| Davis jumped into the brush and made his way into the cover. Behind him there were sirens. More lights came on. He heard soldiers’ voices. He knew, though, that their efforts would be in vain. There was too much area to cover, too many places for him to go, he had too much of a head start. He was going to get away. Of the hundreds of thousands either killed or possessed by the mystery disease and the hundreds of thousands now being held in containment centers, Davis alone escaped the city. Of all of them, he alone was free; he alone could reveal the truth to the world. The truth that there was no smallpox outbreak, that a bizarre and extremely contagious epidemic had destroyed an entire city within a week, that the government was trying to cover it up and was herding people into camps until they were eventually infected and destroyed by one another. Davis alone had the power to tell the world the truth. But that didn’t change the facts. The fact that Jaina was dead. The fact that he was alone. The facts that there were two dead soldiers and a shotgun covered in his fingerprints. The fact that there was at least one soldier left alive who had gotten a good look at his face. The fact that at any point the Army could bring out helicopters with thermal vision and motion sensors to hunt him down. That while he would escape for the night he would be facing the entire US Army for the rest of his life. Davis had made it out of the city alive. A sign on a dirt road said the town of Blossom Creek, population 342, was only 19 miles away. The race was on again. |