Read Online Stage 6 by Dylan James - Free Book Online

streets, attacking anybody out in the open. Most kept from the cars though, giving them a wide berth. Possibly they didn’t recognize them as a food source. We also saw birds falling from the skies, and squirrels and other small creatures running wildly around.
    I then made my choice. It was obvious after all.
    “We’re going to have to get out of Texas.”
    Steve shook his head and replied, “Not going to work, man. The containment may have failed around Austin, but they got the whole army out there blocking the state border. There’s no way we’ll get through them, they shoot anybody they see on sight.”
    Exasperated I raised my voice, “Well does it matter!? Either we stay here and wait to die, or we find a way out. Look at this madness! It’s only going to get worse and I’d rather take my chances getting past the army and getting shot in the head than getting eaten alive by the Infected.”
    Lucy and my mom looked shocked at the notion of both, but were nodding their heads in agreement. Karen and Ian were motionless, along with Steve but I could sense his disapproval.
    Nevertheless, I then said, “Alright Steve. I’ll check the maps and with your help hopefully we can figure out what area might be the least guarded.”
    After ten minutes or so of quickly checking our maps in the dashboard, and Steve guessing the best place to go, we began to move.
    Our destination was freedom, our route was Interstate 35. We were going to head along the main road until we reached Dallas, upon which instead of continuing along any of the main roads we would head in-between any inhabited places and stay as far away from possible soldiers maintaining the quarantine.
    It was just as hectic coming out of the city as into it, but after a few hours of driving the traffic slowly began to dwindle in size allowing us to speed up just a bit. However, because the Infected were wandering all over the roads, they served as quite dangerous obstacles and they forced me to drive slow enough around them so if we hit them it wouldn’t hurt the car and fast enough they wouldn’t try to tackle it.
    This and the already bad traffic were made worse by the fact that every few miles there was something blocking the roads. Sometimes it was something like a mattress fallen out of a moving truck or something equally easy to get around, but often it was the result of a massive car wreck. Sometimes the traffic slowed down so much, that we were within arm’s reach of the Infected on either side. Mysteriously they never bothered us, and very rarely would we ever see them attack a vehicle.
    Because of all these problems, we drove at a wildly fluctuating speed averaging only twenty five mph. My comrades, as I now liked to think of them kept up a great conversation the whole time, often speculating on our chances of getting out. Steve was not optimistic, and Karen remained noncommittal but Ian, Lucy, and my mom were now all for the plan.
    We arrived at Dallas at about eight o’clock at night, to see it in even worse condition than Austin had been. Buildings were literally on fire around us, collapsing from within. Knowing that the Infected could never cause this, I realized that the majority of the damage was caused by perfectly healthy individuals in a panic from the outbreak. This city probably fell to ruin because of the “every man for himself” philosophy that we instinctively adapted in danger.
    As we drove through the city, often on the sidewalk because of the pileups blocking the road, we realized the danger this city posed to us when a rather large piece of some building broke off and very nearly crushed us. Weirdly, in the city there was far less cars than on the highway. Everybody wanted to go somewhere, but upon arriving most realized where they came from was better.
    Everywhere we looked there were Infected roaming the buildings and streets, and suddenly when rounding a corner we came upon a terrifying scene of survival. There were three