Resistance

Chapter Twenty-One

            Twenty-One

          “Ignore it.”

            Cole’s words aggravate me. Dozens, if not hundreds of zombie’s decaying fists and bones pound on the Hummer. Each one releases it’s on unique groan or moan, telling us that every one of them is starving, wanting nothing more to eat our flesh.

            We creep slowly down the road, trying to urge the Hummer to go as far as it can without any gas left. The little light blinks and flashes, trying to get our attention as if we aren’t already aware.

            Pretty soon the Hummer is going to halt from lack of gasoline. And when that happens, it will just make it easier for the zombies to have an all-you-can-eat buffet on our guts. But no one seems to be talking; no one seems to be trying to make a plan or even thinking. We’re all silent, all numb; trying to accept what seems unavoidable.

            We’re all going to die.

            But I can’t seem to accept this fact. Before, when I first woke up without my memory, I didn’t really care if I would have died. What did I have if I didn’t have my memory? However now that the memories are unravelling and things are looking up with Fort Saunders just across town, I refuse to go down without a fight.

            “Everyone load your guns.”

            No one moves. Everyone ignores me, as if I’m not even here. I don’t know how everyone – including Jack – can ignore everything that’s going on around us.

            I load the shotgun with bullets kept in the front pocket of my dress and shut it with a clank. Still, no one even turns their gaze.

            Jagger is just holding the steering wheel, not guiding us whatsoever as we roll aimlessly across the pavement. Frustrated with how un-Jagger-like he’s being, I lean across the center console and flick him in the cheek. Immediately, he turns to me with eyes shooting daggers.

             “What?” he shouts.

            I narrow my eyes back, annoyed that he’s not trying to help me find a way out of this mess. “Do you think you could try, I don’t know, steering the car?” He doesn’t speak but his expression softens slightly. “Aim towards the window of that store,” I point to a window in the front of a shop displaying toppled over mannequins. “And make sure you get as much speed as you can to break through it.”

            Speed is going to be the issue seeing as we aren’t even going ten miles per hour.

            “We’re out of gas, Sloane-“

            I cut him off. “Then you better step on the gas.”

            Cole and Jack seem oblivious to our conversation and continue to stare straight ahead, as if nothing is going on around us. Bullet growls in the back seat, lunging slightly at the windows towards the zombies. The infant, curled into Jack’s side is sleeping, or at least trying to and I start to wonder if his past makes zombie groans a good sleep-inducer.

            Jagger slowly turns the Hummer towards the store window and we start our slow movement into the impending crash. We inch along and the speed of the whole thing starts to put me on edge.

            “Get your guns ready,” I repeat from my first words. Jagger does what he’s told and I have to shove Jack’s pistol into his hands to get him to even look at it. His vacant eyes stare down at it like he can’t really see what he’s holding.