before we all die

f o u r; s o p h i e

Slowly, my eyes peel open. They feel awful, my eyelids I mean. Coated in sleepy dust and stuck together, it's not very nice at all. My eyes focus on a door handle, for the inside of a car. That's when I remember again, I remember that I'm in a car, with four other people, sleeping and hiding away from the reanimated deceased. I remember that my life, no matter how shitty it could be, was gone. There was no more waking up late and worrying about getting to college late. There was no more drinking with my friends and my mum. There was no more happiness and enjoyment, or at least very little. I was sat in a car full of people who felt as hopeless and shitty as I did. Where do we even go from here?

I roll over, the sun was just rising, barely high enough in the sky for it to be completely light out, it's that kind of light at dusk and dawn. Before the skies are bright blues, when they're darker navy shades. Jack, wearing a grey hooded jumper and wrapped in a black blanket that looks like it had been stolen from a homeless person, lied there half comatose. He looks incredibly peaceful. Besides him is Katie, even asleep her hands wrap around her weapons. They're on safety and have no ammunition in just in case, it seems there just comforting her. She's wearing a black shirt with some writing scrawled across the front. She has no bedding at all, just a jacket loosely tossed over her lap. In the front seats of the pickup, sit two people exchanging whispers and cigarettes. Aura is counting her knives whilst smoking a cigarette and trying (and failing) to read a map. Connor is making arrows whilst taking drags of his Marlboro Light. Slowly and quietly, I push myself up onto my elbows. The car seats had been pushed down and a exceptionally thin mattress had been wedge atop to make a crappy make shift bed. It wasn't long, but it was enough to get an okay nights sleep if you lay in the fetal position. Aura turns back to check up on the noise she heard, spotting me being awake.

"Sophie? You awake?" She asks with a certain degree of concern.

"Yes?" I say in a voice that almost didn't belong to me. I clear my throat quickly and then try again. "Yeah?"

"Hey, you um, don't by any chance know how to read maps?" She looks down a little.

"Well where are we?" I ask for her benefit but also out of curiosity.

"West Bridgwater I think but I could be wrong, I'm not sure." She tells me with a lack of confidence.

"Check if it has a contents page?" I offer her.

Her hands flick the pages in a quick motion, until one finger lands on a page with contents, written in big bold letters at the top. She runs her finger down the page, tracing over each and every town and city, no doubt all overrun with the dead. She stops her finger on something I can't quite read from my angle. Using the back of the drivers chair, I pull myself into a sitting position and peer over the seat, reading the book. Her finger now runs sideways, to a column that lists numbers.

"Let's see... page twenty three I think." She informs us before flicking through the pages once more. The pages fall open at page twenty three after a little fumbling on her part. She circles the map with her fingers, dotting it around trying to find Bridgwater. Her finger zones in on one word which turns out to be what she was looking for. She looks at it closely, analysing the routes and roads, the shops and services, seemingly memorising the place.

"Which way is north?" She asks as if we know the answer, we don't.

"Okay well if that's Copeland Close. And that's..." She points to a small shopping complex that has a selection of shops listed on a banner outside it. "Is this." She now points to a small indicator on the map, which she checks with the Key to clarify it is in fact the shopping mall.

"Then that way is north," She points in a direction about forty five degrees to her left. "And by all of that, I conclude that we are here... or maybe here... okay we are in this general vicinity okay?"