Dead Highways (Book 2): Passage by Richard Brown

kitchen counter where I could read the label. “Five gallons.”
    “Is that enough?”
    “That’s up to the infected. I sure hope it is.”
    “Before we go, I gotta go.”
    Peaches handed Olivia off to me and headed for the bathroom. Women and their small bladders.
    By the time she was done, I had to go too.
    I handed Olivia back and left to drain the main vein. When I returned, I grabbed the five-gallon can of gas and we left the house.
    We headed back down Lee Vista toward the Walgreens. I slowed down as the building appeared up on the left. I saw the white SUV Peaches had mentioned. The infected who had rounded the pond in pursuit of us had all rejoined the large group in front of the store. Except for one. The fastest of the three, a skinny guy who had made the mistake of jumping in front of the car. He lay twisted on the curb, not moving. Dead. However, the virus inside of him, I knew, was very much still alive.
    I stopped the car next to him, jumped out, drew Sally, and shot him in the head. None of the infected across the water seemed to respond to the loud noise.
    I jumped back into the car, glanced over at Peaches. “Let’s see him come back from that.”
    “Shouldn’t he have already come back? It’s been at least twenty minutes or so since he died. Nicole came back quicker than that, didn’t she?”
    “But Nicole contracted the mutated version directly, which is clearly much stronger, and more deadly. Remember when we left Ted’s yesterday evening with the group. The bodies in the road were all still there, and it had been hours since they’d died. When we went back this morning many of them were gone, and the remaining ones had been eaten. So it’s hard to say exactly how long it takes for the virus to mutate once they die, but it must be at least six hours.”
    Peaches sighed. “God … this is a nightmare.”
    I had no argument or encouraging words to add.
    We pulled in to a 7 Eleven across the street from the Walgreens.
    “What are we getting here?” Peaches asked.
    “Lotto, of course,” I said. “Look at that Powerball jackpot.”
    “No, really.”
    The three of us got out, two of us under our own power, and went into the store. Right near the entrance, stacked in cardboard boxes, was what we came for—cheap sparkling wine. I pulled a bottle out, examined it.
    “That didn’t take long,” I said. “No cork, either.”
    “What are we gonna do with wine bottles?”
    I smiled. “Make cocktails, my dear.”
    Peaches smiled back. “Oh, okay, I get it now.”
    “I knew you would.”
    I carried the box outside and started emptying the bottles, twelve in all. I figured we’d have to find a corkscrew, but the twist off caps made things super easy—a real time saver. Good thing too, cause we were about to lose light. The sky was turning a darker shade of blue by the minute. Peaches was still inside the store searching for some rags we could tie on to the bottles. I had half of the bottles emptied when she came outside.
    “Will these work? I found them in the back.”
    She handed me some old stained cleaning rags. I counted them. “They’ll probably work. There’s only five though. Was there any more back there?”
    “I’ll check.”
    She left. While she was gone, I finished pouring out the wine from the remaining bottles. Then I got the gas can out of the car, took off the cap, and screwed on the spout.
    “Found three more,” Peaches said, exiting the store.
    “Eight in all then. I guess that’ll have to do.” I set each of the wine bottles back in the box so they wouldn’t fall over while I poured the gas.
    “Olivia needs to be fed.”
    “Okay, go for it,” I said. Peaches fixed a bottle for Olivia and then sat down on the curb beside me. “How is she doing on formula?”
    Peaches shrugged. “Okay for now. But it goes fast. Diapers are kinda low.”
    “We’ll get some more soon.”
    “She’ll be fine,” Peaches said, looking down at Olivia happily sucking from the