"Go," Michael tells me and Luke, practically shoving us outside, "We'll deal with her,"
"Are you sure?" I ask, my eyebrows furrowed, worry filling my features. There's a big part of me that doesn't want to leave them, but an even bigger part knows that Luke and I are already doing our part. It just wouldn't be logical to make us do this, too.
"Positive," Bailey says, rummaging through random luggage from the overhead storage spaces. "Here," she says hurriedly, shoving a rather large, empty duffle bag in Luke's arms and an empty gallon jug (that I assume she'd just scored from the driver's long haul stash) in mine. "You two go and find fuel, we'll deal with April."
My stomach is uneasy, my throat clogging up with an imaginary lump as big as my fist. "We can just-"
"Come on," Luke says with no hesitation, taking the jug from my hands and hitting the button that seperates the double doors. My eyes widen, especially as April lets out a horrific shriek- causing countless undead heads to turn. "Sophie!" Luke partly yells, the bag slung over his shoulder, one hand clutching both his ski pole and the empty bottle, "Let's go!"
I don't think twice, I just go. My feet plant firmly on the snow covered concrete and I quite literally hit the ground running; my vision blurred by the fog and falling flakes of white that are both refreshing and mind-numbingly cold. Corpses from left and right and centre approach the noisy vehicle with determination; only a select few of them are actually distracted by the two rushed teens hoping to get out safely.
Luke is in front of me, his feet light and careful of where they step and I try my best to copy him, my own treads slotting swiftly into the prints he leaves behind. Every now and then he looks back at me, icy blues scanning my body and the space behind me, an odd mixture of fear and hopefulness flooding his features as I'm too focused to even control mine.
The light I saw earlier comes closer and closer to us and a sigh of relief leaves my lips. I'm so relieved that I could cry, but there's no time. Something fast scurries frantically towards us and just by chance, I swing the ski pole to my right, cringing when I hear the sound of cracking bones paired with an eerily lifeless groan.
I've killed another one of them. But unlike before, I can't dwell on it.
Luke's fast and smart when it comes to dodging the corpses we pass and I try to mimick him, placing my feet where he places his, swinging the pole in the opposite direction to where his is swung so that we have protection on both sides. The gas station isn't too far, but it feels like a lifetime away.
"Watch out!" he warns, his voice stern and alert. Suddenly, he drops the duffel and the jug and before I know it, the sharp side of his ski pole is wedged into the skull of a fast one; it's fingers outstretched, open mouth falling closed as it's brain shudders off. I pick up the jug, he scoops up the duffel bag, and we carry on.
"Are you okay?" I ask, my breathing uneven and ragged. Luke nods, but I can't tell if it's just because he's running or if he actually is just fine. I decide to ask later— if we live until later, that is.
There are still corpses milling around us, even when we arrive a good twenty feet away from the gas station, and my heart sinks. For some unknown reason, I really thought that the journey would be the hardest part. It never occured to me that we'd have to fight once we'd arrived, too.
"I'll fill up the jug," I say, resting the plastic container on my hip and unscrewing the cap. He nods, but he also signals towards the still lit-up 7-11 in front of us.
"There'll be food in there. And water,"
"It's too dangerous," I shake my head, hooking the jug up to one of the many petrol hoses and letting it drip into the plastic. The stream is slow, but once I catch sight of the strong-smelling liquid, my shoulders relax.
We've made it this far, at least.
"We don't know when we'll come across something like this next," Luke tells me, once again gesturing towards the brightly lit convenience store. Through the fog, it looks almost undisturbed. But even I know better than to act on assumptions. "I can check it out, I'll be quick. By the time that thing's done I'll be back with a full duffel,"
"Luke-" I start, but he's already slinging the bag over his shoulder. "What if it's not safe?"
"The doors aren't automatic," Luke shrugs, somewhat carelessly, "And I'm pretty sure they're Pull doors. What zombie's walking around with the skill to get into a 7-11?"
"Hungry ones," I mutter to myself, willing the damn jug to fill up faster. It's not too long before I realise the problem; there's a puncture in the hose, and it's currently causing a big puddle of flammable petrol to cover the concrete like a gross, deadly puddle.
"We'll come back for it later," Luke waves the hose off, his mind operating in a one-way direction— if the hose doesn't work, I go with him, and we get whatever's dripped into the jug later. If the hose does work, I stay here, and he goes off and risks not coming back to actually check how much I've managed to gather in the bottle.
I drop it like it's on fire. There's that guilty feeling again. A part of me wonders whether or not that'll do me more harm than good in the long run.
From the petrol stands, we circle around the parking lot, bodies pressed together behind a little green car. One of the doors are open, the windows are smashed, and the keys are still in the ignition. The engine is dead, though, and Luke looks at me like he's thinking the same thing.
Whoever left this here probably thought they were coming back alive. They probably heard a noise, saw a figure, left the car to check it out and just never came back. For all we know, they could very well be roaming closer to the bus than the gas station itself, only it's not exactly them anymore; they belong to the dead now.
"Ash-ton Ir-win," Luke says slowly with his head cocked to the side, his bright eyes scanning what seems to be a driver's license taped carelessly to the car visor. I can barely make out the picture, but whoever it is probably isn't much older than we are. "Poor bastard,"
"Come on," I say with a frown, not wanting to think of whoever poor Ashton Irwin is and where he's at- it's difficult enough trying to process the situation that we're in. Nevermind the fate of somebody else.
7-11 is notorious for it's bright lights and neon signs, but when it comes to not wanting to be seen, I suddenly wish it wasn't so eye catching. The double doors are indeed a pull, and the soft jingle alerting new customers sounds terrifyingly loud now in the midst of the silence we'd been maintaining for the past half an hour.
Luke and I don't speak. We don't even walk properly; our legs are bent, eyes wild and crazy, ski poles at the ready just in case something wants to crawl around the metal shelves. But it's simply precaution. This 7-11 practically looks untouched.
I'll go around this way, you go around that way. Luke mouths. I nod, and he's about to kind-of-crawl-kind-of-walk when I grip his sleeve again, worried.
Be careful. I mouth back.
He smiles slightly.
And you.
Luke disappears behind a rack of candy and fizzy drinks, his tuft of blonde hair getting lost behind endless bars and packets of food that I'm tempted to shove into the duffel bag, but I know won't keep. We need canned food. Anything that has a long shelf life, something like that. Like he said- we don't know when the next time we'll come across something like this will be.
Rounding the corner, I decide to abandon the duffel bag until I'm sure the entire store's clear. I hold the ski pole tightly in my left hand, my right sweaty with nerves as the low humming of the slurpy machine fills the air around me. It's usually barely noticable but in this situation, it's all that resonates through my ears.
Every aisle is empty from what I can see; as for the back and the toilets, I saw Luke sneak his way back into there earlier, so I'm not too worried. There's not that much to explore anyway, so I go back to the duffel bag and begin skimming the aisles for any essentials.
"Cans, cans..." I mumble to myself, my mind filled with a mess of thoughts I'd been trying so hard to surpress. What would my Mom say if she could see me now? She'd probably be more disappointed than worried sick. I can practically hear her in my ears, telling me to shred any sliver of fear left in my body and replace it with adrenaline.
I sigh. I miss my Mom. I miss my home. Hell, I even miss Gibbs, the black labrador puppy we got a couple months ago that pisses all over the house and nervous wees when you touch him. What I'd give to be with that silly little dog right now.
Suddenly, there's a loud clanging, and I fall into a squatting position on the floor. My breath hitches in my throat as the noise loudens, slowly but surely before swiftly happening all at once.
"Sophie!" I hear Luke yell, and it doesn't take me more than a split second to sprint towards the direction he disappeared to.
"Look!" I hear him say, just before I turn the corner and see that, despite his frantic voice and his panicked screaming, the boy is absolutely, completely, one-hundred percent fine.
I frown. So much for the excitement.
"I thought you were dying,"
"Bet you're glad I'm not,"
"More like disappointed."
"Ouch," Luke says, but he doesn't let it phase him. Instead he walks over, wraps a long hand around my wrist, and pulls me towards where he was.
"Have a look at this," he tells me, "Whoever worked their last shift here must have been prepared."
And he's right, oddly enough. Whoever opened this morning did a pretty half-assed job at it; none of the machines have been switched on like they should have and the last formal log in on the security monitors was last night.
"That's weird," I say, pressing enter on the keyboard, unsurprised once is asks for a password. "That would've been really useful,"
"I know," Luke sighs, "Other than that, there's nothing back here. Seems like we caught the apocalypse early,"
"Seems it."
"What about you?" he asks me, "Find anything while you were back there?"
"Nothing you couldn't see already," I reply, "I would've started stocking up but I didn't know what we needed and what we didn't. I have the priorities of a three year old in a sweet shop,"
"And I have them of a seventy year old in the cereal aisle," Luke says, nudging me with a grin. "Come on. Everyone's probably wondering where we've gone."
He's right, of course. We stock up on everything; canned goods, bags of chips, plasters, anything small that might come in handy. We're loaded by the time we get outside, and it's only until then that we realise that carrying so many things at once might not be such a good idea after all.
I sigh, my eyes adjusting to the foggy abyss before us. It's more of an endless stretch of land than anything else, but it's there; cold, misty, and absolutely crawling with the Undead.
"How d'you feel about running the whole way?" he asks me, and my eyebrow raises.
"I wouldn't even be able to do that with my hands empty,"
"Give me your bag then."
"Don't be dumb," I roll my eyes, but Luke holds his hand out, evidently not joking. "Wait, what?"
"Just trust me," he tells me, taking a hold of the duffel bag in my hand. "I'll carry, you kil-" he pauses. "Hit. You hit them."
"I don't know," I say, nervously. But there's no time to waste because before I know it, Luke is a good few steps in front of me, and I'm already falling behind. Groaning inwardly, I drag my feet behind him.
He's surprisingly quick on his feet, even with the much extra added weight. You'd never think it- at least I never did, what with how often I saw him moping around school. He just looked lanky and skinny and tired all the time- but who am I to judge, or say anything about anyone? He probably looks at me and wonders how I even got this far.
I swing the ski pole approximately six times, and every single time it misses. Luke looks at me and I feign frustration, but that's not it. He probably knows it, too. I just can't bring myself to connect that piece of metal with flesh that's still moving. Undead or alive, it still feels very real to me.
"Come on," he calls back to me, his voice laced with determination, "We've got to go faster, Soph!"
He's right, but I wish he wasn't. I'm barely dragging my feet, it's cold, and there's so much left for us to get through. Nevermind the fact that they're closing in one us- one slobbering, hungry creature at a time.
Something grabs me from behind and I yelp, swinging the pole frantically; the sound of a crack and soft thud against the snow sending relief-filled shivers down my spine. I've lost all direction- Luke is nowhere to be seen and it seems as though I'm the only target.
The figures begin to close in on me, their hands out, mouths agape. My heart is thudding so loudly in my chest that I can't even hear myself think, let alone formulate a plan as to how the hell I'm going to get out of this.
I swing once, another falls to the floor. Then one grabs me from behind and drags me down, and I just about manage to stick it right through their eye socket before the blood starts spurting out onto both my face and the white snow beneath me. I throw the body off of my own, scrambling to get back onto my feet.
My chest is burning. I'm thrown back onto the floor and the ski pole is ripped from my hand. I don't try to fight this time; I just try to stay alive.
They lean into me, their teeth bared and ravenous, eyes filled with hunger and death. And I'm so low on energy, I struggle to shove them off of me.
I grab the ski pole back up and run. In no particular direction whatsoever, but I run, and I run fast. I run so far that I can't breathe anymore.
There's too many of them. I can't take them alone- hell, I don't even think Luke and I could take them together if he was anywhere to be seen.
I'm just about to throw the pole back onto the ground and make a break for it through the only gap within the undead crowd, when the familiar beeping if a bus horn rips through the air.
It's frantic and loud, attracting the attention of the corpses. I harbour my breathing, eager to follow the sound itself when in the distance, I can see the bus hurtling at a rapid speed towards me; headlights on, blinking furiously.
I'm too stunned to even move. But it comes to a solid halt just a few feet away, and that's enough motivation for me to sprint towards it.
The figures follow me. Some are fast enough to be within arm's length, but they're not running to get to me. They're running to the big hunk of metal that they have no idea they can't eat but will try to anyway.
The double doors open and I see Luke on the driver's seat, his face scratched up and bloody. "Get in!" he shouts, and Chloe helps me do so. Balanced on the top of the bus roof is Michael, throwing random objects at the figures considered too close to me.
Finally I'm dragged onto the bus. The doors lock and Bailey and Chloe board them up with various barricades, from ski poles and suitcases to dislodged seats.
I fall onto my back, exhausted. The bus is still driving and I want to ask where to, but I can't. I can't even open my mouth to form the words, or move my limbs to make it easier for Michael to haul me onto a bus seat. I'm too tired; my eyes begin to flutter shut, and a wave of darkness soon engulfs me.
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M Y S O C I A L S
INSTAGRAM: mariasbrushes
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