ZombiePalooza - Anthology

#TeamEcrivain Pt. V - @VintageVulpes's "Good Luck Charm"

"This is a milk-run, why are you nervous?"

"Easy run or not, anything could happen." he replied as he handed the ticket to her.

The lottery ticket was at least six years old but Nick truly managed to keep it in good condition. One of the corners was bent in, there was a small rip in the center of the ticket, and most of the writing had faded but it was still legible.

Charlie looked it over another moment before she handed it back and her eyes shifted to meet his gaze. "Congrats on your win."

With a sideways grin he stuffed it back in the inside pocket of his leather jacket and ran his fingers through his short, mused hair. "Do you carry anything with you from the past?" he asked.

She shrugged and looked down at the floor of the truck as a flash of a young girl's face flashed through her mind's eye. In the memory flash the world seemed brighter and there was an abundance of green grass and blue sky behind the young brunnette girl in comparison to the dank world the lived in now. "No, nothing." she finally responded, still refusing to meet his gaze.

Nick nodded knowingly before responding, "just fond memories?"

As she lifted her eyes up to meet his again she offered a smile that didn't turn her lips up but rather down into a partial frown. "Bittersweet ones," she corrected.

The trucked came to a sudden stop and forced all four of the passengers in the back to brace themselves with a sudden start: Nick stumbled before gaining his footing and getting into a more stable stance, Charlie threw her arm out to brace herself against the bench seat, Muscles merely sat up straighter and adjusted his footing- barely moving an inch out of place, while Max all but fell out of his seat, his gun clattering to the steel inlay of the truck.

"Alright kids, here's our stop," Dirk shouted and turned in his seat. "This is a food run- canned foods, water, etcetera, you know the drill!"

Muscles stood up, his shoulders back and cigarette still in the corner of his mouth. "Sir, yes, Sir!" He all but saluted back before turning on his heel to open the back doors of the SWAT truck and jumping out.

Charlie and Nick shared a look before she rolled her eyes and moved Max along with a gentle shove. Outside, boots to the ground, the four of them checked their surroundings- the streets were relatively abandoned of all undead but the broken windows and ramshackle buildings that once made up the city streets laid more forlorn and gutted than many of the bodies they tended to leave behind.

The gray sky forbade the sun to illuminate the streets despite being midday and only cast more shadows than they liked in such a situation. As Muscles took point towards the ransacked grocery store, Charlie took note of the graffiti tag on one of the brick buildings to their right:

Croatoan

Her eyebrows instinctively raised then pushed together. The superstitious nonsense that once plagued the news during the initial stages of The End still marred the current state they were in, it had annoyed her back then and now it just made her angry. People had wasted too much time trying to turn it into propaganda; a means to create fear that it was a war between countries, a terrorist attack. Others made it a religious matter, omens to the end of the world- to the apocalypse described in Revelations. Still others believed it to be supernatural in nature, hence Croatoan. They were all wrong. There was no explanation, it simply was. They would never find the cause or the answer they were looking for. It didn't matter anymore anyway, it was about survival now.

Still there were survivors who were still disillusioned about it and believed it to be an illness that could be cured. So, instead of putting down those that became undead, they kept the undead with them like pets. The outlook on The End for everyone was different depending on where you came from, it was religious in nature. Each group had their own beliefs and anyone who felt or believed differently was wrong. Bigots were everywhere, it was unavoidable. You could only hope to run into those who felt the same as you. Not everyone even called the end "The End"; others called it "Zombieland" or "The Apocalypse". She called the first week of the dead rising and people getting the sickness, "Hell Week" while Dirk and Co. called it "First Contact". Everyone was different and there were others but Charlie couldn't be bothered to discover each belief or give everyone much validation- not after Anna.