Free Infected (Book 1): The First Ten Days by Jack Thomas

infected saw me through the hole they were no longer interested to make it to the other side of the cabin, instead, they were interested in me, their new meal. I walked over to the hole but kept a safe enough distance to not get touched by the infected while they reached out. I stabbed all the ones in close enough proximity to make a clear path that lasted for seconds before another one of the infected attempted to grab me and plugged the path in doing so. The rest of the cabin was still being taken apart. By that point I already forgot about the wolves on the other side of the cabin.
    I proceeded to clear the hole of infected again, this time the plan was to get to the other side. I took a deep breath and backed up to build some momentum and acquire some distance when I make it out through the other side and went for it. As I made it out the infected immediately forgot the cabin and the creation of a way through and focused entirely on my presence. They dropped to their knees, grabbed and tore my shirt and jeans. I struggled and fought to make it difficult for them to land their mouths on me but I was at the point of no return, they would soon overwhelm me. I did the best I could to survive but if memory served me well, a security guard back at school couldn’t handle one of the infected, there was no way I was going to survive six or seven of them all at once. It was time for me to face facts. It was over.
    Something tugged on my leg. I figured it was just another of the infected ready to take a chunk out of me. I took a deep breath and gave up my fight against them, with expectations of the most painful death I could imagine. Lucky for me, I forgot Jason existed till that moment because it was that much more of a surprise when the tug on my leg became a full blown pull and I was dragged away from the infected with no more than a few scratches I caused myself with my aggressive movements to avoid a bite. Jason pulled me to safety, and helped me up off of the ground. With no exchange of words we ran from the mob of infected, hungry for whatever was on the menu, which was no longer me thanks to Jason.
    “Don’t stop running. There are more in the woods heading towards that cabin. Those wolves attracted the largest number of infected so far,” Jason said out of breath from the struggle to stay alive.
    “How did you know where I was?” I asked.
    “I followed the wolves’ barks the same way the infected did and it led me to the cabin. Did they bite or scratch you?” Jason’s tone showed concern with some mixed level of relief, still out of breath. I’m sure he was more worried of what he would have to do if I turned.
    “I managed to shake them off till you got me out of there. They tore my shirt and jeans a bit.” My gratitude was obvious. I was dead if it wasn’t for Jason’s impeccable timing.
    As we ran we came across infected that would join the collective and follow us, but they were much more spread out the further we went from the cabin. This made them easier to dodge. After two or three minutes we reached the highway again. There were still a number of infected headed in our direction but it wasn’t so severe that we needed to run the whole time. We just needed caution.
    Without the lantern it was going to be a rougher travel, but the daylight was on its way. All we needed was to stay alive till the morning light which usually arrived sometime around seven.
    We continued towards the school on the highway without any clue how much closer we were. On the walk we read all the signs we came across for information on where to go next. Most of the signs gave us speed limits which we were clearly violating with a lack of speed. We also walked against the traffic which was also worth a ticket or two.
    We came across a sign that directed us to a town that was to come up. “Exit 11” in case we wanted to head into the town.
    Jason pointed at it. “Food!” he said and left it at that.
    Message received! I nodded