Apocalypse Dreams

Apocalypse Dreams: The Afterlife

"Right over here," Red said while pointing to the bar that we had gone to about a month earlier.

Jack stopped the SUV in the crowded parking lot. It was almost exactly how we left it that day, with vehicles stuck onto each other. The entire place looked like a mess, however, the bar still held up.

"I'll be right back," Red hesitantly said while making his way out of the car. "Just stay here."

Soon, Red had entered the bar and stayed there for a while.

"We didn't get a chance to do a proper funeral," Lydia said while holding Jennifer, who was asleep. "It's nice what he did for us."

"Yup," Jack said while staring immensely at the red-colored door of the bar. "But that's life."

"I know," Lydia replied while staring out the window of the back seat. "It's just that I wish I got to talk with him more, he was a nice man at the end of the day."

"So, where do we go now?" Dr. Parkinson asked abruptly. "Do we even have a plan?"

"Well, once Red finds his girlfriend," Jack started. "Then we can plan our next move. To move into her safe house for now and gather more supplies... then we keep moving."

"Keep moving?" Lydia asked. "For how long? We haven't had any luck in finding anyone or even a cure. We cannot just move blindly."

"You saw what happened in there," Jack said while looking at Lydia from the front seat. "If we stay in one place, eventually, they will find us. Maybe there could be a place at the end of the tunnel where we can finally relax and start anew."

"What if there is no such place?" Lydia asked.

"Then we die trying," Jack replied. "I think this will be good for the group. We have stayed at that hospital for a really long time and I think it is time to move on."

"That does sound like a plan," I replied from the backseat of the vehicle while holding my right rib. "Anybody have some Tylenol?"

"Yeah, actually," Parkinson replied while handing me two pills and a water bottle. "Headache?"

"Something like that," I replied while opening the water bottle. I realized that maybe this wasn't the best time to uncover the fact that I was most likely infected. The thing going for me was that nobody was sure what caused the illness, therefore, there was a possibility that I wasn't infected. So, I thought that maybe it was for the best that I shouldn't mention it. Although, thinking about the illness, I realized that the people infected did come into contact with the infected people. The problem was that... I could not remember if it was blood contact or what. Also, I never bothered to think about how long it took for the illness to progress, but it was clear that it had a long incubation period and it took months for the disease to display clinical symptoms like itchiness, rashes, coughing, weakness, and so forth. That seemed to be the pattern with everyone I met, which made me even more worried because I realized that I would have the worst few months to come because of the lack of knowledge.

At the same time, I never bothered to investigate and keep track of the disease because I had always thought that everything would be safe, the disease would go away, and things would just end up being normal. Maybe it was time to accept the fact that there might not be a cure.

The red door to the bar slowly opened and Red walked out slowly while holding someone's hand as he escorted her outside. The person could be identified as Cady. They quickly jogged towards the car and Red entered the passenger seat, while Cady went to the back.

"Red told me about the hospital situation," Cady said. "I'm sorry about that."

"It's okay," Jack muttered. "We just have to keep on running."