Blight: The Catalyst

Chapter Six: Abandon

"No, we're not sick." We get in the car and Uncle Tommy drives us down the road. "There are a lot of sick people though, keep away from them."

"Can we listen to the radio?" Octavia asks. Without a word, Uncle Tommy turns it on. Instead of music, the news broadcast plays.

"...On North Main Street where multiple gunshots can be heard. The McKinney Police Department has advised that all civilians stay indoors and restrict contact with infected individuals. No evacuations have yet to be mentioned by government officials and causality rates are rising by the minute. Forty-Three confirmed dead and dozens injured as the disease spreads." The news lady reports.

"Uncle Tommy, where are we going? The lady said to stay inside!" Octavia whimpers from the back seat.

"We're not staying in town, sweetheart. We have to leave before sunrise." Our Uncle answers tensely.

"Why? What happens at sunrise?" I demand, trying to look my uncle in the face.

"Nothing we want to stick around for, Cassy." He answers.

"That doesn't answer my question! What's going on?!"I demand.

The car careens to the left as something slams into my side of the car. My siblings scream, a bright light flashes, and everything goes black...

*****

I gasp awake, my chest heaving and my ribs aching. I'm lying on my back, but my side is pressed against the metal bar of the bed supporting the top bunk and it digs into my ribs, making it pinch when I breathe.

I groan and turn over on my side only to roll over my sister, who's curled up right next to me. She gives a cartoonish grunt of discomforted surprise and jerks to the side, her arms flailing and punching Felix in the stomach. He groans in exhausted pain and rolls over, flopping off the bed in an attempt to get away from Octavia's fists of tired fury.

I sit up and rub my eyes as Octavia steals the last of the blankets and buries herself in them, pressing her feet against my thigh and pushing me, trying to kick me off the bed.

God I hate sleeping in the same bed as my sister.

"W'time izzit?" Felix mutters nearly unintelligibly from the floor.

I glance out at the window behind us and sigh.

"Sun-up." I answer, my voice heavy with lack of sleep. I glance around the RV and spot Leon in the driver's seat of the front cab looking over some papers. Dani's bed has been turned back into the kitchenette table and she's nowhere to be seen. Jocelynn's arm is dangling over the side of the bed, twitching every so often with a groan.

It's looking like the others are waking up too. I crawl over my sister, making sure to be as obnoxious as I can be, and climb out of bed, putting my boots back on. The RV is freezing from the night without electricity and I really want to crawl back under the blankets, but I know we have a lot of ground to cover today. Felix slumps over to the kitchenette table and plops down, tying his boots on as well, his eyes half closed with sleep.

Glancing back, my sister is still nestled in the heap of borrowed blankets and pillows. I can hear activity in the back room as the boys back there are getting ready for the day. I grab a fistful of the blanket Octavia's buried under and stand, yanking it off of her. She makes an attempt to grab it back before it slips away from her and exposes her to the cold RV, but she fails miserably and makes a loud groan of displeasure.

"Five more minutes!" She groans.

"Sorry, little sis, but we have to get going soon. Everyone else is waking up." I tell her, glancing up at Jocelynn, who's still dead to the world.