7/31 8:53pm

Spent the day getting ready to go. My worries kept growing, like rust eating through sheet metal. Leave it out long enough, it’ll just crumble to bits. James gets to me. He's the weak link in this chain.

We gathered supplies from the surrounding buildings. Hazardous if done wrong, but the old man decided it would be necessary if we were going to “get the hell into dodge”. I had the luck of holding James hand while Dave slipped out behind the neighboring gas station. He worked on getting a pump to work while I stood with slugger cradled, playing lookout and kindergarten teacher.

James sat on the curb, staring at a headbashed moaner we’d dispatched on the way over. “This is so absurd. Just incredible.” he mumbled, mesmerized by the rotting goner.

“Believe it,” I grunted. “This is where you’re at. Can’t have you staring at them every time we see a group, tripping all over yourself. You’ll do your share of swinging soon enough. If you want to survive.”

“What could do this?” James asked, my comment completely ignored. “The experts said it was artificial influenza. Broke out of the university containment labs, they said. Like Whooping Cough. Only hit you if you came in contact with someone infected. Lock down Muldraugh and let it burn itself out.”

He laughed, hoarse, at that. “Burn itself out. Nutters. My only sister’s in here, and they say, ‘problem will solve itself, don’t trouble yourself’. Self righteous pricks. No idea what was actually going on in here, and they expected me to just forget about her? Insufferable, short sighted, small minded idiots.”

He looked up at me, then. “I was studying for my MD. When the world caught wind of ‘the Knox County Contagion’, I forced my way to the head virologist at Cambridge. He told me not to worry. He told me to let the bloody ‘problem solve itself’.”

His brown eyes burned as he watched the wind flit the jacket of the goner back and forth. “Bloody prick.”

Dave came round about then, hauling two bright red gas cans. James stood, and unexpectedly, clasped my shoulder. “Thank you, Michael. Thank you for helping me.” He left toward Dave, taking one of the cans. Didn’t see my glare.

Well, shit. James is fruitcake much as the old man. And he thinks I’m on board with this suicide mission. No convincing either of them off this track. Not even if it gets us killed.