Mad World (Book 2): Sanctuary by Samaire Provost Page A
Authors: Samaire Provost
Tags: Zombies
Ads: Link
had come up behind us. He backed us up maybe forty or fifty feet to the last exit and then turned off it. Apparently the majority of the drivers thought he had a good idea, because the other cars began to back up from the billowing smoke. The explosion had engulfed three of the closest vehicles and one of the police cars. Flames were shooting up into the sky.
Jacob turned down the frontage road, which brought us closer to the wreckage than we had been. We could see up the embankment to our left; the freeway was maybe ten feet above us and the wreckage fifty feet from us. It looked like a car had hit the right hand side guardrail and flipped over. Its gas tank must have exploded. I wondered if the driver had turned, like the other accident we had seen. I had turned around and was just about to ask Caitlyn what she thought when Stanley exclaimed, “Oh man!”
I swung around to look and gasped. A figure was crawling out of the wreckage toward the firemen, who were trying to put out the blaze. The person was engulfed in flames. I couldn’t tell if it was male or female: the face was a blackened burnt mass. But it was clear the thing was a zombie, probably turned while driving. It walked with arms outstretched toward the firemen, and it did not seem to be panicking, as a human would if set on fire. A knot formed in the pit of my stomach watching the thing, which had probably been a normal human adult only ten minutes before, now engulfed in flames and calmly walking toward the firemen. Black smoke curled up from the figure toward the blue sky, and I could hear the fire crackling.
“Oh man,” Caitlyn said. We all watched as the figure walked towards the firemen and policemen, arms outstretched, trying to reach them to attack them, completely oblivious to the fact that it was entirely on fire. It was like watching a human-shaped torch. The men backed away hastily as it kept coming toward them. The engulfed zombie then began moving toward the fire engine, at which point one of the police officers drew his weapon and, taking careful aim, shot the thing in the head. The corpse dropped where it was and continued to burn on the ground. After a minute one of the firemen came up to it and sprayed it with a fire extinguisher. It was a horrific sight – made even more horrifying by the sight of the fireman calmly extinguishing the flames. He was obviously used to dealing with zombies. He didn’t hurry to save the victim, as he would have had it been a person on fire. Everyone there knew that nothing could have been done to save the victim.
After a person became infected, there was no cure. All you could do was restrain them, quarantine them, or put them in a cell. And when they turned black and began to attack, there was nothing you could do but kill them. Nothing at all.
People had been horrified to see a loved one turn and attack them. Some had even been forced to kill their own family members; it was either that or risk being hurt and infected themselves. It was a world gone mad.
So far, there was a 100 percent succumb rate in infected individuals. Scientists had been trying for years, without success, to find a cure for this virulent strain of the Black Plague. It continued to defy the odds, and as soon as the scientists found something they thought might affect it, it would mutate slightly and continue infecting the population in a slow but steady march to cover the globe. There were efforts to restrict air travel, to try to slow the spread of the Plague, but there had been such an uproar in the beginning from politicians and their wealthy constituents that by the time severe restrictions had been put in place, many infected individuals had already traveled to every corner of the globe. Imagine the common cold virus that hits your town/workplace/family every winter, only with lethal and deadly results. Yeah. That was our world.
Chapter Seven
Jacob pulled the van away from the awful scene and
Jacob turned down the frontage road, which brought us closer to the wreckage than we had been. We could see up the embankment to our left; the freeway was maybe ten feet above us and the wreckage fifty feet from us. It looked like a car had hit the right hand side guardrail and flipped over. Its gas tank must have exploded. I wondered if the driver had turned, like the other accident we had seen. I had turned around and was just about to ask Caitlyn what she thought when Stanley exclaimed, “Oh man!”
I swung around to look and gasped. A figure was crawling out of the wreckage toward the firemen, who were trying to put out the blaze. The person was engulfed in flames. I couldn’t tell if it was male or female: the face was a blackened burnt mass. But it was clear the thing was a zombie, probably turned while driving. It walked with arms outstretched toward the firemen, and it did not seem to be panicking, as a human would if set on fire. A knot formed in the pit of my stomach watching the thing, which had probably been a normal human adult only ten minutes before, now engulfed in flames and calmly walking toward the firemen. Black smoke curled up from the figure toward the blue sky, and I could hear the fire crackling.
“Oh man,” Caitlyn said. We all watched as the figure walked towards the firemen and policemen, arms outstretched, trying to reach them to attack them, completely oblivious to the fact that it was entirely on fire. It was like watching a human-shaped torch. The men backed away hastily as it kept coming toward them. The engulfed zombie then began moving toward the fire engine, at which point one of the police officers drew his weapon and, taking careful aim, shot the thing in the head. The corpse dropped where it was and continued to burn on the ground. After a minute one of the firemen came up to it and sprayed it with a fire extinguisher. It was a horrific sight – made even more horrifying by the sight of the fireman calmly extinguishing the flames. He was obviously used to dealing with zombies. He didn’t hurry to save the victim, as he would have had it been a person on fire. Everyone there knew that nothing could have been done to save the victim.
After a person became infected, there was no cure. All you could do was restrain them, quarantine them, or put them in a cell. And when they turned black and began to attack, there was nothing you could do but kill them. Nothing at all.
People had been horrified to see a loved one turn and attack them. Some had even been forced to kill their own family members; it was either that or risk being hurt and infected themselves. It was a world gone mad.
So far, there was a 100 percent succumb rate in infected individuals. Scientists had been trying for years, without success, to find a cure for this virulent strain of the Black Plague. It continued to defy the odds, and as soon as the scientists found something they thought might affect it, it would mutate slightly and continue infecting the population in a slow but steady march to cover the globe. There were efforts to restrict air travel, to try to slow the spread of the Plague, but there had been such an uproar in the beginning from politicians and their wealthy constituents that by the time severe restrictions had been put in place, many infected individuals had already traveled to every corner of the globe. Imagine the common cold virus that hits your town/workplace/family every winter, only with lethal and deadly results. Yeah. That was our world.
Chapter Seven
Jacob pulled the van away from the awful scene and
Similar Books
