mad at you for that. It's natural to worry about people you care about, and-"

"I don't care about him."

"Of course, Marisol," Katie smiled, wrapping an arm around her best friend's shoulder, "I'm just glad you're not completely scarred up because of what you saw."

"Actually, I kind of am. I'm just trying to think of other things." Marisol nudged her friend back, "Now go back to your boyfriend, why don't you?"

"Yeah, come back to your boyfriend, why don't you?" Drew repeated with a grin.

The three shared a brief laugh, a small moment of the past, before refocusing on the task at hand- rescue Maya.

After climbing countless amounts of fences, trees, and bushes, the trio finally arrived in Katie's backyard. The yard looked just as she left it, Katie thought to herself unhappily. It was almost scary how on any other day, this yard would have led to a normal house, which would have been part of a normal street, which would have been part of a normal town. A part of her wished that she could just waltz back into the house and see her parents there, waiting with a banner reading "Surprise! Just kidding!" and a strawberry cake.

But this wasn't a normal day, and it wasn't a normal house. Nothing was normal anymore.

"You ready, baby?" Drew asked while pulling at the lock on the back door until it broke off with a small crack.

Looking into the living room through the opened back door, Katie could only see debris and wood thrown dangerously everywhere, as if a tornado had hit the inside of the house. The front door was barricaded by the living room couch, but that didn't seem to matter given that there was a hole in the ceiling from what Katie could see from her position by the door. The house was a complete, chaotic mess, and Katie was scared of the state she might find her sister in, if she even found her at all, and that's when she knew.

She wasn't looking for her sister anymore. She was looking for a body. With a few tears trailing down her cheek, she stepped inside.

"Let's find her."

He was scared, scared out of his wits. His foot never left the acceleration, and for an entire hour, he avoided conversation, the only thought in his mind to get to Sav as quickly as he could. Alli was bouncing her leg up and down next to him, a habit he would have usually been irritated with, but he understood why she was doing it. She didn't know what to expect. Would Sav be there, waiting for them like he said he would in her voice message? Or was he ripped apart by those… things?

Sav's message to Alli was simple enough; he said that the college was forcing their students to leave the town to a safer location, but he made sure to buy a lot of food and water and to stock it up in his dormitory room. His logic seemed foolproof; if everyone left the town, then there would be no infected trying to attack him. The address to his dorm room was stated in the message, his voice hurried and hushed, the sound of panic in the background. Her brother was a brave guy, Alli thought.

Dave thought he was stupid.

It was a disease, a virus. If anything, if the virus was airborne or waterborne, who's to say that Sav wasn't infected by it as well? What if they were walking into a deathtrap? What if Sav was already dead?

The town was mostly abandoned when Dave and Alli arrived there; the streets occasionally had the dead infected lying about. They looked almost normal, except their clothes were torn and their bodies and faces white and pale. Blue veins stuck out from under their skin, and their eyes looked almost yellow. Their skin bubbled at the surface, tearing at some places and bleeding puss and blood at the corners. Their mouths were ripped to the cheeks, probably from trying to eat everything in sight, and large lacerations usually covered most of their bodies. Hair was scarce on those things; they were in thin wisps on the top of the head; Dave assumed the hair fell out as soon as the virus took hold. Most of these dead… creatures were holding their stomachs, and Dave thought to himself how they must have starved to death or perhaps the virus was too strong and ended up overpowering their bodies.

He made sure not to allow Alli to go anywhere near the things; how could they be sure they were truly dead, and even if they were, what if the virus remained post-mortem? He couldn't risk that. Once in a while, he'd see a body plucked clean of skin and meat lying on the sidewalk, completely bloody. He assumed these were the people who were eaten before the infection had a chance to mutate them into one of those zombie creatures.

Dave wasn't sure which was worse.

"Dave... Dave, that's the college dorm Sav lives in." Alli said, pointing at a nice-looking facility building.

"It looks good from outside." Dave tried to joke, parking right outside of it.

"Let's just hope the inside's just as good." Alli replied, giving a tight smile, "And let's be thankful none of those zombies were alive."

"If they're zombies, Alli, they're never alive." Dave retorted, trying to make his girlfriend laugh.

"Dave, they're infected people… driven mindless because of the virus. If one of us got infected, we'd kill without a second thought. That scares me, Dave." Alli stammered, hand hovering over the car door.

"I was just trying to make you laugh," Dave admitted, "But listen, babe, I'm here. Nothing's going to hurt you. We'll step outside together, okay? On three."

"Okay."

"One."

Alli and Dave pulled on the handle of the car door.

"Two."

Taking a deep breath, Dave looked over at Alli to see her doing the same.

"Three."

Clare didn't know what to say to the boy who was sitting next to her, his arms wrapped around his legs and his head between his knees. Jake was driving an abandoned car they found along the road that had more fuel than the previous car. She decided to sit in the back seat next to her ex-boyfriend, and Jake didn't mind that he wouldn't have anyone sitting next to him. In fact, he preferred the quiet to help him mull over a few things running through his mind.

The drive was slower than before, mostly because Jake was trying to preserve gasoline and because he did not want to do anything that might cause Eli to break down.

"Adam didn't come with us, right?" Eli asked without moving an inch.

"No, he didn't." Clare replied, gently patting the boy's back.

A moment of silence passed.

"Shame." Eli said before silencing completely.

Clare wished that the other boy was here; he and Eli were best friends for the longest time. She knew that if there was anyone that could make Eli feel a little bit better, it would be Adam. Still, she knew contact was impossible; she tried calling someone, anyone, but her calls kept getting dropped. Another part of Clare hurt at the thought of another boy being able to make Eli feel better than she could. She was trying her hardest to comfort Eli but the first thing he said to her was about Adam. She wanted to believe that she was just as good of a friend as Adam was to Eli, despite the whole we-broke-up situation between Eli and herself.

"Hey, we're here." She heard her brother say as the car came to a full stop.

The three teenagers got out of the car, pulling their backpacks from the weekend trip out of the trunk with them before walking into the cabin and throwing the bags onto the floor.

"Hey, Eli, help me bring all the stuff from the tool shed into the cabin? We might need them." Jake asked, looking over at the upset boy.

"Jake, Eli is not in the right mindset to do something like that. He just lost his parents." Clare tried to reason.

"No, he's right. It's better if I help." Eli muttered, following Jake out of the cabin, "I don't want to lose anyone else."

Clare sighed, sitting down on the couch when she spotted Eli's cell phone on the ground. He must have tossed it inside with the backpacks. Leaning over, she picked it up, only for the saved messages to begin playing again.

"Eli? This is Mrs. Potters. From n-next door? I've… I've got to hurry. They're rushing us out of here. But your parents, your parents. The men in hazmat suits were here. They were sent by National Security. I tried to tell them your parents had allergies and they weren't infected. I know they weren't! But they said they couldn't risk it and they wouldn't let them into the helicopter and they left them back there. With the real infected people. It's crazy, it's crazy, I saw those infected... they were on them in an instant. I can't… I'm sorry. They told me to tell you they love you. They love you, Eli, please don't forget that. They love you. Oh, I've got to go. I'm so sorry."

The cell phone went flying across the room, breaking apart on impact with the wall, and Clare looked up in shock at the boy who stood there, trembling. Ignoring her own tears trailing down her face, she allowed the black haired boy to fall limp in her arms, strangled cries escaping his throat, shovels and axes forgotten by the door. Jake stood watching, wiping his tears with the back of his hand.

His own bundle of tools were left by the door as well.

He wondered if they were like the tools.

Forgotten.

End of Part II