Chasing Thyme

Sue and Lou.

 
THE BEGINNING

36 year old Susanne Connley, Sue to her friends, huddled in the corner of her high rise apartment in Manhattan. Her ears covered to drowned out the screams emanating from the hallway.  It seemed like everyone had jumped out from the worst horror movie she had ever seen. Men, women, and children running down the hall most screaming others moaning. This horrible rasping, rattle of a noise this moan. They were running from family or friends hell bent on making them a snack. Its happened the officials stated not twenty-four hours ago New York city would be safe from the illness. They had blocked all access to the city, no-one in and no-one out. They had military and police at the blockades to enforce the issue.  Illness is what they are calling it, people who have changed. Changed into flesh eating monsters, tearing into family and friends as if they were a buffet.

Forty minutes ago she watched five year old Timmy, ripping chunks of meaty flesh from his mother before growing bored. Only to turn and rip three of his father's fingers off in one swallow. Sue bolted to the elevator up to her sixteenth floor apartment. She couldn't think of what to do. The hall was cluttered with people carrying boxes and bags of belongings. All rushing to the elevator as she tried to squeeze her rotund body from the contraption.  The scream at the end of the hall kicked her into gear she did her best to run. Using her girth to get through the crowded hallway six doors down. She opened her door someone grabbed her hand bag and shoved her into the door frame, knocking her head on the steel. She didn't fight they could have her sixty dollars and her metro card. Covering the growing bump with her hand she ran to the couch, pushing and pulling it to the door. She collapsed to the floor and crawled to her current corner. She had been sitting there for what felt like hours blood running from the now goose egged bump. What in the hell happened to the blockades?

She moved from the floor the to bathroom, opening the medicine cabinet to clean and cover the bump. It was a deep purple edged with black a gash down the center. She followed the large bandage with some left over pain medication from a tooth extraction four years ago. She then went and hid in her room it was the furthest from the door the screams muffled slightly from the walls between them. Hours passed she must have fallen asleep, she woke to a hum not sure what it was or where it came from. She looked finding her battered phone beside her bed. Multiple calls and texts she had missed. Most from her sister in-law and very best friend for most of her adult life. Louise had set Sue up with her brother many years ago although her late husband had been gone for eight years she never could move on. He is and was the only reason she continued to live in the city, he loved it here born and raised in the big apple. Jeremiah Connley was her everything from the moment he stepped into her  life. Sue read the messages she got all from Lou.

Lou: DON'T LEAVE UR APT!
Lou: ARE U OK
Lou::ANSWER ME
Lou: OMW WE NEED TO LEAVE.
Sue: What no stay home its not safe.

Sue waited watching her phone for a few seconds, she called Lou it never rang. She tried and tried but it never rang. Her front door banged she ran to the living room and watched the door move just an inch.

"Let me in damn it. Hey Susanne open up!" Lou yelled.

"Oh my god. " Sue pulled the couch out a few feet Lou came in and hopped over.

She was covered in dark splatters and smelled horrible. Sue flipped the lights on the splatters were blood and gore.

"Are you ok? What happened to you?" Sue asked.
"It's not my blood. Quick get a bag together we have to leave as soon as the sun comes up. Get the guns we may need them." Lou said her tone left no room for argument and if she wanted guns Sue knew she had better listen.

THREE WEEKS LATER

The boat they used to make it out of the city died luckily they had found a small port to dock in. The two women had picked up four other survivors, two men a teen girl and a boy around ten. The group was bigger but each stop held its dangers. The group paddled around the docks. Searching for the beasts who looked the same as them.  The small private docks were devoid of any movement. They chose one at random and tied in the small eighteen person party boat.