Despite his best efforts to relax, Lucas still felt a little unsettled by the earlier confrontation with Simon. Online gaming was usually a nice distraction when he felt anxious, but too much of the public chatter he was now seeing was mentioning the strange events taking place in the outside world. Some people were still playing as normal, but far too many people seemed to be distracted by the zombies to just play the game. It made the normally vibrant world feel hollow.
It didn't help things either that every few minutes someone he knew online would send him messages asking him what things were like where he was. Being drawn into those conversations was a little uncomfortable as he reluctantly admitted he had seen one of the zombies but it was safely kept outside. He was coaxed into telling a couple of curious people about his observations of function without blood. And did think to mention that they sometimes seemed quiet. Other than that, Lucas didn't really have much to say.
Despite wishing he could just play the game without the distractions, Lucas had soon eaten half the bag of chips and finished off the can of soda. Licking the sticky cheese powder from his fingers to get another can, he started to get up when his cell phone rang.
Drying off his hands hastily on a napkin, Lucas picked up the phone and quickly checked the ID to see it was from his parents. "Hello?"
"Lucas!" Came the voice of his mother. "You didn't go outside did you?"
"No. I'm still in my dorm with everyone else." Lucas said, mildly annoyed. He wasn't an idiot.
"Good! Stay indoors until someone comes to get you. The army says they're going to be in downtown Portland by tomorrow morning."
"Yes, I saw the news." Lucas got up and retrieved another can of soda before returning to his computer desk.
"They don't want anybody running around outside where it's not safe, so don't go anywhere either. Just stay inside so when they come by, they can rescue you."
"Yes, they're saying that on the news too. Besides, there's a lot of other people with me. It doesn't make much sense to go off alone by myself."
"Your father, sister and I are being taken somewhere safer. So we won't be able to talk for a while." Lucas could make out some noise on the other end of the line that he couldn't quite place.
That was the first bit of surprising news Lucas had heard. His family lived dozens of miles away, in Hillsboro. It took about an hour of travel to get from here to there by the train line that ran through Portland. "What? But you're nowhere near where the zombies are, are you?"
"Not yet, but they said some of the infected are running out in all different directions. They don't want anybody too close to Portland until this is all over. And they won't let anyone go down there to get you out either."
"Oh." Lucas wondered at that for a moment. He had thought it was strange that the military was going so slow. But now it made sense. They wanted to make sure nothing slipped outside of the main infected zone. So that meant clearing out who they could as they traveled closer to the impacted area. "I guess that makes sense, now that I think of it."
There was a brief commotion through the phone line for a moment. "We have to leave now, Lucas. We all love you Lucas, stay safe. We'll call your cell phone when we can."
"Love you too mom." Lucas said just before the line cut out. Waiting there for a few seconds, he realized that his mother's voice had been wavering a little as she spoke to him.
Replacing his cell phone on the desktop next to the keyboard, Lucas opened the next can of soda and returned to his game.
