If You Were Infected의 모든 챕터: 챕터 11 - 챕터 16

I took a deep breath through my nose, trying to get Mark’s confession off my mind. Then I stared into the orange sky for a long minute. Something peaceful above something rotten. What a beautiful mixture.The lawn below caught strays once again, stumbling into a curb and rising back to their feet. They were headed for the door. One started banging its head, as if it were knocking. They completely forgot they could do it with their fists.They had gotten dumb, but smart enough to become a threat. And we were still in their house.I walked away from the window and into the nearest room, not looking for anything in particular. The room had blue walls, and the playpen was left disorganized. Toys were scattered around the floor with a half-empty bottle of milk, and crayon scribbles painted the white tiles. Until it wasn’t crayon. It was something deep and flowing. Something that shone faintly under the sunrise glow through the window. My eyes traced where it was coming from—a slow drip fro

There was more than just silence in the air. Some strange ambiance of being wrong about everything. Two weeks. We'd been living like it started yesterday because it did—for us. But somewhere out there, people had already been dying for two weeks before we even knew to be afraid.Two weeks.Two weeks, and nobody told us. Two weeks, and the news was still running cooking segments. Two weeks, and my stepfather was still locking me in my room like the world wasn't already ending outside my window. Two weeks, and I was at school worrying about graduation.And here I thought my issues with Mark and Nathalie were the worst to have ever happened.If it had been two weeks, how far had it gone? How many cities? How many states? Were there places it hadn't reached yet, or were we just the last ones to find out? And the people who knew—the government, the military, whoever made the call to keep it quiet—what were they thinking? That containing the information would contain the virus? That panic w

I'd been walking my whole life toward something. Out of that room. Out of the house. Out of high school and into college, and into a life that looked nothing like the one I'd been handed. One foot in front of the other, eyes forward, don't look back at what's behind you because what's behind you will follow you if you let it. I never thought of what would happen when you finally get there, and there's nothing left. Turns out, you just keep walking. The three of us left the pizza diner, Ian leading. Thor was ahead of both of us. It was the next morning, and it felt like there were fewer sickos nearby than I expected. Bodies were lying on the ground. Most had already decayed, and some looked like they had just dropped. None of them moved while we walked past. Maybe they were dead—dead. Or the day really did slow them down. They were more active at night and asleep in the day. But that wasn't always the case. A horde wide awake was just waiting for us in an alley. Every step we