Torn Apart (Book 1): Terror In Texas by C.A. Hoaks

it helped much.
    She squatted behind the front seat near the open window and balled up a wad of her white sun-dress skirt and covered her mouth and nose. She took shallow breaths while she listened to the infected stumbling past the van still looking for prey.
    An hour later, she got up enough nerve to peek out the window from behind the seat. She crawled to the back of the van and looked out the back window. Nothing was moving on the sidewalks or street behind the van. She made her way to the front seat and looked over the seat through the windshield. A few of the infected stood before a door half a block away but otherwise the street was clear. She figured it was as good as it was going to get. It was time to get back to her girls.
    Liz slowly slid open the van door glad to finally escape the chemical smell. Her head felt light and her stomach rolled in protest. She stepped out into the night air and took a deep breath to clear her throbbing head but instead was forced to her knees by a gnawing pain in her stomach. She vomited. Again and again, she was unable to move with the insecticide leaving her so violently ill.
    After several minutes, she had nothing left to throw up and her stomach began to calm. Terrified she had been noticed, she got to her feet, ready to run.  She looked from side to side, ahead and behind. If any of the infected had taken notice, she would have died.
    She took a steadying breath and stepped around the side of the truck and made her way to a darkened doorway. Her heart pounded as she ran out of the shadows and hurried along the side of the building to the next doorway. She fought against fits of returning nausea as she made her way down the block, doorway by doorway, building by building. She came to the first cross street and stopped to catch her breath.
    When her pulse slowed from the exertion and the sound of blood pulsing in her ears silenced, she could hear growls and slurping nearby. She imagined a starving animal would make such sounds after a fresh kill. She forced herself to look around the corner and her breath caught.
    Three infected soldiers huddled over a body laying a few car-lengths down the street. They leaned over a body pulling at the flesh and stuffing it into their mouths.
    She had to get across the juncture without being noticed if she intended to get back to her girls. She cursed under her breath. With the light brush of a breeze her skirt billowed around her as if a white flag of defeat.
    Liz gathered the unruly skirt in her fist and took slow deliberate steps across the intersection. All the while, she watched the feeding trio. At least her sandals made little noise on the pavement. Every breath she took was slow and measured for fear the infected would hear her.
    She spent the next three hours working her way down one street to the next, detouring around one gathering of infected after another only to return to the path again. One detour was several blocks out of the way because the surrounding infected were all heading toward the street in front of a balcony. A man sat on a deck chair, gulping Jack Daniels and hurling curses and bottles at the assemblage below.
    Despite the detours, she was steadily making her way back to the small strip center where she hoped her girls were hidden and safe.
    Just thinking of the monsters with their hands on her children made her tremble with fear. Liz’s breath caught. They had to be alive. They had to be safe.
    She came to the corner of the fence surrounding the retail buildings at the side of the freeway. She saw the brown UPS truck on the freeway overhead in the distance and realized she was within blocks of where she had put the girls through the wire fencing behind the buildings.
    When she looked from the alley to the freeway above the shopping center, dozens of infected milled around the cars. She looked back to the street and saw even more of the creatures in front of the row of buildings. She would have to make her way past a