The Event: The Beginning by Lee Thomas

through, not the whole road.” I yelled over the gunfire and screeches of infected. We began moving in that direction, each swing or bullet dropping an infected person. I hated all the killing, but it was us or them, and there was no reasoning with them. They were no longer people, I had to keep reminding myself of that.
                  We made it back to the rig and formed an arc around the drivers' door so Jeff could fall back and get in. Once the door shut, we started moving towards the RV's once more. A chorus of gunshots warned us of a new wave coming at us from around the corner of the RV's before we saw the first ones appear. We continued fighting through to get to the first door we came to.
                  Once we made it to the closest vehicle, we formed a short arc around the door. The door opened and we started filtering in one by one. I had Dave go first, then two of the other men, followed by Roger. It was down to me and one other man. He nodded at me to go first, and as I turned and ducked in, I saw an infected crash into him, sinking its teeth into the side of his neck.
                  "NO!" I yelled, preparing to go back to try to save him. I stopped cold and felt myself yanked backwards as Roger had a hold of my collar and yanked me back in. The door slammed shut as people kept firing through our gun ports. I struggled, pushing against the hands holding me down, trying to get back to the door and save our man.
                  "He's gone man, he's gone. There is nothing we can do for him.” Roger was telling me. The driver had already started moving, following Jeff as he plowed a path through the wreck. His rig shoved cars out of the way, off to one side or the other. We followed, one by one, running over infected as they ran in front of us. According to the other drivers, all the vehicles made it through with no issues, and no one else was bitten. We continued on without any more roadblocks to work around.
                  I knew that Jeff was familiar with these roads, as he traveled this area quite regularly as a truck driver. It was a confusing area, and I radioed to everyone to keep close so no one got lost. Jeff turned off on an exit, and as much as I didn’t want to stop around here, we all followed. He pulled into a truck stop and we all pulled to a stop around him. When no movement was seen for ten minutes, a few of us unloaded to look around. Jeff and I split the teams again and went to search the truck stop. It had a restaurant attached to it, so I hoped there might be something useable left inside. I had Roger take a team to siphon gas out of the tanks, as well as the few cars that were parked around the building. By the looks of this place though, I doubted we would find much of use. We were currently in West Memphis, which had a not so good reputation among truck drivers regarding safety. I was surprised Jeff had chosen this spot to stop in.
                  Most of the windows were busted out, so we could see inside. Everything was trashed, shelves were empty, knocked over, things thrown around. Glass was shattered everywhere, and there were a few bodies lying on the floor. Blood had pooled around them, and we could see most of them had their throats ripped out. A few others looked like they had been stabbed to death. From the looks of them, none of them had been turned before they died.
                  "I don’t like the looks of this man, I think we should just siphon the gas and leave.” Jeff said, looking around. His head swiveled, watching all directions.
                  "Me either, let's go help them with the gas and get out of here." I agreed. We made our way back to where Roger's team was and helped them with loading the gas cans back onto the trailer as they got filled. There was not much gas left in the tanks so it didn’t take long to empty them. We didn’t get as much as I would've