Please enjoy the following excerpt of my novel in the works, ¤OUTBREAK¤

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   Ryan slid his fingers along the bottom of the window, until he found the latch, the metal of of it cold beneath his fingertips. With a deep inhale, he slid it open, the glass only making muffled complaints at such a request.

   Letting his breath out, he fumbled in the darkness for the screen, before pushing it up in one, sharp thrust. It let out a heart stopping squeal, and Ryan froze. "I'm done for," he whispered. One minute passed, then two. If anyone had heard, they would have been here by now. He rolled his shoulders back, attempting to ease the tension crawling through his muscles.

   He gathered up the straps if his backpack into his hand, heaving it up and over, through the yawning window, and into the grass below. A wet thud, and Ryan winced, hoping it hadn't landed in mud.

   He clambered out after it, brick tugging against his ankle as he floundered. Half falling, half crouching, he made it out, nothing short of a disaster.

   Brushing his pants off, and sweeping the hair out of his face, Ryan stood, and retrieved the forlorn black backpack nearby. He probed the bottom of it, but no mud was found, thankfully.

The moon was barely showing outside the ashy plumes of clouds that had lingered all night. In a way, it was a blessing, for no one could see him. Then again, that meant he couldn't see.

   To prove that point, he promptly crashed into a tree.

   "Oww," Ryan groaned, clutching his forehead, trying to wave away the spots obscuring his sight. "Gosh, that hurts!"

   Shaking his head to clear it, he squinted, his eyesight slowly adjusting. Now what? He pondered, surveying his yard. I've never run away before, I'm not even sure of what I should do...

   The most obvious point of running away was to actually leave, so he got started on that, tramping through the ankle high grass, feeling the dew starting to soak through his sneakers.

   The gentle slip and squish of his footsteps faded into crunching as he transitioned from his yard, to the dirt at the side of the road. Rocks and clumps of first made the walking uneven, but he didn't have to worry about running into anything.

   Wind started to whistle in behind him, sending his jacket flapping, and he curled his shoulders up, trying to ignore the stinging cold that followed.

Left in the darkness with nothing but crickets for company, Ryan found his thoughts wandering far away, away from this town. Away from his family, to Washington. The state was in complete lockdown, and Ryan had no clue why the entire nation hadn't fallen apart yet.

His thoughts flicked back to Beckham, collapsing in the middle of the park, of how how his sister had screamed. Her panic still rang in his ears, and was one reason he hadn't slept well for the past few days. He kept looking in the mirror, checking for that dazed, blank look.

It wasn't there. He knew this, but eith every heartbeat he felt as if the Sudis was something coming for him, breathing around him in the very air he breathed.

That wasn't helping calm himself down, was it?

He had made it to the middle of town, and he looked around for a moment, turning in a circle. The ice cream shop was shuttered up, and next to it, the Barber had a broken window.

Had no one been out here since the bugging of quarantine? That seemed impossible, yet everything out here looked sad and neglected. Frowning, Ryan started off again, the moon guiding his path.

The asphalt of main street stopped abruptly, and dirt and gravel was underfoot one again.

He didnt know how long he kept walking, but his legs felt like they were about to fall off.

He was so tired.

Farmland stretched around him, offering no shelter, no change in the scenery. The only trees he had seen were long behind him now, closer to home.

Stumbling, Ryan tried to keep his head high, eyes open, but it didn't seem to be working. His head bobbed, the world growing fuzzy around him.

Crash!

His head jolted up, and he spun around, and saw the last person in the world he wanted to be there. His sister. She snatched the fallen flashlight in front of her, the light of it pitifully buzzing.

"Lissa?"

She stuffed the flashlight in her back pocket, and shoved her hands onto her hips. "Why couldn't you have noticed me earlier?" She complained, scowling at him. "We've been walking for an hour now! Didn't you hear me before?"

Thinking about it now, there had been inconsistencies in the sound of his footsteps, seeming like some were doubled, but he had pushed that thought away, thinking he was just tired. Hearing nonexistent things. The pest standing in front of him now was a big problem.

"Lissa! Why did you follow me? You need to go back home! G-get!" He flapped his hand at her, as if shooing away a misbehaving chicken.

Lissa pushed a strand of hair out of her face. "I'm following you, you dummy! That's what I'm doing! I was going to bring you home." She looked around. "I really do wish you had noticed me earlier. I could be in my bed right now, sleeping."

Ryan glared at her. "Well that's your fault for following. You shouldn't have come." His frustrated look melted for a moment as he yawned, his jaw aching with the size of it.

Lissa waved him off. "It doesnt matter. I'm here now. Where are we going?"

Ryan started walking off. "We are not goinging anywhere. You're going home, and where I'm going is my own business." Drowsiness pricked at the back of his mind, but annoyance surged over it.

The sound of crushing dirt, and Lissa was now next to him, jogging to keep up with his longer strides. "You can't get rid of me now that I'm here. So really, where are we going? It better be worth leaving home." She stopped in her tracks, pebbled tripping away from her feet. "Are you running away? Hey Ryan, wait you cant do that! That's dumb. Mom and Dad will be really upset."

Ryan raised one brow. "Oh yeah? They'll be even more upset when they find out that we're both gone. Did you ever think of that?"

Lissa shrugged. "Nah. Anyways, how long are we going to be gone? I didn't pack much in my bag." She patted the leather of her satchel as if to prove her point.

Ryan sighed. "Of course you didn't. You never plan ahead, do you, Lissa?" He honestly couldn't believe he was stuck in this situation. With her.

"Nope!" She chirped.

He sighed, knowing he was screwed if he had to deal with his sister this entire time. "Are you sure you wont go back home? This wont be easy."

Lissa yawned. "I'm staying put, you donkey. So just deal with it, ok?"

Ryan wanted to do anything but deal with it, but in a way, perhaps he deserved it. "Just so you know, this doesnt mean that I'm happy you're here. Just... try and stay out of my hair, ok?" He ran his fingers through his hair, knowing that he would regret this soon.

Lissa gave a little bounce. "Great! Now that I am your official companion in this little expedition of ours, do you think I can know where we're going? Or is that 'for you to know, and me to find out'? Because if itd for me to find out, trust me, I will find out. I can promise you that."

Ryan made a vague noise, not wanting to acknowledge the fact that she really would needle it out of him sooner than later.

The moon was just cresting down to the western horizon, and he followed it, trying to keep his eyes open, his feet moving, and just stay awake in general.

Lissa seemed to be having similar problems, and he heard more than once a light snore slip out from her, before being cut off by startled noises. Silly girl, Ryan thought, jiggling his flashlight so garish shadows stretched across the road. She decided to set out to follow me, without even knowing what she was getting into.

He didnt know how much longer the two of them trudged along, Ryan in silence, Lissa making occasional attempts to spark a conversation, but both of them too tired to say anything more than a handful of words.

When Ryan decided he could take another step along the road, he stumbled to the side of it, and dropped to his knees.

Dirt puffed up from where his jeans made contact with the ground, and he coughed, but tried his best fo ignore it, pulling himself into the dry ditch only a mere foot away, he felt like it was crossing a football field.

Moments later, crunching ambled down from the road, to right next to his closed eyes. "Wow. What a wimp," Lissa remarked, settling down next to him. "You literally crawled to here. You looked like those cartoons of people slinking to water in the desert. Also," light flashed against his closed eyelids, turning everything red and painful. "You dropped this." A click, and the light turned off.

Ryan rolled over, letting out something he hoped actually sounded like words, but more than likely would be interpreted as something unintelligible.

Lissa poked him in the back in response, but said nothing. Perhaps everything about this truly bizarre journey of theirs was finally crashing down on her.

Sleep came on silent feet, sweeping him under, and stuffed his full of confusing dreams of birds and animals chasing him.

And laughter.

There was always laughter, somewhere in the back of his mind, behind the screeching of his dreams, laughter echoed back and forth.

When he awoke, it was to the puttering of a truck as it grumbled past, the wood fencing of the back of it groaning and creaking with the wind.

The wind was freezing, Ryan noted, mainly because he couldn't feel his fingers. Behind him, Lissa muttered something and, pressed herself closer to him, as if trying to leech the warmth our of him. For the first time since she had been out here, he finally got a good look at her.

Dirt smudged her cheek, and past of hair had escaped from the band keeping it tied up. Her short sleeved shirt and flip flops were proof that she wasn't prepared to stay long out here. Ignoring the cold that stung against his arms, he tugged off his jacket and draped it over her sleeping form.

The clouds that had obscured the moon the night before hadn't drifted far, letting only part of the sun stretch down to earth. Ryan tried to soak up what little warmth her could, feeling—oddly enough—like a plant.

The temptation to just sit there, still, heard craning up to touch the sky, untill he truly became one with the earth, grasped him for a moment, and it startled him.

It had never seemed like this in books. They protagonist always knew their goal, and they always knew how to start out. He felt like he was stuck in a maze. Blindfolded.

And he always thought running away was a piece of cake! Something that people did often, and with the simplest of ease. So why did it feel like even the sky was against this endeavor of his? Couldn't they provide him a scrap of warmth, of comfort, of assurance that he was doing something right?

Looking for clues on what to do, he studied everything around him. Fields stretched in every direction, and in front of him, dirt and gravel formed a road. In the distance, and long, lone line of trees separated this field from what could only be more fields.

Cotton seemed to be growing at their backs, and opposite of them, it seemed as if it had just snowed, the crop was so plentiful. Turning, Ryan plucked a boll of cotton, and massaged it through his fingers, flicking out the seeds embedded deep within.

He had two water bottles in his backpack, and for once, we was glad that the sun wasn't shining down full force, because between the two of them, the water wouldn't last long. It was at least twenty miles to the next town, and he deeply regretted using his bike to try and find the rumored military base.

Thinking about it now, this was a truly stupid plan. Really, what was he thinking when he started out on this "expedition", as Lissa had called it? What was he doing here, in the middle of nowhere, miles away from home? The biggest question was: what was he going to do next?

The ground underneath him started to quiver, and Ryan peered down the road, seeing a plume of dust arching into the air. He narrowed his eyes, and slowly, a fuzzy foggy image broke through the dust. Ryan wasn't the best at cars, so he could only describe it as an army vehicle, the canvas covering of it covered in dirt. He knew, just knew, that once it sped by, he would see troops in the back.

He rolled over, and grasped Lissa by the shoulders, attempting to shake her awake. "Lissa! Wake up," he hissed into her ear. "Wake up. You need to get up, now!"

Her eyes opened slowly, confused and bleary and slightly dazed. "Wha, what?" She blinked hard, as if trying to make the world come into focus. "Ryan, why are you all blurry?"

His heart stopped.

Blurry. That's what Beckham had called him before he passed out. Before everyone knew that he was sick. "Lissa, listen to me, you need to focus. The truck is driving away from the town. That means we can follow it!"

She squinted at him, her honey hair draped across her face. "Can I have five more minutes?" She asked, her head already drooping to the side.

Ryan shook her. "Lissa! Up!" He stood up, shoving his backpack on his shoulder. "Up." He grabbed her wrist, and hauled her up, her tired form like a ragdoll. A ninety pound ragdoll, which made things a bit more difficult.

Half dragging, half carrying her, Ryan and Lissa made it to the edge of the road. The vehicle was getting closer, but he still couldn't see inside, the lights was glaring too hard across the windshield.

Frantically, Ryan waved his arm at it, trying to get it to stop. If Lissa truly was sick, if she had the Sudis, he needed to get her home. He needed to them home, and he certainly couldn't do that if he had to drag her the entire way.

"Help!" Anxiety and helplessness cracked through his voice, leaving his throat burning. "Please, help! You need to stop!"

The sound of it all filled his ears, and he was practically screaming now. "STOP!" He dropped Lissa and ran to the middle of the road, both hands out as if that could stop the truck. "Just STOP!"

With a quivering, quaking groan, it grew ever louder, and Ryan squeezed his eyes shut, and he could only hear one thing.

Lissa's screams.