Mad World (Book 2): Sanctuary by Samaire Provost Page B

continued down the frontage road, leaving the black smoke and roaring fire behind us. His face was set in a grim yet determined look that we all knew very well. I consulted the map and tried to find the frontage road. It took me a few minutes but finally I found the area where we were.
    “Jake, this road doesn’t meet the freeway for another fifteen miles, it just veers to the right up here and goes northeast and into Minnesota. I’m not sure exactly how we are going to get back onto the freeway from here,” I said, looking at the map.
    “Maybe it’s time for a short foray into Middle America,” Jake said grimly. I looked into the rearview mirror and into his face and our eyes met. I saw the resigned look on Jacob’s face and I could read his mind. We were all so tired of the struggle, every day it seemed, to avoid the plague and try to lead some semblance of a normal life. I glanced at Luke, who was looking out the window at the passing trees. He was so numb to the sights of zombies that they were a normal part of his world.
    But not ours. The rest of us remembered the normal world, life before the craziness of the spreading infection. We had all been in high school when this all started, and we had sort of lost our innocence and had been thrust into adulthood pretty quickly when we were all about 17. We had no choice. We had to survive. Now, I was 22 years old but I felt twice that age. I was good at surviving. I had lived in a zombie-filled world for five years and survived and triumphed every time I had been faced with the creatures. But it was a hard life. A very hard life. A life where we could never truly relax. I sighed. I was so tired of it all. I passed the map to Caitlyn and, yawning, leaned back against Luke again. Let somebody else be the navigator, I was still exhausted. My eyes closed.
    I must have dozed off and fallen asleep. I think I was asleep for less than half an hour. I felt the van rumbling across a dirt road though, and it woke me up.
    “What’s going on?” I said, rubbing my eyes and sitting up.
    “We were trying to find a way back onto the freeway and saw a farmhouse and decided to investigate,” said Risa, giving me that look.
    “What? Jake, baby, what on earth…?” I said.
    “I don’t know. I just want to see if we can buy a home-cooked meal or something. Maybe have some conversation about how their crops are growing or when they’re gonna slaughter their pig,” Jacob shrugged.
    I looked at him, disbelieving. He was shaking his head.
    “I just want a change of scenery, that’s all. I’m life-weary. Although I’m not too sure of this road,” he added, grimacing. The road was tossing our van more and more as we proceeded; up and down, left and right. Just when I thought the van couldn’t take any more punishment, the dirt road evened out and we were able to continue on to the farmhouse in the distance without blowing our shocks. I peered through the front window at the buildings about a quarter of a mile off.
    “I don’t know about this…,” I said.
    Jacob tried to reassure me. “If it looks bad, we’ll just turn around.”
    “Horses!” Cried Risa. Even in a zombie apocalypse, your average 13-year-old girl was still horse crazy. She had taken some lessons starting a few years back and loved visiting the local stables wherever we lived. I couldn’t afford to take her riding too often, but she loved the times when we could. She was always drawing horses, some with unicorn horns, some with wings, but always with manes and tails flying in the wind. I had somehow managed to find the entire “Black Stallion” series of books, a childhood favorite of mine by Walter Farley, at a garage sale last spring. Risa had devoured them.
    I smiled. “Risa, look, there’s a pure black one!” I said, pointing to a huge black gelding running alongside the fence as we drove. Risa was speechless. Looking out the window, her jaw dropped open as she followed the progress of the beautiful