The bus was crowded. There were more people on it than there should have been but everyone needed to be transported to safety. David had insisted that they get there early and he knew now that he’d been right : some people hadn’t even been able to get on. He smiled reassuringly at Lena who was standing between her mother and he. She would never admit it, but he knew she was scared.

Soon she wouldn’t have to be. The army had come to their town with buses. They had filled them up as much as possible, prioritising families with children, and now they were on their way to somewhere safe. David didn’t know the details, he just knew the government had constructed some kind of city forts and that soldiers would protect them from infected and, most importantly, people. And once the situation would be back under control maybe they’d go back home, or maybe move somewhere new. He’d always wanted to live in the countryside.

A few hours later, the bus stopped and a rumour ran through the crowd. David could see electric fences with barbed wire on top through the nearest window, and he knew they had made it. The bus started again, slowly, and drove through a gate, then went on until it stopped outside of a big building. The doors opened and soldiers separated them into two lines : men and women.

He saw Lena and Erin enter through a black door one after the other. Once all the women were inside his line started walking in, one at a time. When it was his turn he saw a bunch of square tent like structures erected inside what seemed to be a big hangar. A soldier pointed at one of them and he peeked inside. There was a nurse there who told him to sit down on a bench.

She took a sterilised q-tip out of a sealed plastic bag and took a sample of his saliva, before putting it in a plastic tube that had some kind of chemical mix inside. Like a Covid test, but less uncomfortable because the nose wasn’t involved. She closed the tube, shook it, put three drops onto some kind of testing paper. While they waited for the result, she took some paper forms out and asked him questions. His name, his age, did he have any health issues, did he have family here with him, their names… When she was done filling the paperwork out, she checked the result : no reaction had occurred. She nodded, gave him a plastic card with his name and a number on it, to pin to his shirt, and sent him out.

He joined a group of people who were waiting at the end of the hangar, sitting on benches, chairs, or directly on the floor. He saw Lena, but Erin wasn’t there yet. He sat on the floor next to his daughter. She looked nervous.

‘‘You okay ?’’ he asked her.

‘‘Oh, hey dad… Yeah, I’m okay, it’s just… Mom’s taking longer than the others to come out, so I was wondering what that’s about…’’ she explained.

‘‘Oh, right. Well, I’m sure it’s fine. There’s just some technical problem or something… Don’t worry.’’

But a while later two soldiers came to explain the situation to all of those who were waiting in the end of the hangar.

‘‘Hello everyone, you must be rather confused so let us just explain everything. You have all been tested for the illness, which we commonly refer to as AR, for Alien Rabies. This is because AR can be invisible, as infected people only turn when something triggers it. A few people who came here with us today have been tested positive, and everyone else is here with you.’’

Lena nervously looked to David, who was just staring blankly at the soldier who had just said that. Erin… infected ? When ? How ?

‘‘Now, you don’t need to worry if someone you know is not among you. We are actively working to find a cure and visitations will be possible in a secure environment. Everything will be alright. You will be reunited with your loved ones soon enough.’’ he continued.

‘‘In the meantime,’’ the second soldier spoke, ‘‘we will show you all to your living quarters, which are fairly distributed based on the number of people per family. That is where you will be staying as long as you remain in this base. The number of your residence is indicated on the cards we gave you all, which also serve as keys to get inside.’’

The soldiers took them all out of the hangar, and led them to a groupment of box shaped buildings, organised in a grid, in size order from biggest to smallest. David and Lena found the number of their cube. Once they were inside, he dropped his backpack at the foot of one of the two identical camp beds that were there, then turned to his daughter, who was standing in the middle of the room, staring at him.

‘‘Lena…’’ he started.

‘‘Mom’s infected.’’ she said. ‘‘When did she get infected ? If someone had bitten her she would have told us, right ?’’

‘‘I don’t know, Lena… There are other ways to get infected too, she probably didn’t get bit at all… Maybe it was something she ate.’’

‘‘But we were all in the same house ! What could she have eaten that we didn’t eat any of at all ! If it was just something she ate we would be infected too, wouldn’t we ?’’

‘‘We’ll find out what happened when we visit her, okay ? The soldiers said we could visit infected people…’’

‘‘People can get infected through saliva…’’ she pondered. ‘‘You remember, that’s how that ambassador’s partner got infected.’’

‘‘Don’t. Just don’t.’’ he said sternly.

She nodded reluctantly, and dropped her bag at the foot of her own bed. David stared at her for a few more seconds, sighed, then looked around the room. It was small, simple, and shaped like a box. In it were two camp beds with a wardrobe each, a cupboard opposite the door, and a table with two chairs in the middle of the room. He opened his wardrobe, one of the doors had a mirror on the inside, and there were shelves on one side and a bar to hang things from on the other. On the top shelf there was a brand new sleeping bag. He stuffed his pack inside, without bothering to put his stuff away. Then he checked the cupboard and saw it contained rations of microwave food. No water, though there were four empty 2L bottles that they could fill somewhere. He didn’t remember the soldiers saying anything about water, he’d have to find someone to ask where to find it. He closed it again, and turned to Lena, who had found her sleeping bag and unrolled it on her camp bed, and was now neatly putting her few possessions away. Feeling strangely self conscious, he started unpacking his own things.

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Once they were both done, they left with their bottles to go looking for water. They found a block four times bigger than the others in the center of the grid, with two doors, one on each side. Behind the first one there were showers, toilets and sinks. The other area was smaller and had microwave ovens and more sinks. So a kitchen side and a bathroom side. They filled their bottles, greeted a few random people, and went back to their cube.

Once they were back, David let himself fall onto one of the chairs. He felt so tired after the whole day, and despite what he’d told Lena he was worried about Erin. He hoped he could see her soon. He felt like he needed to busy his mind if he didn’t want to go down a rabbit hole of dark thoughts. Right on cue, Lena sat down opposite him and set down a pack of cards on the table.

‘‘Wanna play something ?’’ she asked.

He nodded, and grabbed the playing cards, to shuffle them. They played different games, like Spoons, though that wasn’t as fun with just two of them, and Speed. By the time they stopped, it was late and they were getting hungry, so David grabbed the first thing he saw in the cupboard, went to heat it up, came back, and they ate it together.

‘‘What is this ?’’ she asked.

‘‘I don’t know, I wasn’t paying attention. Why, d’you like it ?’’

‘‘No, it tastes like cardboard…’’

He snorted. ‘‘Fair enough.’’

===

David woke with a start. There was shouting outside. He clumsily stood up and scrambled to the door, opening it by a few inches to look outside. There was a fire roaring somewhere, though he couldn’t really tell where. Was it the hangar ? And people were running away from the flames.

‘‘Dad, what’s happening ?’’ Lena asked.

‘‘I don’t know, there’s some kind of fire, maybe the hangar, I’m not sure. People are running from it, I think…’’ he explained. ‘‘Get dressed, just in case.’’

He kept looking from the door, and he was about to turn away to get dressed himself when he heard a screech. It was high pitched, loud, and it made every cell in his body tell him to run. But he didn’t run, instead he froze. And that’s when he saw it, at the end of the street. An infected, who had turned. It was nearly standing like a person, wearing clothes like a person, it looked like a person, but it wasn’t a person. It had long pointy teeth, and claws, and it was hunched over. It was wearing military clothes and had an arm with blood all over it. The bite. It wasn’t looking his way, but it’s head suddenly snapped round, and he found himself looking into it’s eyes. He slammed the door shut.

He didn’t have much, so it wasn’t hard to stuff it into his pack. He could fit food and water in it too. He opened the door by a few inches again. The thing was closer. Too close to sneak out. They were stuck inside unless he could stomach beating it to death with a chair. He couldn’t. He turned to Lena.

‘‘It’s just outside…’’ he whispered. ‘‘We’re gonna have to stay here for now…’’

She nodded, and they stood next to the door, listening through it. The thing was getting closer. It was making low growling sounds, and he felt scared. Not for himself. If he died then it was just over, and that was that. But if something happened to Lena… Nope, no thinking about that right now. He sneaked a peak again. When he opened the door, he found it staring straight back at him. He jumped back, tripping on his own foot, without closing the door in his panic. The thing walked inside. Lena took a few steps back, slow and quiet, as David scrambled back to his feet, never taking his eyes off of it. It seemed calm enough, but then it suddenly screeched at Lena, who shouted.

David grabbed the closest chair by the leg and swung it at the monster. The chair broke and he was left holding just the leg, like an improvised bat. He swung it at the thing’s head, and it fell back. There was blood on it’s forehead and on the chair leg, and before it could get back up David grabbed his daughter’s arm and pulled her to her feet. They ran out of their box and looked around. There was no one else. The other residents were either gone, or hiding behind their doors.

He banged at the closest door, but no one answered. When he turned around he saw the thing come outside so he started running, holding Lena’s hand. They kept running until they could no longer hear it. And then they kept running some more. They had left the ‘village’ behind, and there was no one around. The hangar was still burning in the distance but they didn’t dare go that way, since the infected soldier had probably come from there. So instead they went the opposite direction, straight for the fence. They would have to figure out a way past it, without getting electrocuted, but that was a problem for two minutes into the future David.

They never made it to the fence. There was another infected standing behind a truck. They only saw it when it was too late. They were right behind it, but it didn’t seem to have noticed them. David signaled at Lena to be silent, and started walking slowly away. But then it turned around. And when he saw it’s face, he found himself unable to move. Because it was Erin. He stared at her. At it. And he didn’t know what to do. Because right now, it wasn’t her, it was a monster . But she was still in there, she would come back eventually. And he didn’t want to leave her behind. It was Lena who took him out of his stupor, grabbing his arm and pulling him away.

‘‘Dad ! We’ll come back for her later, we’ve got to go !’’ she said.

He forced himself to look away from it, and started running, running straight for the fence. But the thing was right behind them, and faster than the first one. He could hear it getting closer. If it caught up, in the best case scenario they would both get infected, in the worst case scenario they would both die. But it would probably be the latter. Or something in between. So he kept running, still holding on to his daughter’s hand. Untill the thing in his wife’s body caught up.

He didn’t really see it happen. He felt Lena fall, and when he turned behind it was on her and she was bleeding from a big scratch on her face. Before his brain had really caught up he swung his improvised weapon, and then again. And again. And when he stopped the thing wasn’t moving anymore, and he realised he’d killed it. He’d killed Erin. She was dead. Permanantly. But at least he’d protected Lena.

He turned to look at her. And she was covered in blood. She was hurt. Badly hurt. Really badly. David rushed to her side, tears welling up in his eyes. She was bleeding. Not much from her face, but a lot more from her stomach. He didn’t really remember much of what he’d done after that. He had tried to stop the bleeding, or to carry her back, back to the soldiers. But then everything was black.