Free Infected: They Will Eat You!: A Story of Family Survival in a Zombie Apocalypse by Donel Gillies

watched the TV changing channels to find new information. Many channels had people debating about who was to blame and what the repercussions should be. Some were focused on the U. S. and the spread here and what we should be doing.
    “It’s getting worse and will continue to get even worse.” I started as Christine entered the room, “Everyone needs to know our plan.”
    “What is our plan?” she asked.
    “The roads are packed with people leaving the East Coast. Since we’re not at the head of the wave we are going to wait here until this wave of people have moved trough. When things have settled down we’ll head west.”
    “Why west?”
    “Fewer people.”
    “Won’t all of the people leaving now mean more people?”
    “They will thin out the further we go.”
    “How far west are you talking about?”
    “Montana, Wyoming, the northern plains….”
    “Why not stay here or go north where we know someone. All of our friends are here.”
    “So are millions of people, many, most, of which may be infected. Others could more interested in looting and killing than working together.”
    “When are you thinking about leaving?”
    “If it continues as it is…..it could stop ya know… if it’s a virus it may run its course and people get well, like the flu….if not I figure it would settle down enough in two weeks.”
    “So we’ll stay here for two weeks then leave?”
    “Yeah, by then we should know more of what is going on and all of the people who are leaving now will be far enough gone to not cause a huge problem.”
    “Are you sure about this?”
    I had asked myself this question many times over the past few days, the answer was always the same “Yes.” I said.
    She sighed and took a sip of coffee. We sat and watched the events on TV for a while before waking the kids.
    -——————————————
    “West, he wants to head west.” I heard Christine say into her phone, “Do you want to go with us?”
    She was talking to Lori, one of her close friends. Her family is one I would welcome into the plan so I kept my mouth shut.
    The boys and I were watching TV and taking about contingency plans. The best case would be if this just ended. The worst case would be if we were surrounded by zombies and could not leave the house.
    Yes, we had officially started calling them zombies. It dehumanized them and made it easier to think about shooting them. They didn’t look human, didn’t act human. They looked and acted like the zombies we had seen in many zombie movies. We were now to the point where we were watching scenes of zombie hoards confronting police and military and how they were being stopped, or not stopped in some cases.
    The traditional headshot worked but so did a normal kill shot. These were not walking dead like most zombie movies show, these were virus infected, crazed people with beating hearts. They could be stopped like any human. Although it appeared that they could take more shots than normal, like a lunatic on PCP or something. It was good information to store.
    “Lori and Vince are staying here.” said Christine as she walked into the living room, “Vince has boarded up their house and thinks they are safe out there. Can we go stay with them?”
    “No.” I said, and paused, “No.” I shook my head.
    “I can’t reach Jen. She hadn’t heard from Brad yesterday and was worried. I can’t get hold of my daddy or grandma. My mom says she is going to stay with Tom. Brian and Scott are home but they haven’t heard from Jean……” her voice trailed off as she looked down fingering her phone.
    “The East Coast is without power,” I said, “so is most of the South East, Texas, Chicago and all along the West Coast. Not sure how long we will have power. Let whoever you want to know our plans. If they are out of town we’ll meet them where 74 and 54 intersect at Farmer City in Illinois 21 days from Wednesday. It’s Monday so in 23