Silver Horizons (Silver Horizons #1)

Silver Horizons | 7

            From my peripheral, I saw him roll his eyes and begin to walk away. “I don’t have to explain anything to you. But it’s not my phone. I swear.”

            And for some reason, I believed him. But it was still odd—having a cell phone at this time. I was under the impression that every cell phone didn’t work, and it pissed me off that Forest had access to one this entire time. How did he even keep it charged? Even if he never used it, it would’ve been dead by then.

            Pushing the idea of Forest having a cell phone to the back of my mind, I resumed packing up everything. It took the four of us a little over an hour to decide what to bring and what not to bring.

            In the end, we had food, water, two tents, and the clothes we were wearing. I thought about asking Forest if he had the cell phone, but I decided against it.

            “Right,” Kyle said. “Well, let’s go.”

            It shocked me how much he’d grown up from the last time I thought he had grown up. That wasn’t even half of it. I guess that when your big sister almost died, you saw a dead body, you saw a man being eaten by another man, and you lived through the apocalypse, you grew up a bit.

            “Who made you the boss?” Forest asked Kyle.

            “My sister,” Kyle said shortly.

            That earned me a glare from Forest—one of many—even though I hadn’t said anything.

            Annie, like always, was silent and standing next to Forest. They’d grown a bond since she joined apparently, and I found myself at times jealous of the friendship they shared. Sure, I had Kyle, but I didn’t have a friend here. I was jealous of Annie because Forest actually took a liking to her and wouldn’t insult her every chance he got. He treated her like a real friend, and I wanted that.

            Thinking about friends and family made me wonder if we’d survive the apocalypse. So much had happened, and it made me so incredibly tired. I didn’t know what it was—the adventure, the death, or everything—but I was just tired of it all. I wondered if this was how suicidal people felt. That they were just tired of everything and wanted it to end.

            After walking for a while, we realized that we had quite a ways to go before we came across any type of civilization. Whenever we got the chance, we needed to find a CVS since those had food, water, and a map.

            We passed a sign that said ‘WELCOME TO COLORADO’, so we knew that we had just passed from Nevada into Colorado. The sun was scorching, and we were nearly out of water. Things were looking pretty bad for us until we saw the sign that said ‘5 miles until gas station’.

            I hadn’t even known that there were signs like that in the first place, but I thanked God for them. I certainly would’ve given up if it weren’t for the motivational sign that told me that we were close to civilization.

            Finally, we saw the CVS in the distance.

            “Is it . . . is it real?” Forest asked, clearly parched and out of breath.

            “I don’t know . . . “ Kyle said, trialing off. “I think it is?”

            “Only one way to find out,” Forest said, jogging at a snail like pace up to the CVS shop. He pushed open the doors and went inside only to come back out five seconds later with a gigantic smile on his face. “It’s real, guys!” he hollered. “It’s real! It’s freaking real!”