After Life

Chapter Nineteen

"Okay!" I step onto the ladder and Al does the same on the other side. My dad picks Ty up by his torso and starts to drag him onto the ladder. Steadily, my dad drags Ty across the ladder after an eternity they finally make it over safely.

It's Al's turn, while he is on the second rung, the door to the motel smashes open and several walkers burst through the narrow opening. They see him and start to roam towards him.

"Al!" I yell to him.

"I know." he says, never breaking his gaze on his feet he speeds up a little bit and is within eight feet of us, but the walkers have beat him, they arrive at the ladder and start to trip over it, step onto it, and fall through it. The ladder trembles and Al springs off the ladder in a desperate strive to reach the roof. He makes it but looses his footing and falls backwards, the bag of guns he carries slams against the ladder, the sudden jolt sends multiple weapons and ammunition down into the alley below.

The walkers on the other side run into the ladder, pushing it off the motel roof. Al throws his bag of clothes to us and I catch it. My dad lunges towards Al and grabs his still extended hand as the ladder falls with a crash. I rush to help my dad who is struggling to hold Al's weight. "Drop the guns!" My dad yells at him.

"This is all we have left, I can't leave it now." He responds.

"DROP IT! NOW!" with defeat on his face, Al lets go of the half full bag, it lands on the gravel floor of the alley with a thump. I help my dad pull Al onto the roof and to safety. We sit there for a while, catching our breaths.

"We should go into the building. Who knows how long this roof can hold all of our weight combined." I say out loud, I don't even know if anyone heard me. Did I say it softly?

"Yea, Have any way to get down though? We kinda lost our ladder. Heh" Al says. I start to snicker, which quickly becomes a laugh. "What?"

"Nothing, it's just," it's difficult to breath, "It's just the way you said that! 'We kinda lost our ladder.'" I say in my best Al impression, which makes Al and Ben both start chuckling along with me. I think I maybe even heard my dad giggle.

. . .

Once we were all safely off the roof, we went inside. We laid Ty on the ground behind the cashier's desk careful to hide him. It's about noon when we start to look around, there is nothing useful on the shelves, only price stickers and crumbs. Whatever food was left was probably dragged away by the rats. "I'm going to go look in the back!" I shout out to my dad and Al.

"Be careful!" Dad replies. I go into the back of the abandoned gas station, it's like the front. There's hardly anything there but a few boxes and and ice machine that has two bags of water inside.

I take the water out and put it on the ground by the door. Then, I go towards one of the boxes on the shelves. It's by the wall so I pull it towards me, it's a lot heavier than I thought it would be. I carefully lower it to the ground and rip open the cardboard box. Inside, there are six large cans and one, I take one out, canned pineapples.

"I found some food and some water!" I call as I go through the door, the main room is empty. "Dad?" I call into the darkness. I catch a bit of movement outside the glass windows. I carefully move towards the front, look out the window, and see my father, Al and Ben outside, eyeing a big grey minivan. I walk through the double doors out onto the cracked black ground.

"You could've said that you were coming outside." I say to them. Ben, who has his back to me, jumps. Al and my dad just look at me, then they turn back to the car.

"This one is good, it could carry us and our supplies, it could probably last the four or so hours we need. Look, there's a little TV! Maybe we could play a DVD for Ben. I think I saw some inside." Dad says.

"four hours? Where are we going?" I ask.

"Don't plan too far ahead, we need to find out if it works first." Al reminds him.

"Lee, take Ben inside so that you could find a movie."

"Where are we going?!" I yell at them.

"Take him inside! NOW!" My dad shouts at me. I grab Ben's hand and stomp into the building, and walk through the aisles one by one until we found the movie section that only had a few films left on the rack.

"What do ya want?" I say while gesturing to the few movies that are here.

He looks at the rack for awhile before pointing to a movie with a white creature and a little girl on the cover. "What is that one?"

"It's called the 'Neverending Story' I remember that one, it was my mom's favorite." I smile at the thought.

"What's it about?" He asks.

"I don't really remember, it's been a long time since I last saw it."

"I want to get it." he says as he gets onto his tiptoes to grab it. He has trouble reaching it, so I get it for him.

"Here you go." I hand it to him and he takes it, we walk back outside to see my dad and Al inside the car getting it started. "You guys almost done? Where are we going?" I ask them.

"Go check up on Ty!" Al replies. I walk back inside as I roll my eyes, Ben follows me.

"Was she nice?" he ask me.

"Hm?"

"Was your mom nice?"

"Yea, she was really nice."

"Do you miss her?"

"Yea. I, I miss her a lot." My voice cracks and my sight starts to get blurry with tears. Before one could slide down my cheek, I hear a groan behind the front desk. I run over to see if he is finally awake, I put my head over the counter to see Ty's eyes open and looking around. "Hey."

He jumps, startled. Than his eyes land on me. "I, I could hear you." he looks around some more at his surroundings, "Where, where am I?"

"We're at the gas station, Al and my dad are getting a car."

"So they're okay. What about Zoe, Ben?" I know that he remembers that Zoe is gone, he just doesn't want to believe it, I could see right through him.

"I'm right here!" Ben pops up beside me on the counter.

"Zoe's still missing." I tell him his shoulders drop, his eyes go to the floor. "How 'bout we get you up and into the car?" He nods.

I help him up and guide him out the door to see my dad and Al inside the now running car. I open a side door and guide Ty inside, Al is surprised to see him, but he is also relieved. "Let's get our stuff packed up and then we could get going." He says.

"What about Zoe?" Ty asks.

"We'll look for her on the way. She couldn't have gotten far."

After all of our bags are in the car, we get inside. My dad starts up the van just as ben yells, "Wait! I forgot something!"

"Go run in and grab it quickly." As says to him. Ben slides open the door and sprints into the station, after a few seconds, he is running back out, jumps inside and hands my dad a thin box. 'The Neverending Story.'

"Where are we going to be going anyway? You never said." I ask the two.

"My dad turns around to look at me, "We're going home."