I am so glad you all are happy about the Damon and Piper return! You're all awesome and I'm excited that you're excited! Thanks a million times over for giving this a shot =)
Chapter Two
Carol turned down another side street, speeding, because she needed to get to the school. The pain of not knowing if her daughter was okay was a crippling thing. She had tried to call the school as soon as the military men had stormed her house but the phone lines were dead. Her cell phone service was out and she had no choice but to try to get to the school, even though they had ordered her to go directly to the interstate and leave the city. But how did they expect her to do that? She wasn't the type to break the law, but this was her child! She couldn't leave without her.
They had told her that the students were being evacuated and that they were all traveling to Fort Benning. That was where she would find her daughter, but something told her that this wasn't true. She felt it in her marrow that her daughter wouldn't be with the others. She couldn't explain it as anything other than mother's intuition.
For five years now it had just been the two of them. They struggled together to make a life, a real life, after Ed was killed in a car accident. Sophia had always been her whole world, but after that the girl had become her universe. Everything she did she did to benefit her daughter. And now she didn't know where her daughter could be. She felt adrift. She kept swallowing down her panic, reminding herself that the girl was okay and that she would find her soon and the two of them would go to Fort Benning together.
She wasn't far from the school now. Just a few more miles and, hopefully, she would reach her daughter. There were no other cars on the side street she was on and there didn't seem to be anyone coming in either direction at the intersection.
It was a split second decision. It was a stupid decision. She gunned the engine when the stop sign came into view. She hadn't been expecting anyone to be traveling since everyone in the city were suppose to be heading towards the interstate. She realized her mistake but didn't have time to react when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a blue pick up truck. The truck slammed into the side of the car, sending it spinning one hundred eighty degrees and then stopping when the passenger side hit a telephone pole.
Had she been just a fraction of a second sooner the truck would have T boned her, but it just hit the front fender. She was dazed. She was wearing a seat belt but when the car had slammed into the pole she had hit her head on the side window so hard that it cracked the glass. She was shaken and a wave of dizziness had her head swimming for a few long seconds before she unbuckled her seat belt and opened the door.
She couldn't believe how careless she had been. If the driver of that truck was hurt it was because of her. She stepped out of the car, bracing herself on the door. Her hands shook so badly that she almost couldn't get a good grip on it. Her eyes came up just as someone got out of the truck and started storming towards her.
"What the fuck is your problem, lady? You tryin' to kill yourself or somethin'?" He barked. "And me in the process?" He stopped a few feet away, hands on his hips and a scowl on his face. She couldn't gauge his age.
"I'm sorry, I didn't see anyone coming. I thought everyone would be on the interstate by now. Are..." she swallowed hard as she squinted at him through the pain in her head. She hadn't even realized that it was hurting until now. "Are you okay?"
He scoffed and gestured towards his truck. "I'm fine, no thanks to you."
She let go of the door and tried to step around so she could look at the damage. She was unsteady. "I must have hit my head," she muttered.
He nodded. "No shit. That would explain all the blood."
She reached up and touched the side of her head, wincing slightly. Her fingertips came back wet and red. "Damn it."
"Look, I got somewhere I need to be. I got kin out there and I can't get a hold of my brother so I gotta get the hell out of here." He hesitated and then cursed under his breath. "You need me to drop you off somewhere?"
"The school. I need to get to the high school. My daughter goes there and I haven't been able to get a hold of her either."
"The school's a bust, lady. I just came from there. The buses are already headin' out to Fort Benning and it looks like military is the only people left. Fort Benning is where we're all suppose to go. Some sort of safe zone."
She felt her stomach drop. "Safe from what? No one is telling us anything." She felt her self control slipping. She couldn't stand not knowing if Sophia was okay and now the buses were gone and all she could do was hope that she was on one of them.
He ran a hand through his hair. "Look, I can take you as far as Fort Benning. Wherever my niece is is where my brother will be so I gotta go there anyway." He pulled a red rag out of his back pocket and held it out to her without taking a step closer. "Here. You're getting blood all over. Head wounds bleed a lot. If I do give you a ride you ain't gonna puke in my truck are you?"
She took the rag and held it to the side of her head. "I don't think I'll be sick." She wasn't sure if she should get in the man's truck at all. She didn't know him. He didn't seem very friendly and she had more trust issues when it came to the opposite sex than she knew what to do with. But if he could get her to Sophia then it would be well worth the risk.
"What the fuck?" He muttered, eyes narrowing as he looked past her.
She turned to look over her shoulder and gasped. There was a large group of people walking towards them. "What's wrong with them?" She asked, her voice so quiet she was surprised he even heard her.
He shook his head, his eyes on the group. "I don't know."
She jumped when a loud sound cracked the air around them and then another. She knew they were gunshots but she had no idea why there would be shots like that out here in the middle of a neighborhood in broad daylight.
"Let's go," he growled, gripping her arm roughly and pushing her towards the truck.
She glanced over her shoulder one more time and saw one of the people in the group drop after another shot went off. Someone was shooting these people!
"Move your ass, woman!" He said, giving her another push.
She didn't need anymore coaxing than that. She didn't even have a chance to go around to the passenger side. He opened the drivers door and shoved her in roughly. She barely had time to scoot over before he was sliding in next to her and gunning the engine. She buckled her seat belt and focused on breathing. Her heart felt like it was going to pound out of her chest.
"What was that?" She asked as a rumbling sound reached her ears. She looked over her shoulder and what she saw then had her blood running cold. "Oh my God, look," she breathed. There was a tank. An actual tank turning down the street, actually mowing over some of the people that seemed to be too stunned or too stupid to get out of the way.
"Jesus Christ," he muttered, his eyes flicking from the road to the rear view mirror.
"Why would they do that? Why would they just run people over?" She asked, finally turning back around once he pulled onto another side street.
"I ain't so sure those people are your average people. Did you see them?"
She shook her head. "That still doesn't mean they deserve to be ran over like that. They just looked sick."
He shrugged and grew silent as he drove towards the interstate. He obviously wasn't one that felt the need to fill the long silence with idle chatter. It was also obvious, however, that he was filled with nervous energy. She felt the same, that and a pounding headache.
"So, you went to the school. Do you have children?" She asked.
He gave her a look that said that he thought she was an idiot. "No."
She waited for him to explain but she didn't glance at him again. Curiosity was eating at her but he was so gruff that she didn't want to ask him anything else for fear of him getting angry. She had had her fill of angry men. She didn't want to deal with another one for as long as she lived.
She was zoning out when the truck started to slow down and then it stopped altogether. She glanced at him and then followed his gaze. They were on an overpass, the interstate below them. "Oh my God," she muttered. For as far as the eye could see there was traffic and it was at a stand still.
"That ain't good but we can still get there. There's roundabout ways," he said, taking his foot off the break and coasting off the overpass.
"But Fort Benning was already a three hour drive. Taking back roads the whole way will at least double that," she muttered.
He glanced at her and she could see the worry in his eyes. "Yeah, well, we ain't got much choice."
She couldn't stand the silence anymore. He didn't have to talk but she was going to. "When those men came to my house and told me that there was a city wide evacuation all I could think about was my daughter. That was why I ran the stop sign. It's just me and her and I'm sure she's... scared," Carol said swallowing around a lump in her throat. She wasn't going to say anything for fear of annoying him but she couldn't just sit there in silence.
"I'm sure she's alright," he said suddenly, surprising her.
She nodded. "Thank you. You're probably right. I mean, they're just kids so they would be a top priority."
He was silent for a while and she let it settle over her no matter how much she just wanted to fill the space with chat. "My niece and my cousin go to that school too."
She offered him a slight smile but he didn't return it. She hadn't expected him to though.
"How's your head?" He asked suddenly, glancing at her.
She pulled the rag away and winced. "I think it's stopped bleeding. I really am sorry about running that stop sign. And I appreciate the ride."
He nodded.
She realized then that she didn't even know this man's name and she didn't know how to ask without sounding stupid. So she let the silence drag on as they drove along the back roads towards Fort Benning, and hopefully Sophia and the other kids.
"Think this has somethin' to do with all those sick people? You know, the ones that the News has been talkin' about for the last few days?" he glanced over and then back to the road.
She frowned. "That actually hadn't even occurred to me but it makes sense. I mean, those people on the road back there..."
"Looked sick to me," he said quietly.
She shook her head, a new wave of fear gripping her. "Sick enough to be gunned down though? That just doesn't make any sense."
He scoffed at that. "I don't think we've even scraped the surface of shit that ain't makin' any damn sense."
She stared out the window, her stomach swirling and her head pounding painfully. What the hell was happening to them?