August Burning (Book 1): Outbreak by Tyler Lahey

with painful sluggishness. Harley felt her lip
twitch. She could hear the voices blaring over the TV speakers- “And here we
see even a regiment of tanks heading into the blackout zone. Our sources have
confirmed there is an infection of some sort inside Manhattan.”
    “HEY! BAG! A! LITTLE! QUICKER!” With
each word, Harley ripped the contents from the conveyor belt and thrust them
into her waiting shopping cart. The cashier’s face turned into a scowl, and she
called over a supervisor.
    “Hey, she’s right. Lets get this
moving!” A blustering white man with quivering jowls stood behind Harley,
wagging a pudgy finger at the cashier. A murmur of annoyed assent rose from the
four other people in line. Each had a big cart stuffed with medicine, snacks,
cleaning supplies, and toiletries. The store’s stocks had already been half
empty when she and had Elvis arrived.
    A young manager approached the scene,
smiling nervously. “Ok everyone, lets just keep calm here. Cindy, what seems to
be the issue?”
    The cashier leaned on one hip and
dropped her hand to her waist, so that she suddenly became instantly more
irritable to Harley’s furious hazel eyes. “Ummm, this girl just stole some
toothpaste, and ummm, some mouthwash.”
    “Your worker is taking forever to bag
this stuff!” Harley shrieked, her voice capturing the attention of every
sweating cashier in the line.
    Suddenly, a hooded man burst through
an empty lane, his arms stuffed with cleaning supplies and magazines.
    “Hey! Hey wait!” The sweaty manager
raised a little hand in protest, her tiny body barely visible over the
register.
    Harley looked down to another
register. A chubby woman in a ridiculously patterned sweater snarled and
snatched her final items from the belt, before charging towards the exit.
    “No! Stop!”
    Harley felt herself being pushed from
behind by the pudgy sweating man. She heard a baby crying desperately. “Move.
Just go!” the man whispered feverishly. Harley’s mind revolted in panic. He
began pushing harder, his bulging gut pressing violently against the bare skin
of her lower back. “Go!” She saw blurry shapes rushing for the exit, little
toothbrushes and floss boxes scattering to the floor.
    “Harley!” Elvis shouldered his way to
the front, clutching a few more boxes of multivitamins. He stood a full foot
shorter than the fat man behind her, but his eyes were all fire. Elvis dropped
his shoulder and heaved into the fat man. Despite the man’s obvious size, he was
caught totally off guard. The creature shrieked like some overweight harpy, and
tumbled down the aisle, knocking over two-dozen boxes of gum. Elvis’s eyes
swept over the scene. The manager had already bolted off to try and chase
someone down. The cashier backed slowly away as more and more people made for
the exit in a mad dash. Elvis shook his head angrily. “Go. Ok, just go. Go!” He
gritted his teeth and applied a little pressure on the small of her back.
Harley felt a wave of gratitude as she looked at the shorter man guiding her
away. Where had that fire been all this time? They snatched whatever items
remained on the belt and made for the doors in a hurry.

 
 
    Liam peered at his phone, reading as
they walked. “The school is urging us to remain in contact with our parents and
not to panic. They say...it’s better to remain here than to make any rash
decisions before we all know what’s going on….Sounds like they have no idea.”
    “Sounds like a bad idea, is what it
sounds like.” Jaxton said. They had filled an entire shopping cart with canned
foods and then stolen it. It clattered on the sidewalk. People stared as they
passed, but no one said a word. He struggled for a second to turn the heavy
cart around a group of students screaming and arguing. Jaxton frowned. Nerves
were only fraying further.
    “What do you mean? What else is
there?”
    “If this shit keeps on spiraling out
of control, we need to leave.”
    “Jax. And go