Week 11: When the Bus Went Awry

While we made our way to West Palm Beach, Caleb told me what had happened on the day the bus crashed. They had been headed to Jacksonville when a small group of zombies wandered into traffic. An oncoming vehicle plowed through the herd, panicked and lost control. The car jumped the median and headed right toward the bus. The bus driver swerved, managing to avoid the rogue driver, but wound up off the road and plowing into the drainage ditch.

At that time the bus was being escorted out of south Florida by soldiers and after the accident they tried to quickly transfer the kids into three Humvees. Unfortunately the zombies were increasing in number and advancing on their location. In the chaos that followed Caleb had gotten separated from the group and in a frightened panic retreated back to the hotel.

I asked Caleb where the rest of the group had gone. He remembered that when they first boarded the bus one of the soldiers said that this was their last chance to cross central Florida before the bombs started dropping. He did not know what happened to the group after the crash, but the backup plan had been to move them all to West Palm Beach should they be unable to cross central Florida. That was probably another reason Caleb had agreed to come with me when I told him where I was headed.

We arrived in West Palm Beach just as the sun was starting to set. It was a frantic race to find a place to sleep before it got completely dark. I finally came across a library that had multiple entrances, a flat roof, and best of all the possibility of finding some valuable books and local maps to help me in my search.