Less Than 3%

Chapter 3 - On The Road Again

I began to fill some bags with necessities. The shop had plenty of tinned goods, mainly soups. I picked up some alcohol, water and more first aid equipment too. By the time I had finished I had three bulging bags of stuff. There was no way that we could be mobile enough to walk to possible civilization, we needed a car. Dean's foot was looking quite bad, it seemed infected. Luckily I had just managed to get some antibiotics and he was able to take some to fight off the infection.
"Dean, take these, your foot is looking infected. We can't walk anymore, we're gonna have to find a car."
I told him. He didn't really reply, he just gave me an accepting nod. He reached towards my hand to take one of the shopping bags.
"Jay pass me one of those, it ain't fair you carrying all of em"
Clearly struggling to stand up. I knew it was not a good idea to give him a bag. I'm Jay by the way, I forgot to actually introduce myself.
"Dean, it's fine, we just need to find a car."
I replied as I moved my hand away.

We weren't looking too far for a car, we only had to turn the corner, and there one was. It was a red sort of coupè. With Deans arm around my shoulder, we made our way towards the car. Out of nowhere, a quick whistle sound whizzed past my ear and pelted into the car. Something just shot at us!
"Shit!, someone's shooting at us!"
I yelled.
I dragged Dean around the side of the car.
"Where is it coming from?"
I yelled through the noise.
Crouched down with our heads between our legs, two more shots fired. One of the shots hit the window above where we were sitting and we were enshrouded by broken glass.
"Wait!, we don't have weapons!"
Dean shouted.
"We don't know what's going on!, we haven't been around for a long time, everything was fine when we left!"
He continued.
The firing stopped. I lifted my head from between my knees and shouted,
"I'm coming out with my hands up, don't shoot please.. I just want to know what is going on."
Standing slowly and turning around, I saw a figure perched on top of an old postal van.
"Can we talk? We're not armed."
I called over to the figure. It was at this point the figure stood up and slowly made its way down off of the van. They made their way over to us with the gun still pointing in our direction. As they got closer, I could see they had a mask over their face and covering their head too. I couldn't make out what the person looked like at all. It was only when they came within two meters of us that we could see. The shooter removed their shroud to reveal an innocent looking, elderly woman beneath it.
"Errm hi, we don't mean any harm.. we just."
Dean was interrupted by her.
"How are you alive? Did you not get the cure? Who are you?"
It sounded as though she hadn't seen anybody in a while.
"I'm Jay and this is Dean, we were on a fundraising camping trip before the cure was announced and we called it short today because Dean here has trench foot. We had no idea what was going on, is it just Scotland that's like this?"
"I'm sorry I shot at you lovies, it's been a while since I've seen anybody living. I'm afraid to tell you it's not just Scotland."
She gently replied.
"So, how far has it gone? The rest of the UK?"
Dean questioned, as he struggled up to his feet, holding onto the side of the car.
"I wish it was just that far, I'm sorry to be the one to tell you, but nobody else is around to do so. The cure was released on a global scale, meaning it's everywhere. It took two weeks for the cure to take immediate effect and kill people. Nobody had symptoms of it going to happen, it just came out of the blue."
She explained.
"Why didn't you get a cure?"
I asked.
"My husband, it was our villages' turn to be cured. We were actually the last place in the UK to be reached with it, but my husband kicked up a big fuss when they came to the door. They said they'd come back the next day."
"Where is your husband now?"
Dean mentioned.
With a pause and a look of grief she began to explain.
"Later that day he had left to go and get some shopping from the supermarket. I saw him crossing over the street towards the bus stop. Out of nowhere a car raced down the road and hit him. His feet left the ground and his body was thrown like a ragdoll. He died instantly and the car kept going and ploughed into the village town hall just over there."
Looking over in the distance I could see a white car crushed under the weight of bricks from a crumbling town hall wall.
"I'm so sorry, look ermm..."
I looked at her awaiting her name.
"Maggie, my name's Maggie."
She filled in the gaps.
"Okay Maggie, we're going to take this car and try to find some people or at least, a better place to stay. Would you like to come with us?"
As I asked, I saw her looking at a blood stain on the floor which is where I assume her husband laid.
"Yes please, I can't bear being here anymore. Goodbye Harold, you'll always be in my heart my dear."
She kissed her hand and thrusted it into the air. Gripping her rifle she proceeded towards the car more. I opened the door for her and the back seat door for Dean. Maggie placed her rifle in the feet area as Dean slumped himself across the back seats. I loaded the three bags and all of the camping gear into the back of the car, where a crowbar and a wrench were already.