"So, Matt, what do you do when you're not, y'know... sleeping on trains?" Dawn giggled and hinted towards the oddly shaped sports bag Matt was carrying. Matt hesitated, squinting his eyes and staring straight ahead.
"If I tell ya, d'ya promise not to laugh?" Dawn nodded.
"Horses. It's a family thing. We breed 'em an' ride 'em. Well, me and my sisters ride 'em back in Colorado." Matt unzipped his bag and pulled out a meter long, brown leather cat o' nine tails and handed it to Dawn.
"It's the best thing I got. I brought it along t' show it off, I guess." Dawn turned the whip in her hands, feeling a mix of being both fascinated and intimidated. Matt snatched out of her hands swiftly and put his precious back into its bag. Dawn noticed a faint blush on his face, that kind of blush that revealed that he was a tad embarrassed to be proud of it.
"So you're like a proper cowboy then?" she teased and stuffed her hands in her pockets.
"Yea, I mean, no!" he muttered, not able to hold back a snicker. All of a sudden, Sage began barking. They both looked up quick as they could to noticed that Sage had spotted a stranger. A middle aged woman carrying a child came walking towards them. She had the look of panic all over her face.
"Hey, you, excuse me!" Dawn approached her. The woman looked relieved as they came towards her. "Excuse me, do you know what's going on here? Why's everything so quiet? Where did everyone go?" Dawn grabbed onto Sage's collar, making sure he didn't scare the woman or her child. The woman tugged on the child's shoulder to check if he was okay. She then stared at the two with her eyes wide open, her gaze shifting between them.
"You mean you don't know?" Matt and Dawn looked at each other shortly, Matt shrugged and they looked back at the woman.
"They're evacuating the entire town. They've already begun driving everyone at the hospital somewhere North, some kind of a virus or an outbreak. They've tried to cover it up in the papers and on the news, I'm not sure what it is but it's turning people into some kind of monsters! The evacuation was announced two hours ago and almost everyone swarmed to the mart to hoard supplies. It's complete chaos! Some just got in their cars and got out of here as fast as they even could. And we're not taking any chances either but I don't have a car, so I was hoping the trains were still running." The woman was rocking back and forth to calm down her child that just woke up.
"We jus' gon' and come from the station, there ain't nobody up there. We need to be gettin' to to my friend's school. He did tell me somethin' was up too." Matt scratched the back of his head and looked back over his shoulder towards the station. The woman's expression changed to disappointment.
"I think the schools are locking all students up till they are told what to do. If I were you, I wouldn't head towards the mart, anyway. Everything has been torn off the shelves, everyone is just panicking. You'd be lucky if you didn't get torn apart too." She looked into the ground and shuffled and bit back and forth. Sage tugged at Dawn's arm, wanting to carry on walking.
"Thanks for the advise" Dawn smiled at the woman and corrected her heavy bag. "We won't be heading that way then, that's for sure."
"Take care of yourselves" the woman nodded and walked between the two in the direction they came from. They watched her walk away, both feeling the worry grow in their stomachs.
"I guess the mart is out of question then. Shouldn't you try and get hold of your friend so we'll know where to go?" Dawn slid the bag off her shoulder and put it on the ground. Sage sat down next to it and stared up at Dawn with a whimper. Matt nodded in agreement. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, dialed Jack's number and put it to his ear.
"C'mon, Jack, pick it up."
