Restless

Chapter 6

Neri pulled on Eleni's arm again. "Let's go before the light attracts more of them."

They got to their feet, brushed the ashes off of themselves, and clambered back onto the blackened highway to begin their two-hour trek back to the Jeep.

Those two hours were spent in silence unlike before, but the women made sure their shoulders brushed one another so they wouldn't be separated. There was the occasional growl from the brush of the roadside, but it was impossible to see now that the night was at its darkest point and it was well past midnight. Both of the girls were tired and exhausted, and the only thing that kept them going was adrenaline. When they got back to the Jeep, they were going to put down the rear seats, move the bags, lock the doors, and sleep until noon the next day. Despite their sleepiness, they still kept on guard for Restless as they walked with the bags over their shoulders.

Finally, they reached the place they'd ran out of gas. The place that the Jeep should have been.

"Eleni?" Neri asked quietly. "Wasn't the Jeep supposed to be here?"

She nodded, and gulped. "Yeah. It's not just me that isn't seeing it?"

"Nope."

Both of them threw down their bags in frustration, plopping down on the cold pavement without a care.

"The car was fucking stolen?!" Neri said incredulously, and slammed her fist into the pavement.

"I can't believe it..." Eleni murmured.

Neri's fist came into contact with the pavement again, and she grit her teeth to prevent the oncoming stream of profanity.

"How... How are we going to get to Canada now?" Eleni asked quietly, and laid down on her bag. "We can't walk."

"Who would've stolen a car? And all our supplies?!" Neri retorted, ignorant to Eleni. "There's no one alive on this planet anymore!"

"NERI!" Eleni shouted for the first time. Neri went silent, and pursed her lips.

"Sorry," she whispered.

There was an awkward silence between them, which was mainly just to let out their accumulating anger. Neri had let hers out the old-fashioned way, but Eleni was one to bottle it inside her and bury it in a place no one could find. It was rare that she'd lose her temper so quickly.

"What do we do?" Neri questioned, and let the cold pavement chill her through the sleeveless hoodie she wore.

"Well, we can't walk to Ottawa."

"I know."

There was another period where silence was inevitable. Their communication was rapidly decreasing, and neither of them was stopping it. They couldn't let their fury get the best of them, especially Neri, and be broken apart now of all times.

"Do you think we'd have a chance of walking?" Eleni asked, trying to stay optimistic.

"Possibly," Neri said. "If we can stay hidden during the day, when they're active, we'll be safer. The nights will be no problem as long as we don't make a fire."

"But will our supplies sustain us?" Eleni began rifling through her pack, because majority of the food was left in the vehicle. "Okay... We have three...no, five bottles of water, the dried apples from the gas station, and ten packs of salted crackers. Then the solar-powered flashlight, three and a half full jerrycans, two knives, two handguns, and two rifles with just the three boxes of ammunition that we forgot to take out of the bags before we left."

"I guess that's as good as it's gonna get."

They sighed, and gazed longingly at the supplies that would keep them alive.

"Go to sleep."

"Huh?"

"I said, go to sleep," Neri repeated, and laid out her bag for Eleni to lay on. "I'll take first watch... You can never be too safe."

"But I'm not tired..." Eleni trailed off.

Neri sighed a second time. "Yeah, neither am I anymore. Let's stay awake a little longer."

They scooted next to each other, laying on the bags to prevent the loss of body heat. The stars were brighter than before, and the moon cast enough light to illuminate the space around them, but not enough to see what was where.

Eleni spoke up first. "What do you think has happened to our parents?"

"I don't know," Neri whispered.

"Do you think they got the DED virus...?"

"Or they made it to the shelter in Ottawa, if they heard the announcement."

Eleni gulped. "Or what if they're already dead, and there was nothing we could do? What was the last thing that we said to our parents..."

Neri's eyes became blurry, and she blinked them back. "I told my mom and my dad that I loved them over the phone as I was boarding the plane here."

Eleni continued to gaze at the sky. "I said, 'bye, hope you have a great time' right before they left for my grandparents."

"Then at least they know that we love them," Neri whispered. She brushed away a tear before Eleni could see it.

"I still miss them though..."

"Yeah. Same here."

It was another few minutes before Eleni rolled to face away from Neri, and fell asleep on her bag; hoping that Neri would keep watch until it was time for her to do her shift. It was another warm Floridian night, where things were less than lucky for the duo, and neither were sure how it'd turn out in the end.