Chapter 1.3

Rosemarie slammed on the brakes. The man froze in the middle of the road. His tall, thin body shuddered at the sound of her tires screeching. He waited for a few breaths his eyes darting around before approaching the car. Brushing his hair out of his face, he inched closer and leaned down to her window.

“Hey!” he said. “You guys going to Tuscaloosa?”

She heard Georgi’s car stop before she answered. “Kind of,” she said through the window. “We’re headed to a place several miles outside of there.”

She heard a car door slam.

“Tuscaloosa is in bad shape. Steer clear of there,” He warned.

Randy cocked his gun and walked toward the man. “Have you been bitten?” he said, aiming the gun at his head.

The man threw up his arms and backed away. “Woah! Take it easy!”

Chapter 1.2

Rosemarie was frantically throwing random stuff from her apartment into her car when they pulled up.

Georgi immediately got out and headed for the nearest box. Her nine year old, Alexis, followed.

“Are these boxes ready to go?” Georgi asked.

Rosemarie looked around. “I think so. Alex, grab those pillows.”

The girl nodded. She wrapped her little arms around a pile of pillows and began to waddle with them out the door.

“Uh, can I make a suggestion?” Randy said as he peered down at the heaps of stuff.  

Rosemarie suppressed a groan. “Yeah, sure.” You’re going to anyway.

“You should leave your school books. They’re heavy, take up space, and are pretty much useless,” he said.

“Look, this is a few hundred dollars worth of books. I’m not leaving them here to be looted,” Rosemarie growled, unable to hide her agitation. 
“We’re not moving to another apartment. We’re leaving to survive,” he said irritably. 
He continued to argue with her as Georgi and Alex carried stuff out.

Chapter 1: The Beginning

The first reported case of the virus was just another blip on the local news. It was reported as a simple case of assault. A man attacked another man outside of the Piggly Wiggly, viciously clawing and biting him as he was putting his cart in the return. The attacker was arrested and later transferred to a hospital for psychological evaluation.

Rosemarie and Georgiana didn’t really pay any attention to this report. They had more important things going on. Mainly, preparing for their finals. The best friends were working on finishing their junior year in Landscape Architecture. To say they were too exhausted to care about a brawl in a grocery store parking lot, would have been an understatement.

It wasn’t until a few days later that either of them noticed the series of attacks mounting up. Well, technically it wasn’t one of them, it was Georgina’s husband.

He read about the first attack with some interest. Immediately he started pestering Georgi about there being an outbreak. She ignored him as she usually did when he started spouting off his paranoid conspiracy theories.