Undead Darkness

Chapter Six

Whilst in the car, neither of us spoke.  We all sat without saying a word, the only noise that could be heard was the engine of the truck that I was behind the wheel at.  I looked towards me, as we were some-what in the middle of nowhere.  We were in the middle of a forest, that is.  We've been driving for about a couple of minutes now, and I had no idea where I was driving, but it was better than being where we were before.  Driving through the forest seemed promising, as there were no encounters that disturbed us.  As we drove, Hannah finally broke the silence, "You are crazy, Brendan." I continued to look in front of me, hand on the wheel, "Yeah, as if I wasn't already." I gave a small chuckle, before going silent once again.  We didn't speak for about another 30 seconds, before Phil finally spoke, "About what happened before, in the attic." I shook my head, "That was in the past, just forget it." He persisted, "Seriously, I'm sorry." I continued to look forwards, not saying a word to him.  As I drove, I looked at all of the trees around us.  They were big and green.  You don't see these in Vegas.  I put my eyes back in frong of me, trying to pay attention where I was going.  "Do you even know where we are going?" Asked Hannah, leaning forwards.  I shook my head, "Nope."  Hannah raised an eyebrow at me, "You do know that I live here, right?"  This was a good point.  I should just let her drive instead, since she knows the place more than I do.  But there was no time to pull over, so I didn't respond.  "You're awfully quiet," said Phil.  I nodded, "You're right."  Hannah turned her head towards Phil, "How are you feeling?"  "I'm doing better, but it's not going to heal unless we get something to treat it." We needed to find a hospital of some sort, but how do we fix a infection that we don't know how to cure?  For all we know, it can be uncurable.  "Hannah, you know where a hospital is, right?" I asked her.  She thought for a moment, before speaking, "Well, there's one by- No, that one closed down a few years back.." "You don't know, do you?" Phil asked, looking back at her.  Hannah frowned a bit, and shook her head slowly, "No.. I don't.."  Just a few seconds after, the truck started to make strange noises from the front, near the engine.  As that was going, the truck started to slow a bit.  Puzzled, I pushed down harder on the gas pedal, but it just started to slow down more.   The truck slowly drifted until it came to a complete stop.  I continued to slam the pedal down, before giving up.  "Stop playing around, Brendan." Said Hannah.  I turned towards her, "I didn't do anything!  The truck just seemed like it.. Died. There's still fuel in it, but it sounds like something is wrong with the engine."  Phil raised an eyebrow at me, "Do you know what, exactly?"  I looked over to Phil and shook my head, "No, but I can take a look."  Just after saying that, I opened my door and took a step outside of the truck. I looked around me.  There was nothing but trees and shrubbery.  No zombies or anything in sight.. For now that is.  Taking one last scan to make sure it was safe, I made my way towards the front.  Phil and Hannah climbed out of the truck as well, and they made their way towards me.  Hannah stood to one side, and Phil stood the other, so I was in the middle.  I popped open the hood.  As soon as it opened, thick smoke flew out towards us.  I averted my eyes away, as did Hannah and Phil.  A few seconds later, the smoke dispersed, and I looked back at the engine that was before me.  There was some sort of gooey and slimey substances coming off the side of it, and it seemed like it was melted.  It looked busted, like if it was broken entirely.  I wasn't sure how it was even running when I got it if the engine was in this condition.  Hannah looked over towards me, "You know about cars, what's wrong with it?"  I took a close look around the engine and the parts around it.  I examined everything that was in there that seemed off. I lifted my head up and looked over to Hannah, "The reason the engine stopped running is that it's now a melted mass of amalgamated metals. What used to be aluminum pistons, steel cylinder walls and an iron crankshaft is now a 900-pound garden sculpture."  I looked over to Phil, "So in other words, the engine is completely done.  It won't run anymore until we have it replaced."  Hannah groaned, "This sucks!  What do we do now?"  I closed the hood and looked over towards Hannah once again, "Now we have to walk."  Phil gave a small frown, "I can't walk all day!"  I nodded at him, "That's right, but that's too bad, isn't it?  It's either walk, or stay in the truck and be stranded in the middle of the forest.  If I were you, I'd rather take a hike."  Phil didn't object, and I stood up straight.  "Right! Get your stuff from the Truck! We're going for a short walk!"  Sighing, Hannah and Phil walked over to the doors and opened them.  They each grabbed their bags, and Phil got mine.  He threw over my backpack towards me, which I caught and I strapped on; The two did the same.  I opened the zipper to see that my handgun and ammunition were still in there.  There were three problems with walking.  One: When it gets dark, we will be easy prey, and it will be pitch black.  Two:  We have no food or water supply.  Three:  We are running low on ammo and we can't just walk all the way down a road and expect to get somewhere in 20 minutes!  This was going to be long and grueling, but it's the only option we had left.  Hannah and Phil stood next to me, with me in the middle once again.  I looked down the road in which we were headed.  It looked like the road lasted on for miles!  Sighing, I said, "Let's go.."  I raised my foot and started to walk forwards.  Hannah and Phil followed next to me.  We left the truck stranded in the middle of the road.  In a situation like this, survival wasn't very likely.