The Returners Read Free Page B

told and began to disperse. When Mark was confident there wouldn't be any stragglers and everyone was headed home, he turned and walked back to Jessica.
    "I'm gonna take those cuffs off you now. I trust you won't do anything to make me regret that."
    “I won't.”
    She turned so he could unlock the cuffs and he unlocked them, taking them from her wrist. Tears began to run down her face again as she turned back towards him. Jessica stood there unable to speak through her sobs. After several minutes she finally managing to subdue her emotions and calm down enough to talk.
    "Mark, what’s going on?" She asked again.
    As worried as Mark was about giving her the news right now, she needed to know. If this was what he thought it was, she would find out soon enough anyway. It wasn't likely what happened to Mrs. Mills was going to go away anytime soon. In fact, it was likely to get worse, much worse.
    "We've been hearing for a few days about stuff like this happening in some of the other towns around here. We've been trying to keep it quiet so people wouldn't panic and overreact. We're not sure what's causing it, but it's bad." His face was sullen as he answered her question.
    "Is this like what's been going on in the cities? I remember hearing about some strange events a few weeks ago, but it seemed to have stopped. I'm so confused right now. They were such nice people. Why would she attack her husband and I?" Emotion overwhelmed her. Despite her best efforts to fight back them back, tears began to fall again.
    Mark stepped forward and pulled her towards him, hugging her and trying to offer some sort of comfort. There wasn't much else he could do, sometimes a simple gesture of kindness was worth more than empty words. When she had calmed down he let go of her. Giving her a chance to compose herself before he spoke again.
    "I'm gonna have to bring you down to the station with me. At least until we can get this all straightened out. I'm not charging you with anything, but we need to be sure you didn't miss anything that could help us."
    “I understand,” Jessica said.
    A second ambulance had arrived shortly after the first one. It's sirens now filled the air as it pulled away with the body of Mrs. Mills. Both Jessica and Mark stood watching it disappear down the road. A strange and eerie silence now taking place of the chaotic noise.
    “We've need to go so we can get this over with,” Mark said. 
    They walked to the cruiser without another word spoken. This was Jessica Alberts introduction to the plague of the 21 st century. Life almost seemed to get back to normal in the weeks following the incident. Nothing else happened until about a month later when all hell broke loose. The plague began hitting everywhere. Nowhere was unaffected, small towns, cities, it didn't matter.
    Whatever this infection was it was fast moving and didn't discriminate. Young or old, black or white, rich or poor. All walks of life were affected by it. People weren't calling them zombies or undead, which is exactly what they were. It seems even in this time of crisis the media tried to gather ratings and create a buzzword. A news reporter from Boston had taken to calling them Returners. It had stuck and that's what all the media outlets began to call them. The plague seemed to affect people differently depending on how you died. It seemed if you died of natural causes it took you longer to return. You came back able to run and move with quickness, at least at first, but over time slowed down. If you were bit you returned quickly, but moved slow right from the start.
    In the early days, those who remained largely avoided each other and didn't leave their houses. Fear of the dead, and distrust of the living keeping them isolated and alone. Most people chose not to stay and fled Greenstone to find family or safety. Holding out some sort of hope things were better elsewhere.
    Within six months it had wiped out half the population of the United States. Within