Never go to bed angry. Terrified is okay.

Amanda was asleep on the couch by the time I finished logging the non-perishable foods and putting them into a couple of big boxes to take with us the next day.

Since I don’t cook very often, I’m sorry to say we didn’t have much of use in our cupboards. There was some old soup, a few Power Bars, a really sad box of store brand chocolate cereal. Oh, and Pop Tarts. Wonderful Pop Tarts in a variety pack I’d found on sale a couple of weeks before.

I hoped that Amanda and Jack’s apartment would give us a little more booty when we stopped there on our way out, but after seeing the sad state of it earlier in the day, I somehow doubted it. In fact, I was starting to think I wouldn’t want anything they had.

Another box and a backpack sat by the door as I entered the main room. Those contained our weapons cache which now consisted of the guns, ammo, a big butcher cleaver I didn’t even know we owned, Dave’s baseball bat and my heavy flashlight. Once again, I wished we had more. Where did people find their missile launchers in zombie movies anyway?

Still, it would get us going and I hoped we’d find provisions along the road, or even make it to someplace untouched by the outbreak where we could just go to a store and resupply while we waited for all of this to blow over.

I walked to the couch and looked down at Amanda. She was a couple of years younger than me and right now she looked even more than that. Like a teenager and in some twisted way I’d become a twenty-seven-year-old Mom to her. My only consolation was that she was out of the diaper phase.

I grabbed a blanket from the back of the other chair and spread it over her. She didn’t wake up, though she did snuggle down deeper into the couch cushions.

I shook my head as I moved away from her. I had no idea how she could do it. I doubted I’d be sleeping much tonight, that was for sure. Not with zombies still roaming around the apartment complex. But I guess she somehow trusted that Dave and I would take care of the situation… and her. Which was sweet in a really weird way.

I walked into our bedroom to find Dave already under the covers. The loaded rifle was propped up on his nightstand and I could see he had put some easily slipped on shoes at the ready, too. I did the same and put my shotgun within reach before I got in beside him.

The smaller television we kept on the dresser was on and he was watching some channel. This time it wasn’t CNN since we don’t get cable in the bedroom, but a local affiliate that had gone all news all the time in the crisis. You know, “Zombie Watch, 2010.”

A really freaked-out anchorwoman with no makeup was sitting at the desk.

“Let me repeat that information again. Yes, the phone systems in the Greater Seattle area are currently down. And we’ve had reports that most cell phones are also not getting service. State and local governments have denied any involvement in the loss of telephone communications, and it may have to do with an outbreak of the plague at a local tower facility earlier in the day.”

I moaned. “Maybe it’s just crappy reception.”

“Told you to upgrade to a better system,” Dave said as he leaned forward and continued watching the small, fuzzy screen. “Can you hear me now?”

“Right now we can update you with some shocking numbers,” the anchor continued. “The Centers for Disease Control is telling us that based on the aggressive spread of the outbreak, up to a million residents could already be stricken with what people on the streets are calling zombieism.”

“Ha,” Dave said in a flat tone and shot me a look. “Told you so. Did I call it or what?”

“I’m sure you thought of it first, dear,” I said as I patted his arm.

“I’d like to go now to Dr. Emmett Elias, a University of Washington professor who worked in the lab where the outbreak apparently started. Joining us in the studio is Dr. Elias. Thank you for braving the drive across town, sir.”

The camera panned back, and sitting next to the woman at the anchor desk was a fat, balding man in a really bad suit. Like beyond Men’s Warehouse. I did not like the way he looked.

“Thanks for having me, Karen,” he said with a smug smile.

She frowned at him. “Dr. Elias, can you tell us exactly what your lab was studying that could have caused such a terrible outcome as we’ve seen in our city today?”

The guy looked at her, his gaze sharp and his lips thin with anger. “No, I’m afraid I’m not authorized to discuss what we were specifically studying in the lab.”

The reporter stared at him and Dave laughed. “She’s ready to punch the guy, look how freaked out she is.”

“I hope she does,” I said as I glared at the doctor. “Asshole ruined my city and nearly got us all killed.”

“Sources have told us that there may have been some government grants associated with the research,” the reporter pressed. “Was this some kind of government program? What branch was it related to?”

The researcher’s beady eyes narrowed. “Well, it is a state school, Miss Finch. Federal and state funding helps us provide many programs.”

“And do most of those programs lead to everyday citizens turning to cannibals all around us?” the woman asked, her tone rising enough that it was clear she was as on edge as anybody. “Do you know that I saw a five-year-old child eating a cop on the way to the studio tonight, Dr. Elias?”

There was some hustle and bustle off-camera and the reporter blushed as she glanced at the screen. “I’m sorry. But you must see that people deserve to know more about what has caused this terrible outbreak that seems to be spreading at an outrageous rate.”

Dr. Elias looked at her, tilting his head. I frowned. The way he was moving reminded me of something.

“It’s quite all right, Miss Finch,” he said. “You have lovely hair.”

“He’s a zombie,” Dave whispered from beside me.

I nodded because the second the doctor complimented the reporter on her hair, I realized that his twitchy, weird movements reminded me of the super in the hallway. Mr. Gonzales had also turned his head all weird as he looked at me and so had Dr. Kelly before she attacked in her office. All zombies reminded me of a dog in an alley or the freaking alien in the Alien franchise.

I think the reporter realized what he was at the same moment because she let out a gut-curdling scream and pushed her rolling chair away from the desk. But she wasn’t fast enough. The doctor lunged across the space between them and grabbed her. He yanked her close and then his teeth sank deep into her neck.

Dave and I both lurched back with combined cries of, “Oh!”, like we were watching football or something. Red blood spurted around his black teeth from the wound, spraying across the desk. A few little specks even hit the camera lens so now we watched the rest of the horrifying scene through a slightly reddish haze of smeared blood.

A whole bunch of people came running from all directions. See, they still ran toward an attack in those days because we were all so shocked by what was happening around us. I guess we figured we could do something. We hadn’t fully realized that wasn’t any way to help someone who was bitten except to blow their head off before they turned into the living dead and lost all control of who and what they were.

A group of four men grabbed for the doctor, who was pulled off the bleeding, wailing reporter. She lifted her hand to her neck and when she saw blood coat her fingers, her screams grew even louder. The zombie doctor, both in that he created zombies and now was one himself, groaned and smashed his teeth at his captors. His higher brain function was clearly gone now and he thrashed about like a trapped animal.

Someone grabbed the boom mike from the stand above and starting hitting him until the doctor and the crew who held him slipped off frame behind the desk. The only thing we heard were growls and the only thing we saw for a minute or even more was the crewman’s hand as it lifted up and then slammed down behind the desk. With each smashing blow the mike came up more bloodied and gruesome.

The reporter lay across the desk now, blood pooling under her head as she whimpered softly. But I already could tell she was starting to transition. Her posture went from weak to something more ready. And when she lifted her head, her eyes had a red glow that had nothing to do with the bloody camera viewfinder.

“Oh no,” I whispered. “Those poor people.”

Sure enough, she turned toward the group of men who had just tried to save her. With a crazy grin, she dove down amongst them with a guttural scream and then the screen went white with just the words, “We are experiencing technical difficulties. Please stand by.”

Dave opted not to follow the neatly printed directions on the screen and instead clicked the TV off. We sat in silence for a long time, staring at the black screen. Finally, I rolled over on my side to face him.

“It’s getting worse,” I said after the silence had stretched out a long time.

“It seems to be,” he agreed.

“If there are a million infected in less than twenty-four hours,” I continued, “by the end of tomorrow half the city or more will be gone. So is the plan the same?”

He thought for a moment and then nodded slowly. “With the telephones out, the power is probably next, and I’d rather not be in the city when they shut her down completely. I think it’s going to be mass hysteria.”

“It’s a crappy neighborhood anyway,” I said. “Between the thugs and the zombies, we’d be fucked if we stayed.”

He shrugged. “I say we get up early and get moving as soon as it’s light out. My sister lives what… a hundred and thirty miles south in Longview? Maybe that will be far enough away. And without traffic to slow us down, we might even make it there in less than two hours.”

I groaned as I flopped back on the pillows in dread and frustration. “Gina? You want to run to Gina in a crisis?”

There was a long pause as Dave clenched his teeth. Finally, he asked, “Why not?”

I looked up at him. “Um, she fucking hates me for one.”

“I always figured the feeling was mutual,” he said, his eyebrows lifting. “Come on, admit it, you never really tried with her.”

I folded my arms. Okay, so I’ll tell you something I never would have admitted to him. He was right (again, that asshole). I hadn’t ever really tried with Gina.

She was only five years older than us, but acted like a mother. A really boring, plaid-wearing mother. And she doted on David. Nothing he could do was wrong, which meant everything I did was. When we were with her, he acted like her little brother, not my husband. And he deferred to her, never taking my side if we disagreed.

I hated visiting her.

“Okay, how about this, which is worse,” he asked. “Zombies or Gina?”

I hesitated too long, I guess, because he grabbed the pillow behind him and swatted me with it playfully. I laughed as I fended him off.

“Okay, okay, zombies are worse,” I admitted. “But just barely.”

He pushed the pillow behind his neck but remained lying on his side looking down at me. As I stared up at him, I realized we hadn’t been so close in bed for a long time. I’d forgotten how nice it was. And he smelled good since we had tossed Jack out the window earlier in the evening and taken showers to clean up.

“Thanks,” he said softly. He reached down and brushed a little damp hair off my cheek. “I know you hate going down there. I think I even get it, though I wish you liked my family. But I have to see if she’s okay, at least.”

I nodded. Okay, so I got that. I wondered about my family, too, but Gina was closest.

“This is going to be really dangerous, isn’t it?” I asked, my voice soft in the dark.

He didn’t answer for a long time, but finally he nodded slowly.

“We might die,” I continued.

He nodded again, his gaze never leaving my face.

I reached up and cupped the back of his head and drew him down toward me.

“Well, I guess we better go out with a bang.”

He smiled before he dropped his mouth to mine and kissed me.