Emalyn stared at her hands in resignation and then looked at the clock again. It was 3am (just like it had been for the last three days) that this had happened to her and now she was ready to admit that it was time to prepare herself. For the last three days she has had the same dream, people she couldn't see talking about the most horrible things, a newborn baby crying in her arms and another small girl crying on her knees.
She might have disregarded the strange dream as some figment of her imagination, too many horror movies this month, maybe she ate something wrong or was stressed about her ever-ticking biological clock. Emelyn might have believed that… she would have taken a Benadryl and moved on ignoring the strangeness of having the same dream over so many nights. If it wasn't for the space that had opened up inside of her.
The closest thing she could use to describe it would be like some stupid comic hammer space or maybe sort of like a video game inventory without a visual aide or slots. It was something she could feel and access inside of herself, she knew how big it was, and other things about it instinctively. However, she had no idea how it showed up inside of her, why it was there, if it would go away or how to even begin to explain this to someone.
All Emalyn knew was that she was on the precipice of something horrible and she had no idea how long she would have to prepare herself for whatever was coming. Resigning herself to not sleeping the rest of the night Emalyn grabbed her laptop to pull up YouTube and split her screen to begin filling out a spreadsheet. The people in her dream were talking about a pandemic, lots of people dying…but not staying dead. The few sentences she could hear every time she had the dream was about going to a safe zone set up by a military, the man wanted to go…the woman did not…she wanted to stay wherever they were in the dream.
Emalyn had no idea if the children in the dream were her own, but either way she needed to have plans to provide for them. The first thing she did was pull up survival prepping videos to get some idea on how to start. On the spreadsheet she began two lists, one simply labeled Survive and the other Thrive. Under Survival she began easily enough, shelf stable foods, clothes, tools, weapons, medical needs, and shelter stuffs were under that one. Under Thrive, that was where things like seeds, animals, farming equipment, building tools, and such things that were needed to build some sort of life…that's what went there.
It was a lot to consider. Just for animals alone she had a ton of things under that, types of animals, how many she would need to avoid genetic degradation, the care for them, the uses and the tools she would need for those uses. She had some savings, and credit lines…but getting everything she wanted the legal way was out of the question the pricing on it all was way to much.
Emalyn worked on her two lists until the sun finally rose and her alarm clock finally went off. Then she called her hospital and let them know she would be taking a leave of absence for the next week. She had been making a variety of online purchases while she was making her lists, but she headed out after breakfast to the nearest Costco. Food was king at the end of times, that, and simple medicines.
She went through the store a few times filling a cart and her space with things as she went along. It felt a little off putting to be stealing things, but Emalyn comforted herself that she would not be caught because there was no way anyone would be able to prove anything. Flour, Rice, Honey, Instant mash potatoes, Pasta, spices (so many spices) she went for a bit of everything that she could see and more. If she was right and she was about to go to that place in her dream it would be her last chance to get some of these things.
After Costco she went to a lot of hunting stores, fishing poles, cast iron pots and pans, knives, knives, more knives, multi-tool knives and more were on her list. Emalyn spent the entire day shopping, and when she got lunch/dinner she ordered enough for a small army so she could put the excess in her space. It was when she took out some of that food the next morning to find it as hot and fresh as it was yesterday that she realized that time might not be moving inside of her 'space'.
She went to a pet store first thing in the morning and got mice. Emalyn wanted to know what would happen to living things inside of the space if time didn't move and then she went shopping again. The dream had come again last night so when she had woken up once again, she had started to compile more things for her lists. She had also set up her laptop to download a whole list of how to videos from YouTube onto an external hard drive.
There was so much to do and with each passing day it felt like her time was growing shorter. Emalyn got seeds, lots and lots of seeds, also a lot of mature plants from nurseries, she went to farmer markets and hit up every grocery store she passed on her way during the day.
When she let the mice out later that night and had to watch with morbid horror/curiosity as they ripped themselves apart…well Emalyn was very discouraged. A lot of her thriving plans centered around having a sustainable source of food, animals were a huge part of that and if she couldn't save them in her space that was a huge blow to her plans. Emalyn was going by the 100/1000 rule, she needed a lot of animals to ensure no inbreeding and long-term genetic diversity to combat genetic drift/degradation over the generations.
The answer to what had happened to drive the mice insane was obvious, they had been existing outside of time in her space, while conscious that must have been agony. A few of the mice who hadn't torn themselves apart had just sort of laid down and just…died. So being awake had trapped them in their minds, no time had driven them insane, while perfectly preserving their bodies. They had existed outside of time frozen in place with no need to eat or drink.
The solution to her issue seemed impossible until she had considered the science fiction idea of cryosleep. When you're unconscious it's the only time your brain has a way that can process outside of time, so, in theory…animals would be less affected when they were asleep. Emalyn got more mice and while she was out shopping every time she noticed one was asleep she would put it in her space.
Emalyn had pulled up a lot of specialty shops last night; it's been six days since these dreams started and every day her list got longer while it felt like her time got shorter. She needed to get a lot of vintage things, things that ran without electricity and things that helped with long term survivability like wood stoves/ovens. Looms, pedal powered sewing machines, bee keeping things, all sorts of things that were not going to be picked up at a local hardware store. So, Emalyn had to research auctions, Amish communities (where she could maybe buy things like that with cash) and places where one might find what she was looking for.
Horse drawn carriages and farming equipment were a must, but she also needed to research breeds of horses to figure out her needs. Not just horses, but all sorts of animals had to have in-depth research done. Rabbits for fiber and meat, the different types of sheep, goats, cows, poultry and all sorts of things. She even bought two more laptops just for downloading all the content she felt was important to know about these things. Every day she was running on 3 to 4 hours of sleep, but it never felt like enough.
Emalyn extended her leave of absence to a month by the end of her first week. Time felt like a luxury, every minute Emalyn felt like something was coming she could not fight only prepare for…somehow stealing got easier and easier. Thankfully her animal problem was solved by sleep, it had to be deep rem to be safe and to be 100% sure for the animals she was thinking of stockpiling Emalyn realized she needed to drug them.
Buying fertilized eggs from a every farm she came across was actually one of the easier things. Getting the equipment was harder, Emalyn had resorted to raiding the larger commercial stores for things of that nature. That and getting the batteries and solar panels she needed. The desperation crept in every day, the dream was becoming more vivid and detailed every time she had it.
It had started to feel less and less like a dream and more like reality each time. She was getting less and less sleep. Some days she refused to sleep, afraid of what the night would bring. Emalyn also had to go very hard to research the needs of children. She was a doctor, so she knew a lot, but she wasn't a mother…so she felt like she knew too little. Formula, buying the frozen breastmilk stock from the nursing mother's she ran into at some of the farmer's markets she hit for food/animals/equipment. Cloth diapers, shoes, clothes, toys, books, educational needs, she had to think of it all.
Emalyn had watched enough zombie movies to know that the end of the world didn't exactly have a lot of teachers. She needed so many books, a lot of the time she would go to bookstores to buy what she could (and steal what she couldn't). Medical equipment was something a little easier to get, sutures, bandages, trauma kits, things like that were easy enough to buy. But getting medicine like antibiotics in bulk would be harder. For that Emalyn drove to different supply warehouses to raid, it was both easier and harder each time.
It was three grueling weeks later that finally…one night Emalyn fell into a fitful sleep and woke up in another world entirely. Her arrival felt like waking up, she was in a home somewhere, experiencing the worst migraine she had ever experienced, and the vertigo made her nauseous. The baby was crying in her arms, the little girl was on her knees and finally it felt like something cracked inside her head. A rush of cold flooded down her spine, everything was in such clarity, and she remembered a life that was not hers.
Her name was Emalyn Prescott (she couldn't remember her old last name) she was younger (it felt odd to be 25 again) and she was still a doctor. However, she had been adopted in this life…she had an older sister, Brianna, and these were her babies that she was comforting. Her sister and her husband were pacing the hall with the tv still broadcasting reports of a strange illness that was spreading fast. Videos people had shot and posted online were being played by the news reporters, people getting attacked and eaten by other people. People getting shot so many times and they just kept charging the person filming.
"We need to leave, the military is setting up some type of safe zone on the other side of the city. We should leave now!" David argued again in the hall.
"Did you not see what we just watched David! These infected people don't care who you are, even children, they attack without hesitation. They don't stop, we came here because Em warned us against going to the hospital to have Kalon! She said that she watched one of the infected die during an MRI…they are dead David! Dead and walking around eating people! I'm not going out there with the kids! We should wait here for the military to get a handle on this!" Brianna shot back angrily.
She had given birth at her house only four days ago, because Emalyn had warned her off the hospital. David had been easily persuaded because then they wouldn't have to be stuck with any bills from the birth and Emalyn could submit all the paperwork they needed to do herself through her hospital.
"It's dangerous to stay here Bri! We don't know how long it will take to contain this or even if they will get to this side of the city in time! We need to leave before its too congested out there!" David argued again.
"I only just gave birth to Kalon! Bellamy is only four, she won't understand what's going on…its too dangerous out there for them David."
"Then what does your sister think? She's a doctor, she's seen this thing up close, what does she think we should do?" David and Brianna looked at her then. Brianna was looking at her with these imploring eyes, begging her to stand on her side.
Emalyn still felt like her body was both too big and too small for her. Her migraine was in full force, she was woozy from two sets of memories being crammed into her head and could not imagine even standing up at the moment let alone make her way through God knows what to get to this military safe zone. "I think it would be best we…barricade the doors…secure the windows…turn out the lights and get a good night's sleep here while we still can. It's late… resting right now is the most important thing because we need to be at 100% whatever we decide."
Brianna looked at David, the I told you so was written all over her face.
"Fine," he bit out through clenched teeth, "we stay here tonight and first thing tomorrow we make a decision."
"We should all sleep in my room tonight and set up a watch rotation. I don't think its safe for all of us to be asleep at once." Emalyn felt woozy.
"That is a very good idea," Brianna agreed and looked to David.
"I'll take first watch," he sighed.
Brianna, Bellamy, and Emalyn carrying Kalon headed back to her room. It was both familiar and foreign. Her head pounded as she gave the crying nuzzling baby to her sister to breastfeed and helped Bellamy get her pjs on and brush her teeth. They all piled into the bed shortly after and the moment her head hit the pillow Emalyn felt like she was sucked down into sleep without being able to stop herself.
She woke up to David's hand on her shoulder and it startled her so much she sprang up almost colliding with his face that had bent down near hers.
"Hey," he whispered, "Its just me."
In a daze Emalyn nodded and just silently left the room after gesturing to her vacant spot. It was with bitterness that she noticed the clock on the oven reading 3 am, she got herself some water from her fridge and sat heavily down on her couch in the living room to drink it. Her mind was clearer now, she was technically in the past, this world seemed to be ten years behind her own, and her life had been so different here.
The similarities were there, Emalyn had still graduated high school very early at fourteen, she had still won a lot of scholarships to cover her medical school costs, she had still become a doctor at twenty-two and she was still painfully single at twenty-five. The differences were still huge, she had been adopted this time out of foster care at ten, her adopted parents had helped her through college this time so she didn't have to struggle to feed herself or fight for emancipation.
Her sister had been her best friend since they adopted her, which was really odd because the combination of her going through school so fast and her foster care upbringing had made her very socially awkward. At least in her first life, and the consequence of always being so much younger than her peers had her being treated more like a pet than a friend. She had struggled all her first life with making connections to people and picking up social ques. It made friendships nearly impossible, and it made relationships even worse.
Emalyn hadn't even lost her virginity in this life yet, in her last one she remembered an awkward one-night stand that had left her feeling used when the man had ghosted her shortly after. Not that any of this normal everyday life stuff mattered at all, there was a zombie outbreak spreading and she finally had a family she had to protect. It was easy to accept everything in the face of what was happening outside because she didn't have time to feel anything about her sudden shift in reality.
David had done a decent enough job securing the door and windows, so Emalyn concentrated on taking stock of what was available in her house. She pulled out one of the laptops from her space and was happy to see the internet was still up and functioning once she keyed in the password. On that laptop she pulled up maps and things of the surrounding resources. While those were being downloaded Emalyn located the laptop, she had in this life, that was already linked to her printer and began printing out some paper copies of those maps as well as downloading some more things from this world onto this laptop.
Then she pulled two more laptops out of her space and linked those two to her printer as well. On one she pulled up maps of the known active nuclear power plants in the world, on the other she started to print out maps of the roads from north to south America. She made sure the printer was stocked with enough paper and then left them to print in her office while she went through her house. While she remembered this life as if she had lived it herself…there was no way Emalyn in this life was as obsessive as she had become on taking stock of everything she owned.
The kitchen was first because even though she had enough food in her space to feed about a hundred people for a year this was the end of the world. Things like baking soda and exotic fruit like bananas were not going to be a thing in the foreseeable future. The kitchen was well stocked and so was the fridge. Emalyn got a duffle bag out and started to load up all the shelf stable stuff right away. While she was at it, she took out two of her prepared go bags out of her space and placed them in the hallway by the front door. Her space was unexplainable and frankly a liability if anyone found out about it.
Even though she trusted her family completely…this was life and death right now. If people found out she could be experimented on, she could be enslaved or worse. Her ability was too valuable in the world that was falling apart. Plus, its not like she would be able to answer the questions that people would no doubt have in regards to her space. Where it came from, how she uses it, why she had it, when she got it and where she got it…Emalyn had none of those answers. Even worse she had no way of finding out those answers ever, what was she supposed to say…it appeared one day while I was living in another reality and I just knew it was there and how to use it?
It sounded insane even in her own head, and if she were them Emalyn wouldn't believe her either. She had to be very careful about using it and making sure no one found out about her strange ability. It was bad enough being a doctor in the apocalypse, having this too…she would never be free if anyone found out. Even normal people would covet her and lock her away somewhere.
That was a nightmare she had often as a child, being locked up somewhere and never being able to leave.
Emalyn shook herself out of her dark and distracting thought to force herself to go back to inventorying her house while packing up her food. She couldn't leave anything behind because when they left there was no coming back. The her from this life was also well-stocked in the way of medical supplies and emergency foods. There were some MREs and high calorie food bars as well.
She checked in on her laptops regularly, downloading and printing more on each of them when the que was freed up enough. Her three laptops from her last world were faster and more advanced than the one she had in this world. That was to be expected though since her laptops were technically from the future. Man, it was weird being so young again.
Emalyn pulled out the two tablets she had gotten that were designated for entertainment for the children and went through to download the unique to this world shows and movies. She pulled out another two tablets and began doing that for more mature content as well. Then she pulled another laptop with a blank hard drive to download more stuff. There was a lot in this world that was like her original one…but there were some very big differences as well.
The most glaring seems to be that there were no Zombie media things out in this world, and that was a disturbing discovery. Emalyn went back to the kitchen to make breakfast for everyone as she saw the sun's light begin to filter in through the curtains. She had a lot of food already prepped in her space and decided to take out her unbaked cinnamon rolls so she could just pop them in the oven.
Enough that everyone could have two if they so desired. She got some of the fruit out of the fridge as well to cut up to go along with it since it wasn't like it would keep long outside of her space. Brianna drifted out with the children first.
"David is still sleeping," she whispered as she sat down at the bar top in her kitchen to watch her work. "Why didn't you wake me up?"
"You need to get all the sleep you can right now," Emalyn said as she came around and put Bellamy in her wooden highchair with some juice and fruit.
Brianna stopped her and gave her a big hug, careful to keep Kalon from getting squished between them. "Thank you," She whispered in her ear.
Emalyn smiled and enjoyed the hug. "We're family." She said in return.
"What is the plan?" Brianna said as she pulled away, "I love David, but he doesn't deal well in stressful situations, he gets so flustered and doesn't think straight. His go to is looking for someone else to deal with it…preferably someone with authority. I know you Em…you definitely have something cooking in that head of yours and I heard the printer in your office running as I was coming out here."
"I don't have a plan yet, but I do know going to any huge concentration of people would be a mistake. You remember Katrina…it is a disaster waiting to happen. Even if this was a normal disaster, which it is not, the military doesn't have the greatest track record in normal conditions in taking care of people. The rate this is spreading, how widespread it is, that's like having every city in the entire US experiencing Katrina…they just don't have the manpower." Emalyn said as she pulled the cinnamon rolls from the oven to cool for a bit before frosting.
"So, what do we do?" Brianna said staring at her babies in worry.
"For now…we plan to get the hell out of Atlanta. While it's still possible, we have to get out but it's going to be really dangerous Bri. But staying here would be a mistake, cities are full of people, illnesses spread faster in high density areas like this and that's when they are normal. Whatever this is…its not normal."
"When do we leave," both startled and jumped at David's voice.
Emalyn glanced at him and then looked back at Brianna, "I'm printing out a bunch of maps right now, I started to pack up my food, but I'm not done yet. I have two go bags in the front hallway. I think first we eat, then I'll get the maps together while you two pack up all the essentials. We are gonna need blankets and things. David if you could get the camping gear from the garage?"
They both nodded seriously, and both seemed to be relieved to be told what to do. Emalyn served them the rolls and the fruit with the juice. "Eat as much as you possibly can, Bri, if you could get some sandwiches ready? I don't know when we will get a chance to eat again once we leave."
Once they stuffed themselves as much as possible Emalyn went to her office thankful they had not gone in there when they woke up. She put all the laptops and tablets back into her space and then started to put the things she had printed out into page protectors in the binder she had prepared. When she came out from the office Brianna was making sandwiches in the kitchen, the baby was in a rocking swing in the living room and Bellamy was sitting with him just silently staring at him. Emalyn had noticed she had gone really quiet the last few days and while she was really worried about that she couldn't address it until they were somewhere safer.
Emalyn flipped the binder open and went to the pages that had maps of Atlanta and the roads out. There was a lot that they didn't know so she made sure to get multiple routes out highlighted. David and Brianna joined her when they finished. "I think we should pull your SUV into the garage and load it up in there…I don't want to get surprised by any infected or people wanting what we might have." Emalyn told David who nodded in return. "I have a few different routes out of here, I think we should head towards this wooded area here near a Quarry, it's a good place to get some distance so we can make a better plan."
"That sounds great and all but what are we going to do about the dangers out there?" Brianna asked seriously eyes on her babies.
"I have some knives in the go bags, but I wanna make something with more reach in the garage before we leave. Also…David your priority will be Brianna, you two leave protecting the kiddos to me. Bri is still bleeding pretty heavily, and she will struggle with running if we have to do that at any point. So she needs you to watch out for her David, you understand?" Emalyn said seriously, "Bri, I know you want to have your babies with you but your insides aren't healed yet, carrying them could do you a lot of damage that could slow your recovery. Leave them to me, I'll strap Kalon to my chest and carrying Bellamy will not slow me down as much as it would you."
Brianna looked worried but she nodded in acceptance and gripped her hand hard, "I know you'll protect them Em."
"You should get the kids ready; I'll get the SUV into the garage with David first." Emalyn squeezed her hand in return, nodded and followed David to the front door. It was calm on the street, and across the way she could see a few of her neighbors loading up their cars as well. David got his keys out and they moved the furniture from the front door. He ran to his SUV in the driveway while she went to the garage.
As soon as David pulled inside Emalyn closed the garage and cringed at how slow it seemed. David got out and made his way to the door, "Grab the go bags and the food first. I'm gonna work on some weapons."
Emalyn went for the tool on the other side of the garage, storing what she could in her space and getting out a couple of bats. She hammered nails through the end of one bat, cannibalized the blades off a pair of ice skates and hammered them into the sides of another. She got her machete out from her gardening stuff as well; distance and reach were important in the zombie breakdown of society. That and quiet weapons were king in times like these.
While she was busy with that David was loading the trunk with everything and Brianna was packing everything she could see that was useful in the house. Emalyn joined Bri after she loaded the two bats in the front seats and put the machete in the back. The kids had been strapped into the back seat in their car seats to keep them out of the way. At the fridge Brianna was looking at all the food inside conflicted, "It seems like a waste to leave all this but without ice it would be useless to take most of this stuff."
"Why don't you leave this to me, I have a little cooler I can pack for some of it. You should pack up some of my warmer clothes for you, it might be warm now but at night or if this lasts longer than we thought it will be good to have something to keep us warm." Emalyn got her out of the kitchen. She loaded as much as she could in a small cooler with some ice packs and put the rest in her space for another time.
The SUV was sitting heavy with all their supplies, and they all got in. David was driving, Brianna got in the passenger front and Emalyn was sitting next to the kids in the back right behind Brianna. Emalyn had her map binder open and was ready to navigate as they pulled out of the driveway. She didn't need the map at first but as they drove it became more useful since they tried to avoid the highway.
It was chaotic in the streets and David had to go slower than he wanted because people were out looting. There were some attacks that David had to drive through, and Emalyn could only watch in horror with the rest of them as they watched the dead eat the dead. It was when they were at the edge of the city when it happened, David was trying to get around a car wreck when a man with a gun pointed at David ran up to the car screaming at them to get out. He had blood all over him and Emalyn saw bite marks.
"Run him over David!" Emalyn said seriously as she tried to see around the smoke from the burning wrecked car.
"I can't!" David said shaking while clenching the wheel.
"Do it David!" Brianna chimed in clenching the bat between her knees.
"I can't just kill someone Bri!" David said as the man yelled at them to get out and kept slowly marching closer to the hood of their car.
"DO it David!" Emalyn shouted as the man came closer and she saw shambling figures appear out of the smoke behind him.
David still couldn't move, he panted, he wasn't getting out and he wasn't killing the man who had stopped them. Just as the man swung to point the gun at Brianna the shambling figures grabbed him from behind. The shot went off and the front window shattered as it hit Brianna. David hit the gas as the man went down mowing into the crowd of dead ones in front of them and swerving into the wrecked car on the side of the road.
Emalyn screamed when the shot went off and hit her head on the side of the glass as David crashed the car. Her ears were ringing, the kids were crying but Emalyn went to her sister first. "Bri!" Emalyn climbed over and looked, there was a lot of blood. Brianna was gasping for breath her face was cut up from the broken glass and Emalyn had a hard time seeing where the bullet went in since she was so covered in blood.
Her hands shook as she tried to put pressure on the wound and her sister reached up to grab her wrist as she did. "Don't…don't let my babies die here Em…" she hissed through gritted teeth.
Emalyn felt her eyes burn from the heat of her tears as they blurred her eyes, "Don't talk like that Bri…I'm a doctor…I'm gonna save you."
Bri looked at her face, saw the dismay on it and then Bri turned her head to call out to her daughter Bellamy. "Bella…baby…mommy love you and your brother so much. Auntie Em…Auntie will be your mommy now too. Okay baby, I'll always love you." There was groaning coming from outside the car, there was too much blood coming out and there was no time. Bri started to weakly push her hands away, "Go Em…please."
Emalyn's hand shook as she pulled her bloody hands away from her sister, it felt like someone was ripping out her heart from her chest, "please don't make me do this," she begged.
Bri met her eyes, "I love you…go."
Emalyn went back to the back to check on the kids, Bellamy was crying hard in staring at her fading mom and the baby was crying but ok as well. As quickly as she could Emalyn took all the supplies into her space and then got Kalon into the wrap carrier that she had put on before they had left the house tightening it as she went. She got Bellamy unbuckled and into her arms.
She let Bellamy hold her mom's weak outstretched hand, "I love you." Bri said one last time. Then she passed Emalyn the bat and only then did she notice that it had been embedded in her legs.
"I'm so sorry," Emalyn said feeling like a failure she only heard Bri calling out that she loved them as they got out of the car feeling horribly exposed. Bella had collapsed pressing her face onto her neck as she held on like a clinging monkey. David had been knocked unconscious in the crash and he was still out. She couldn't carry him and the children…not with the dead she could hear coming.
She gripped the bat in one hand and held onto Bella with her left careful of her brother strapped to her chest. There was a line of shops on the other side of the street, she needed to get out of the open and think of a plan. She had vehicles in her space but she needed cover, they hadn't seen that man until it was too late. Emalyn knew David had woken up when she heard his screams sound out from behind her. Bella sobbed in response crying out Daddy softly into her neck.
Emalyn didn't think she would ever be able to forget the sound of his screams and the wet squish of the things eating him. She ran until she made it to a shop, it was dark and locked but that didn't matter to her. She used the bat to hit the doorknob off and kicked in the door. Once they were inside, she found a heavy shelf that she pulled down to block the entrance she just made.
Emalyn couldn't allow herself to think about what she had just done, she forced herself to only think about the next thing she had to do to get Bri's babies to safety. She took in where she had ended up, and to make sure it was safe. It was the storage room of a coffee shop, there didn't seem to be anyone around, but she had to be sure. A quick sweep of the place made sure they were alone, but she still kept a tight hold on the babies not letting them down. Bella was still crying hard but silently into her neck sending a wet trail down her shirt.
Her own eyes were burning, spilling over tears running hot rivers over her cheeks, she could only be grateful that Bri must have died before they had come for David. Emalyn forcefully stopped that train of thought by looking around to see if there was anything she could use. Coffee beans, loads of tea, some frozen/refridgerated foods and some dry foods quickly went into her space. Bella wasn't looking and collecting things helped Emalyn set herself on the mindset of looking ahead and not allowing her thoughts to drift on what had just happened.
Once she had cleared the coffee shop Emalyn found a comfy looking chair in the lounge that was relatively hidden from the window paneling the front and sat down to check on the little ones. Bellamy had passed out, but Kalon had ass well though he was nuzzling around her chest even in his sleep. Emalyn took out a prepared bottle of breastmilk she had in her space, the shape was similar to a boob, and it was easy to stick in between her shirt on Kalon's nuzzling face. He latched on quickly and his deep suckling reassured her.
It was late in the afternoon now, they had been driving for hours navigating through the city had been hard, the chaos often left the roads blocked and they had to back track a lot to get around them. They had been so close…if David had just listened…Emalyn shut down that line of thought as her heart felt like it was in a vise and the burning in her eyes made it harder to see.
There was no time for a breakdown right now.
She had to think and plan how to get them out of this mess.
The truck she had in her space would be a good vehicle to use, but she couldn't exactly take it out in the coffee shop. Which meant she had to go out there…with the babies.
Emalyn got up and cautiously looked out to figure out where she was, they had crashed on the road behind a strip mall, there were clothing shops, a couple restaurants and a ups store on this little strip. There was another strip mall across the street where she could see a grocery store that was swarming with people, dead and alive. The sound over there must have been attracting the dead because none had followed her into the coffee shop.
She backed away from the front and made her way back to her semi-hidden corner. Her arm was already beginning to burn from carrying her niece, but Emalyn couldn't put her down. It was too dangerous to have her even one step away from her right now, so Emalyn got another wrap baby sling out of her space and somehow strapped Bella to her as well. Kalon was tucked under 2 wraps now and had finished eating. She stored the unfinished bottle back into her space and gently patted his back as she swayed in the seat.
It really was a comfortable chair.
The options didn't look very appealing, the pile up of cars on the road out back made it too dangerous for her to just run through. The addition of their car to the wreck had made the road impassable without climbing over all of that. Besides the dangers of broken glass and metal Emalyn also thought that it would be difficult to see with certainty if the way was clear of the dead. The last thing she needed was to get bitten trying to make her way through that mess.
Which left the road out front, it was wider so she could definitely drive at least but the people across the street were concerning. Not only the dead ones…after all the one who had shot her sister hadn't been dead yet. The daylight would make it impossible to hide…but going out in the dark had its own risks as well. Her options were really fucked…but she had to make a decision and soon.
She went out to look out the front window paneling again and finally decided that she would have to risk it to leave now. There were too many people over there…too many getting caught up in that mess and turned. By nightfall all those dead will be prowling around, delaying only means more danger. Emalyn did one last sweep of the place to make sure she had taken anything useful (she took the comfy chair too) and then made her way to the front door.
The parking lot was clear, so she opened the door and ran to the truck she pulled from her space. Once she was inside with the doors locked, she had to adjust the seat back a bit to accommodate the children and took off out of the parking lot.
