We make it back to the front entrance after scavenging the evacuated hospital, seeing a few of the dead banging on the windows of the car not realizing our flesh just yet. Wanting a feast of the unconscious. Jase lays helpless in the back seat, not having an idea of our reality.
JQ makes eye contact with me under the hospitals flickering lights that lend little guidance. He points to the loose bricks piled up from unfinished construction work. I swallow deeply, counting the three dead verses us two.
Calculating my death.
I set the lotto bag down gently, the two of us tiptoe to the bricks
picking up two in each hand.
-
He throws the first thrust, the monsters head abutting the back window and dropping to the earth. I lunge the same, hearing the brick crack his skull. Witnessing the dark liquid under the moonlight gushing from his wound. The monster drops to my feet, the pressure of his heavy body crushing my fragile toes.
Acknowledging that I just took someone's life.
"Ughr"
JQ grips his brick and heads towards the remaining Z, leaving me to kick this heavy fucker off me and perpetuate my sanity.
Numerous whacks start to commence, I leap up and see the monsters head smashed into the pavement behind the car. Obliterated.
JQ faces me with tears in his eyes, huffing out the rest of his anger and anxiety; blood and brain matter spread all over him.
-
"What was that back there?"
I request from JQ, not taking my eyes off the moon. Expecting it to feel my pain as it just watched helplessly. Not wanting to carry the pain of the destroyed side of civilization.
He doesn't reply, leaving only Jases aspirated breaths in the background. My soul-crushing every time they intertwine with my fragile eardrums.
-
We pursue driving down the gloomy roads, trying to martyr our way through the clutter. The headlights only highlighting half of our twisted reality.
"I know this sounds like an inconvenience, but we need supplies, or we're not gon' last"
JQ informs me, finally breaking the silence of this damned ride.
'You do that, I'm saving my best friend'
-
He pulls into a Walmart's parking lot, parking the car by the entrance of the door. Pivoting the engine and headlights off. The store seems dark and full of suspense, I'm happy to stay in the car.
Is that cowardly?
JQ opens the glove box, pulling out a massive flashlight before slamming it shut. He still has speckles of tears hiding in his eyes.
"Tend to Jase, I'll grab the supplies.
Lock the doors"
His voice filled with anguish as he jets out the door, galloping through the busted windows into the store; into the darkness.
I lock the doors, finding old trash and receipts laying on his floorboards. Spitting on them, slabbing them against the windows camouflaging our existence to the dead.
"Stay with me"
I hum to Jase softly, flicking the light on; peeling open the medicine bag grabbing an IV bag and needle. Here I am, in the middle of the apocalypse playing doctor.
I pull her arm up to my eyes, analyzing her pale skin for a vein. Jabbing the needle inside one, hoping it's the right choice. Taping the needle, now loading a vial of pain medication into it. Fastening the IV bag to the car hook, watching it drop down the long IV tube into her body.
Feeling satisfied with my feat.
-
"JQ?"
I murmur out, turning off the car light.
the sound of someone knocking on the window taking over my focus.
The knocks come again before someone shakes the door handle. My body trembles, as I hold Jase close to me. Hoping they didn't see me turn the light off, that my camouflage did us justice.
"Open the door, or I''m gon' shatter it"
A bitchy voice persists from outside the car,
continuing her charades of banging on the windows before she shoves a wood plank through it. The glass shatters into tiny crystals, hitting me in my face feeling the warm blood pour down my neck.
I grip the medicine bag, opening the car door falling out onto the cement as she makes her way into the car.
"Where the fuck you think your going?"
She wails at me, dismissing the car and chasing me into the superstore.
-
I hide in the middle of a clothes rack, keeping my breaths very placid, hugging the medicine bag. Feeling the blood now crusting onto my skin.
"I'm gonna find you little birdie"
She starts singing out, hearing her high heel boots clash against the aluminum floors.
"Find this"
I hear an echo of JQ's voice, the sound of a gunshot following it. Crawling out of the clothes space, I run to the sound howls. The woman surrounded in her own blood, with a gunshot to her leg. She pleads out in agony, jerking her leg wincing at the pain.
"I wasn't gon' hurt you"
JQ starts pushing the cart into the other direction, shrugging off any guilty thoughts. Ignoring her pleas.
He doesn't stop, I have no choice but to follow. She was going to kill me for our supplies, maybe all of us.
Her cries still stirring in my head as we get back to the car, securely locking ourselves inside. Striving to brush off what just happened.
-
"Nice technique"
He jokes off to me, recognizing my camouflage for the car. My stomach still churning from recent events, she wasn't dead. She is human.
'Our fight isn't just against the dead, is it?'
I implore to him, peeking into the backseat checking on Jases state. Trying to ignore eye contact by all means.
"If only you knew"
His choice of words not settling right within me, my stomach starting to break down. Pulling me into my thoughts, no more running or hiding. To face them in the rawness.
I am scared to die.
Is my mom alive?
Are my sisters alive?
What caused this?
Will I turn into one of them?
I'm terrified.
Feeling wrapped inside the pleasure of the abyss, the unknown. The questioning and comfort to find answers. A pleasure from rigged glass that cuts you with every electric pulse. Reflection in this chaos feels blissful, yet so raw and painful.
"Anesaki"
JQ snaps his fingers in front of my face, pulling me back into our reality as the hotel's sign comes into the picture.