"There ain't much left here worth keeping."
Oak Ridge, VA--52 miles west of the Danville Rescue Center
Jess stood atop the bronze statue, her feet planted in the saddle of the rearing stallion and her left hand gripping the unknown rider...unknown at least to her. There had not been time to read the plaque before she had vaulted to this position, barely escaping the outstretched hands of her pursuers. From this vantage she had finally been able to thin the competition for this prime real estate. Her Glock G43 subcompact firing round after round until the clip was dry...seven shots in all. With a sigh of relief, she looked down at the inert bodies splayed out around the statue's base. Four of the bastards, and they had been hot on her trail. Seemed the small town of Oak Ridge was not as scenic with its view of the Blue Ridge Mountains as the brochure had indicated. A light chuckle and she sat down behind the rider, resting while keeping her feet up on the horn of the saddle. It was only noon and already it had been a long and grueling day.
It was not so long ago the days had been easier, four months prior to be exact, and Jess remembered vividly the last day of laughter she had enjoyed. A bachelorette party with five friends from school, black cocktail dresses, and plenty of liquor. The local country bar was their venue and they claimed the dance floor for the night, drinking, joking, flirting. They planned to close down the bar and when the last song was played, Jess and Val decided to shake it one more time. They were drunk and laughing, Val with her back to Jess when their gaiety was interrupted by the sound of coughing, then Val was screaming, wiping vigorously at her face as she turned around. The two girls ran to the women's bathroom, Jess trying to help get the blood off the other girl's face, reassuring her over and over that she was fine...that the blood had not gotten into her eyes. But she had been wrong.
Jess never spoke to Val again, hearing from her family that she had been taken to the hospital the following day. It was the first confirmed case of the flu in the bustling city of Roanoke. Two weeks later, a state of emergency was declared and Jess begged her boyfriend to get her out of town...take her to the mountains away from the crowds. An argument ensued and Jess was left with a swollen lip and the realization that she did in fact share something in common with her estranged mother--an attraction to the wrong men. She didn't press the subject again, but only because the illness claimed him a week later. For two months she waited, her classes cancelled, and her life on hold. When she realized that life was not going to get back to normal, she hit the road, hoping to find that isolated town that hadn't seen the plague...but she never found it. What she discovered instead was a world filled with psychos, both infected and not, and a never ending road leading to nowhere.
And so the search continued, leading Jess to this scenic town with its bronze statue of a civil war hero she could not name. If she had not been so tired, she would have laughed...not only chuckled...at herself, at the disease, at the bodies at her feet. She didn't even like country music, little black dresses, or dancing. Yet, that was the best memory she could come up with as she sat here and basked in the hot sun dressed all in black--her leather jacket and chaps soaking in the rays as she sweated underneath them. She slipped her weapon back into the holster on her thigh after slapping in a full clip and pulled down the surgical mask covering her nose and mouth. After another scan of the area, she dismounted her steely steed and walked up the steps of the building before her...Oak Ridge Public Library. 'What are the chances?' she thought as she reached for the handle.
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