Alone

Chapter 6

When Brad heard the voice on the radio, he was so relieved to find out that other people were around. But he was very disappointed to realize that they were so far away. The man on the radio said the he was from Georgia. Brad sat in the car trying to figure out what to do. He decided he was going to drive down to Georgia he had no idea how long it would take to get to Georgia and he didn't know how to drive but he was certainly going to try.

He sat down on the drivers seat and grabbed the steering wheel. He was a little scared because he had never tried this before. He had watched his parents driving and imagined what it would be like to drive. He looked down at his feet he could barely reach the pedals so he reached around the side of the seat and found the switches to push the seat up when you push the seat all the way up he found that he was able to reach the pedals. He gently put his foot on the gas pedal and the car revved up. But it didn't move.

Okay what do I do next, he thought. He tried to remember how his parents used to drive. He closed his eyes and imagined his mother starting the car and she did something with her hand. Yes she took that stick and pushed the lever. He grabbed the lever and moved it to R and the Car suddenly lurched backwards and slammed into the car behind them. That was not right he said and then he realized that the R probably stood for reverse. Yes. That's what mom said "R is for reverse the D is for drive." He pushed the lever to D and the car lurched forward and he quickly slammed on the brakes and almost hit his head on the windshield. This was not as easy as he thought. Then he let go of the break and the car slowly started to go forward and he stepped on the accelerator. The car sped forward and before he could step on the brakes again it slammed into the car in front of him and and this time he did hit the windshield. Luckily he didn't hit it too hard but it frightened him so much that he wasn't sure that he wanted to drive anymore.

The announcer on the radio had said that there was no evidence of people in New York so there was no point in going to New York anymore. So he got out of the car and he started walking back towards New Jersey. "I can't walk all the way to Georgia" he thought. Then he thought about riding his bike still even with the bike he knew that Georgia would still be very far away. It took a couple days to get down to Florida by car they stopped at a hotel his family had driven down to Disney World once and it took them two days. Well at least Georgia is closer and Florida he thought so he walked back to his bike and decided to find some food before deciding what to do. After he had enough to eat he sat there contemplating his trip down to Georgia. The more he thought about it the more he realized that riding his bike to Georgia was probably not a realistic plan. He'd never make it. Then he thought, "all right. I will try driving again. After all I've got all the time in the world and I didn't have a seatbelt on before this time. I'll make sure I have the seatbelt on" Brad thought to himself. So then he looked around the street to try to decide which car he was going to drive and he noticed that there was a car and the engine was still running. It was a blue Nissan Sentra. That's odd he thought. All the other cars were stopped. But this car was still running. There was a long stretch of road without other cars in the way in front of the Nissan Sentra so he decided that this was the car he would use to practice. So he got into the car and he looked at the panels he looked at the steering wheel then at the gear shift. Okay now I know what to do and he pushed the seat forward so that his legs could reach the pedals. He strapped on the seatbelt and this time he remembered to put his foot on the brake and change the gear into D he slowly let his foot up and the car began to move forward just by inches and then he put his foot very very gently on the accelerator pedal and the car slowly started to go forward. Yes the car was moving forward he turned the steering wheel to the right. Very, very gently he knew by now that he couldn't make any sudden movements and the car started to swerve to the right and then it started swerving a little too much so he turned the wheel back to the left, a little too fast because the car suddenly jerked over to the the left and he felt his shoulder pull. He slammed on the break again and lurched forward against the seatbelt good thing he had to seat belt on this time or he would've hit his head on the windshield again. He was finding driving to be a lot harder than he imagined, but he was not going to give up. He tried again and slowly started to get the hang of it. He practiced driving all day and he started to get pretty good at it he could actually drive his way around the cars in the street and could stop. Brad was going faster, he got up all the way to about 40 mph when he found a stretch of street that did not have too many cars on it but it was scary. He tried to keep his limit to around 15 miles an hour. This is the speed that he felt most comfortable driving in, but he knew that he would never get to Georgia driving 15 miles an hour so he was driving around looking for a bigger stretch of street so he could try to get the car up to about 50 miles an hour. He was looking at the speedometer and the car was going 30 and he looked on the straight stretch of road. "Okay let's see if we can get back up to 40", he thought. He looked back at the speedometer then he looked up at the street and then he saw someone in the street and he slammed on the brakes. It was a small person about a block away it could have been a kid, but he didn't get a good look because his body lunged forward when he stepped too hard on the brakes. He almost hit the windshield again before the seatbelt stopped his body. He recovered from the shock of the sudden stop and remembered the person that he saw. Brad looked up again and whoever it was was gone.