We gotta get out. I grab Ethan and pull him with me as I run out of the building.

As soon as I hit fresh air, I vomit on the sidewalk, my corn lunch splattering against the wall. I close my eyes, but I can’t see anything except rows of bodies. The flies swarming around them. The smell. I spit and swipe at my nose trying to get the smell out. I hear Ethan gagging beside me. Then Clay follows. He pulls at my wrist.

His face is green and slack. “Come on. Gotta get away.”

We jog and then run up the road. My stomach lurches again and I stop and throw up what’s left of my lunch. Then we find a three-foot high brick wall surrounding a parking lot and sit with our backs to it. I can’t stop my hands from shaking as I drink from the water bottle and pass it along. Visions of the bodies swim in my mind.

“What happened to them?” I ask.

Clay shakes his head and sips from the bottle. “Disease. All those needles, the sick beds. Probably some flu epidemic. God.”

Ethan looks up at him, the whites of his eyes large in his terror. “Are we going to die?”

Clay shakes his head and pulls Ethan closer to him. “No. We’re fine.” But when he glances at me over Ethan’s head, I can tell that answer is hollow.

I grip my water bottle between my shaking hands. “We can’t go back there. I don’t care what kind of meds we find. We can’t catch whatever killed those people.”

Clay rests his head on Ethan’s for a moment. “You get no protest from me.”

I clutch my arms, trying to hold myself together. Up the road, the desolate buildings stretch on endlessly. A broken streetlight sways in the wind. Dark, empty shops, their windows smashed, their contents spilling into the street, wait for us. Now more than ever I want to leave and there’s only one way I can. I stand up and grab the empty gas jug and hose.

“Let’s get that gas and get the hell out of dodge.”

The first car we find is empty. And the second. With the third I manage to get a mouth full of gasoline, but after I get the gas flowing into the hose, we get about a gallon before that tank runs dry. We walk several more streets and find one more car. This time Clay gets a mouth full of gasoline and another gallon and a half. The sun is sinking low and we only have enough gas to get us a few miles down the road.