The Last Infection: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller by Michael W. Garza

know as the infected.” He made a wide circle with his hand along the map over the entire eastern half of Colorado. “Anyway, that first wave of exodus from Denver brought it out in to the country, infecting people along the way.”
    Jake’s shoulders slouched showing his mental defeat. Chris felt obligated to finish and tell the whole truth.
    “And that was just the beginning of the infection. The last I heard anything was several months ago,” he looked up at Jenn, “…and it got much worse. It’s not like the people who lived out there ever took kindly to strangers. I don’t even want to think about what it’s like now.”
    “So that’s it?” Alicen asked, looking to her brother for a rebuttal of encouragement.
    T he boy shrugged his shoulders, refusing to look at her as he spoke. “We’ll go alone if we have to.”
    Alicen smiled, but her eyes showed the fear gripping her heart.
    “Then you’ll both die,” Chris said solemnly, “ …or worse.”
    “What are we supposed to do then?” Jake asked. He stood up and stomped his foot reminding everyone of his age. “Stay here and rot away like you?” Alicen got up and wrapped her arms around his waist.
    Chris glared at Jenn. “How did I become the bad guy?” He took a deep breath and counted in his head as he let it out. It was a nearly forgotten skill from the life he lost. “I’m only trying to tell you what’s out there. I’m not saying it’s impossible.”
    Jake peered back at him. “It sure sounds like it.”
    Alicen peeled herself off her brother. “Jake did a lot to get us here,” she said, now sounding older than her baby face appeared. “We saw so many terrible things. There’s a lot of bad people out there, but we have to try.”
    Jake took her hand and the two stood motionless. Jenn walked around behind them and Chris found three sets of determined eyes looking squarely back at him. He shrugged his shoulders and gave up on any idea of talking them out of going.
    “ You can’t go anywhere if you can’t get off the damn building first.”
    #
    They wasted an hour walking around the edge of the roof looking for any obvious solutions to their predicament. There wasn’t enough usable material between the four of them to construct a makeshift rope without accepting that they might not get their clothes back once they got down. Chris’ lone remaining idea didn’t get a lot of support even after all other avenues were exhausted.
    “We’re going to get killed,” Jenn said, looking over the side of the building at a pair of dumpsters.
    Jake relayed the story about him and Alicen’s experience with a similar fall. He wasn’t sure their jump was anywhere near as high as their current dilemma.
    Chris was already slipping his backpack in place. “I’ll go first,” he said. “Once I’m down, I’ll go through the other dumpster and pull over some more bags to help break your fall.”
    Alicen ’s face scrunched up until she found the question she was searching for. “But what if you go splat?” She flattened one palm against the other for a visual.
    Chris considered the matter before as he readied himself at the edge. “Then it won’t be my problem anymore.” Without another word, he jumped.
    The fall wasn’t as far as it looked in his mind, but the impact was much worse. A shot of pain raced up his spine the moment he made contact with the bags and something more solid hidden underneath. To make matters worse, one of his boots clipped the edge of the dumpster and at the moment, his foot was on fire. “Oww,” was all he could muster. He took a mental check of his pain before he tried to move. Apparently, he waited too long, and a call came down from the roof.
    “Are you dead?”
    Chris thought Alicen’s voice was too innocent to ask such an awful thing. He shifted his weight and found that the pain in his back relaxed. However, the burning in his foot did not. He made it to his knees and pushed the trash bags aside to find a