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from them.  They could run at a pretty quick pace, but there was a lack of control and a kind of desperation when they ran after me.  They also didn’t seem to care if they got injured while running after me.  It was almost as if they couldn’t feel the pain when they fell or ran into something.
     
    The campus quickly vanished in my rear-view mirror along with the three people infected with whatever disease that was.  I couldn’t help feeling an urge to go back and try to find Gwen, but I had no idea where she had gone—and, more than that, I didn’t know what would happen if the infected people caught me.  For all I knew I was already infected from being close to them.
     
    The stoplight at the intersection of Butler Farm Road and Magruder Boulevard turned green just as I came up to it.  I was about to roll through, but I slowed to make sure there were no cars approaching from the other direction.  I jammed on the breaks just in time to miss an eighteen-wheeler hauling a load of heavy construction equipment.  He must have been going eighty miles per hour.  As my eyes followed the truck, my attention was drawn to smoke rising in the distance.  It looked like the dark gray smoke was coming from the hospital near the cemetery I had passed on my way to school, and it was definitely not on fire when I passed by.
     
    At the sight of the thick cloud forming over the hospital, I realized that whatever was going on was not confined to the area surrounding Thomas Nelson.  I needed to get home as soon as possible.

CHAPTER 3 - The drive homeless...
     
    I tried to keep my eyes on the road, but the smoke from the burning hospital was constantly stealing my focus.  As I neared the hospital I could see the chaos.  The third floor had flames pouring from most of the windows.  While watching the flames and smoke from the hospital, I nearly swerved into a ditch on the side of the road.  I turned my head and saw the ditch just in time to avoid sliding down into muddy water.
     
    As my eyes focused back on the road I saw a hearse half-folded around the light poll in front of the cemetery.  I also saw what looked like blood streaks coming from the driver’s side door trailing on the ground and disappearing into the trees.  Part of me wanted to keep looking, but my stomach could only take so much.  However, with what lay on the road in front of me, my stomach was not going to catch a break.
     
    Weaving between the abandoned vehicles in front of the cemetery, I could not help but imagine how each of them came to rest.  Some of the cars had shattered windows; others were without a notable scratch on them.  I could see a little further up the road, just past the cemetery, to where the motionless automobiles no longer cluttered the street.  At the moment, I could think of nothing better than to be beyond the roadblocks.  Halfway through the wreckage a Honda and a Mitsubishi had collided and were blocking both lanes.  I had to carefully roll over the median to get around the heap.  I couldn’t believe that all of this had happened in the hour or so that I was at the campus.  I was just about out of the awful mess when I heard a horrible scream from behind, on the right side.
     
    It was Gwen and she was running through the tombstones and small monuments, kicking over several flower bouquets as she ran.  She most likely had seen me drive by and was trying to catch me.  I quickly came to a stop, and as I turned to unlock the door to let her in, I glanced over my shoulder.  About five of the sick people were following her, but something was wrong.  She was able to outrun them, but she was injured.  She had bloodstains on her right leg, around her knee.  I leaned over to unlock the passenger’s side door.  But she had grabbed the door handle at the same time that I pulled on the lock.  “Let go of the handle!” I yelled as I struggled to pull the lock.  I could see the look of utter fear in her eyes.  At the