Life After the Undead (Completed)

PART 8: Road Trip .11

Melissa's P.O.V.

Evelyn and I made slow progress back to the car.

She was gracious enough to help me walk, allowing me to sling an arm over her shoulder as she half carried, half dragged me down the streets.

Steve had left us to hunt, something he was apt to do during the months coming up to winter and because he hadn't ever been to Montreal before he was very excited to explore this new place. I had no idea how to even broach the subject of how Evelyn had made friends with someone like Steve.

I wasn't going to start our next meaningful conversation with how she had met Steve, not when my future survival was hanging in the balance. I still had to find a way to convince her that she and I were still a good team. That she could actually trust me, even though I had just tried to kill her.

"I didn't want to, you know," I told her abruptly.

Evelyn had half smiled. "I know," she said. "I don't have bugs in my own house, Mel, I just happened to hear you guys talking about your plan. Not a wise idea to do dirt in my kitchen."

Okay, she was still using my nickname. If she was still mad she would have used my given name. I make play of rolling my eyes at her. "Stupid Rebecca, she never was very smart," I told her.

"You still went along with it," she reminded me in a soft voice and when I actually looked at her I saw something unfamiliar on her face. It occurred to me then that I might have actually hurt Evelyn's feelings.

"I know why your friends wanted me dead, but we got along. I... well I haven't had many friends, even before the apocalypse and I've never been good at reading emotions or acting correctly or accordingly with people. I know I'm selfish and cold but I had thought you had understood how I operated."

Now wasn't that a guilt trip huh? As if I didn't feel bad enough. To be honest, I had thought her and I to be friends too.

"I do, I mean, I think I do," I told her. "I really do want to be friends, and I want to make this up to you, if you'd let me."

Evelyn was silent beside me. Her face betrayed no more emotions, and trust me I was examining her face for any sign that she might forgive me. I continued to peer at her until she stopped dragging me and turned to look at me.

"I can't trust you anymore," she said softly. "Now stop looking at me like that and bugging me with your stupid questions. I need silence to think, I'll have decided what to do once we get back to the car."

So we lapsed into silence again. I'd like to say that I was as stoic as Evelyn would have been in this situation but I wasn't.

I was weeping, like a child. Silently but violently. Shaking my whole body at this point.

It wasn't just that I didn't know what was going to happen but it was clear as day I was at her mercy. But I was in pain too. Now that the adrenaline had worn off I was feeling it everywhere.

It didn't help that Evelyn was basically going to decide if I lived or died by the time we got back to the car. Because if she left me here I'd die, simple.

I was too injured to save myself and there was no finding my way back to Toronto where I at least knew the area and where to go if I wanted to be safe from zombies or if I needed food.

I needed Evelyn to take me with her, and as it stood, she had every right to leave my stupid traitorous ass behind.

It took another fifteen dreadfully long minutes to get to the car. Each of my steps felt like lead, one made of fire as it killed to move my injured leg and the other was dragging as I walked towards my execution. Evelyn stopped at the mouth of the street that would lead us up to where she had parked the car in front of the convocation building. There was no reason to stop but even from here I could see what it was that had Evelyn paused.

I couldn't see the Jurassic Jeep.

She pulled me a little faster after that, abandoning me completely once she got close enough. She circled the place where she had left her car and then did a full three-sixty scanning the surrounding area. I had come to the correct conclusion as to what had happened fairly quickly but it looked like Evelyn might have been in denial about it.

"Someone stole my car?" she whispered softly to herself. I had been forced to hobble up to her, I made sure to move slowly because if I fell over I wasn't getting back up. "SOMEONE STOLE MY FUCKING CAR?!"

The outburst surprised me. I rarely saw Evelyn get this angry, even when she was in dire situations. I could only watch as she stood there and roared: "Fuck... fuck... FUCK!"

I let her stand there and seethe and oh boy did she seethe. She started pacing like a wild cat in containment and she was muttering to herself and while I was in too much pain to really feel her level of panic I knew why she was upset. Her backpack, which I knew she always had on her, all her supplies and her weapons were in that jeep. And no one ever dare steal from Evelyn in Toronto so this was probably a foreign concept to her.

"Can't we just get a ride with Steve?" I asked her. It was the first time I brought him up since meeting him. It made Evelyn turn around and stare at me as if surprised I had even remembered him. Maybe she had forgotten I had met him, that we had had a very terse introduction that was followed by a less then informative explanation that I was still having trouble understanding.

"We can," she said quickly. "But he'll want to stay here, it will delay my return and that's not good for Toronto."

She was moving towards me now, she gestured for me to put my arm around her shoulders again and I did so without questioning her. "So what are we going to do? Go meet up with him?" I wondered.

Evelyn, instead, shook her head. "No, we're going to find a radio station."

I nodded at that, knowing that at some point she'd tell me what she had planned, for she most likely had a plan. I was just grateful that my execution had been delayed until we found the car. Injured or not I was going to find a way to make her trust me again in that short time I had.

Mark my words, I was not getting left behind.