The Before (9 page)
Authors: Emily McKay
Tags: #Dallas, #dark powers, #government conspiracy, #mutants, #drama, #Romance, #vampires, #horror, #dystopia, #teenage, #autism
• • •
We packed up the car quickly. This time we left the MREs in the house. We didn’t dare risk anything that might tip our hand if we were pulled over. If we got stopped, the story was that we were on our way to the transportation hub. No one could argue we didn’t have the right to be driving, though almost no one else was out.
Mel sat in the back, her Slinky cupped silently in her hands. I sat in the front seat, my phone out, Google Maps loaded up and an old bound street atlas of Dallas open on my lap. We headed east first, away from the airport and from Dallas.
The signal on my phone was weak and kept dropping out, something I’d noticed more than once in the past couple of days. Either the system was overloaded or something was taking out cell towers. We stayed away from the major highways, taking side streets and back roads through Garland and Rockwell before heading up toward Greenville. The plan was to head north just west of Greenville and cross into Oklahoma near Bonham.
We almost made it.
I was studying the map so closely I didn’t realize we’d hit a snag until I felt Mom let off the gas. I glanced up to see red and blue flashing in the rearview mirror. We were just outside of Greenville. Mom had gone a deadly shade of pale.
“It’s okay,” I murmured to my mom. “Just pull over. Blinker!” I added as she jerked the car over. “Turn on your blinker. Just act natural. Remember, we’re allowed to be on the road.”
She nodded, her lips pressed into a tight line, but her hands shook as she nudged the blinker down.
A moment later, we’d pulled to a stop and yet another belligerent-looking cop was stalking toward the car.
This time it was a female cop.
“I need to see your license and IDs for both the girls,” she said, leaning her head down to look through the window.
Mom handed them over and the cop took them back to her squad car to study them.
“You’re a long way from home this morning.” The cop handed the IDs back to Mom. “It says here these girls are supposed to be on their way to the transportation hub this morning.”
“That’s where we’re going,” Mom said, but the quaver in her voice gave her away.
In the backseat, Mel made one of her nervous noises.
The cop narrowed her eyes. “You seem to be heading in the wrong direction. The airport is west of town.”
Panic made Mom’s mouth move soundlessly. I leaned forward and filled the betraying silence. “They had to come out here to pick me up,” I said quickly. “I was staying at a friend’s house. In Greenville. A girl I played soccer with. I was here when the outbreak happened and didn’t think it was safe to come home.”
The lie came easily to my lips, but I wasn’t sure the cop bought it.
“Now that they’ve picked you up, you need to head straight to the transportation hub.”
“Yes,” Mom said, nodding stiffly.
“You can pick up Highway 30 about a mile west of here. That will take you straight to 121 and that goes right to the airport. You won’t even have to get off the highway.”
“Thank you. That’s very helpful,” I said with a smile.
The cop gave me another suspicious look. “I’ll escort you there.”
Mom restarted the car as the cop walked back to the cruiser.
“It’s okay,” Mom said. “She’ll escort us to the highway and then go back to her rounds. We’ll just turn around and get off the road. We’ll go further east this time.”
But I could tell Mom was shaken by the experience. I was too.
I had the feeling that this was it. That once we got onto the highway, it was all over.
I was right. There weren’t many cars on the highway, but the traffic was still sluggish. Like us, everyone else must have been in a stupor. At some point in the night barricades had been set up, blocking off every exit. Once we got on, there was no way off the highway until we reached the airport.
Taking Highway 121 through the northern suburbs, we drove in silence. The entire metroplex looked abandoned. The streets were empty. Store windows were boarded up or broken. A strip mall on the outskirts of Coppell was smoldering, like it had just burned to the ground, but there were no fire trucks in sight.
Traffic picked up as we got closer to the airport, but by the time we reached the exit, we were crawling. Mom was crying, silent tears spilling down her cheeks.
At the airport, we inched forward as people ahead of us unloaded other teens from other suburbs and towns. There were cars and families from every racial background and social class. I watched as whole families got out of the cars, hugged and then split in two. Fathers cried stoically. Mothers wailed. Kids sobbed. This was what we’d become. This was what fear had brought us to.
Suddenly, I turned to Mom. “I’m sorry. I just . . .” But loss was choking me and I almost couldn’t speak past it. “I don’t want to fight anymore. And I just have this horrible feeling that this is a mistake and that I’m never going to see you again.”
“Oh, honey.” She reached across the console and hugged me fiercely. Then I felt her suck in a shuddering breath. When she pulled back, her tears were gone and she’d forced a bright smile onto her face. “That’s not going to happen. This place is going to keep you safe. They’re going to take care of you. And I’m going to be here on the outside fighting to make sure it happens. You have nothing to worry about. You’ll see.”
But a moment later, when Mel and I were standing on the sidewalk outside of the airport, she hugged us both so tightly. And she whispered in my ear, “Just keep Mel safe. Whatever you do, keep her safe.”
There must have been a dozen cops on the sidewalk and one walked by, yelling, “Unloading only, people, keep it moving. Keep it moving.”
Mom climbed back into the car and I tried not to notice how afraid she looked. I ran my hand over my hair where her face had pressed against mine. My hand came away damp with her tears. As strong as my mother was, whatever the future brought, she would have to face it alone. Mel and I? At least we had each other.
As Mel and I walked into the terminal, the mass of humanity inside hit me like a sucker punch. There were so many people. So many teenagers. Thousands. Maybe hundreds of thousands.
Mel edged closer to me and slipped her hand into mine. Together, we joined the crowd.
• • •
Dying to find out what happens next? Read
The Farm
by Emily McKay,
available now wherever books are sold
and online at
Amazon
!
About the Author
Nationally bestselling author and winner of the prestigious Rita Award, Emily McKay got her start writing romance novels. After ten years of writing books with babies and billionaires, Emily decided to try her hand at something different—Young Adult horror. Hey, she just really missed reading about scary vampires. Her Rita-winning book,
The Farm
, launches a trilogy set in a terrifying post-apocalyptic world where teens are farmed as food and genetically mutated monsters roam the country.
When she’s not devising new ways to kill vampires, Emily lives in the hill country with her husband, the Geek, her two great kids, two cats and two dogs. In her spare time, she raises organic veggies and chickens and tries to hide the fact that she’s secretly prepping for the apocalypse.
You can find out more about her upcoming books at
www.EscapeTheFarm.com
and
www.EmilyMcKay.com
.
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