A:N/ Sorry for the wait everyone. I've been busy helping out with the annual zombie walk. If you have the chance to join one, it's a lot of fun.

On the Road Again

BELLA

Doors clipped open and shut as Edward climbed behind the wheel next to where I sat in the passenger seat.

Fastening his seat belt, he turned the ignition. The growl of the engine carried across the darkness, calling out to the undead. Both of us cringed at the sound but there was no help for it.

We were both nervous about leaving. Not only were we entering the unknown, or at least it was for me, but also Edward didn't know how to drive very well. He'd only just started to learn a month before the apocalypse happened.

With a deep breath, I buckled my seat belt too.

"Okay, I'm ready," I said, looking towards Edward who was breathing deeply, like he was trying to relax himself.

I knew that he felt like everything was resting on his shoulders because he'd been the one to convince me to leave. However, I knew now that leaving had been inevitable. I'd just not realized it until he showed me.

He looked at me out of the corner of his eye and I smiled reassuringly at him. He tried to be so tough all the time, but I knew that he was just as scared as I was.

I hated the thought of him feeling scared. Edward had done so much for me in the last couple of weeks, things that I couldn't ever repay him for. When he gave Charlie mercy only a day ago, I'd cried for hours tucked in Edward's arms until I was completely drained. He never said a word about it afterwards, but he'd been tender with me. Ignoring my bouts of anger and tears when he insisted that we leave the following day. And then cradling me in his arms that night when I crawled onto the air mattress with him.

When Edward pressed down on the gas too hard, the car lurched forward with a roar, forcing me back against my seat from the gravitational force.

"Sorry… I'm sorry… I just need to get familiar with things again," Edward muttered, as he let up on the gas and rolled out onto the drive way.

Luckily, that morning, most of the dead still wandered a few blocks over where Edward had put the stereo. So, after leaving my street, we were able to put some distance from the downtown area before we started encountering the dead again.

As we made our way out of Forks, Edward started to relax behind the wheel. At first it was touch and go as he became comfortable maintining control of the car, but two hours later he was relatively comfortable.

The silence as we drove started to get to me. I didn't like being tense around Edward. He was an important part of my new life now, but I knew nothing about him. We never really talked about anything personal. Our conversations mainly consisted of how to survive.

"Let's play 20 questions," I said, breaking the silence.

Edward heaved a sigh.

"Bella…" But before he could continue, I cut him off.

"We spend 24 hours a day together, but I don't know anything about you besides the fact that Masen is your last name. Don't you think it would be a good idea to learn a little bit more about each other?" I asked, truly interested in his answer.

"Yeah…" he said, not taking his eyes off the road. "I guess you're right."

"Okay. How old are you?" I asked, turning in my seat to look at him.

"I'm sixteen, I think. I've kind of lost track of time," he responded with a shrug.

"You?" he asked, looking at me for a brief second before his eyes snapped back to the road.

"I'm sixteen too. I would have thought you were older. You're so tall," I said, looking him over.

At that, Edward sat up straighter in his seat, stretching himself to his full height.

He was a handsome guy, tall and athletic, not gangly like most guys our age. I guess surviving in an apocalypse made teenager's skip the awkwardness of adolescence.

I held in a laugh at that.

"What was your favorite subject in school?" I asked.

The question seemed to bother him for some reason and at first he didn't say anything.

"Music…" he finally divulged.

"Huh…" I said, not expecting that answer.

"What?" he asked defensively.

"Nothing. I just expected it to be something like Phys. Ed. You look like an athlete."

"Well, I was. I was on the swim team. But I also did well in other things. But my real love was music. Little good it is now…" he muttered.

"What's-" I began, but he interrupted me.

"Nope. Your turn. What was your favorite subject?"

"English. I loved reading, but I also loved science, especially biology."

"Figures…" he murmured.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I demanded, feeling the familiar judgement of people my age.

"Nothing bad. You're just really smart," he said.

I listened for any mocking edge to his voice, but there wasn't any, which made me like him a little more.

"What were you like in school? Were you one of the popular kids?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

Edward had all the makings of one of the popular guys in school that everyone fawned over. His looks would have made him stand out. He had the most piercing pair of green eyes and unique bronze hair that I'd ever seen. Those features paired with the angular planes of his face made him easily the most handsome guy I'd ever met.

"I wasn't super popular, but I didn't have trouble making friends," he said with a faint smile.

His answer only confirmed the fact that he'd been one of the popular kids in school. Only people who were part of the in-crowd were that confident about themselves.

"What about you?" he asked, looking at me curiously.

"I never fit in. Not only was I the Chief of Police's daughter, which made me extremely uncool, but I excelled in science, sucked at sports, and was as plain as dirt. I was the object of a lot of practical jokes."

He snorted at that, a half-grin spreading across his face.

"Well, the last laugh is on them. You're here and they're not. I say, you win."

"That's not funny, Edward. They're dead," I stated, firmly.

"Sorry," he said, a tinge of regret in his voice. "You're right. I just meant that they were assholes, Bella. There's nothing wrong with you besides a little post-apocalypse crazy, which I assume you didn't have a year ago."

I thought about what he said, trying to decide if I should be insulted or not.

"What did your parents do for a living?" I asked.

A scowl spread across his face.

"Pass," he snapped.

"What?" I asked in confusion.

"I pass on the question. What's next?" he said, his hands gripping the steering wheel a little harder.

"Did you have a girlfriend?"

"Pass," he said, his scowl getting deeper.

"You can only pass once. That's the rule," I argued.

"The past doesn't matter. That world is gone," he growled dismissively.

"Okay, so what did you do for the year before you found me?" I asked, annoyed. I knew that he wouldn't want to answer this question, but I didn't like that he was shutting me down again.

I wanted to know more about him, but he always fought me on it, like he was purposefully keeping a distance from me.

"It's none of your business," he snapped. "I'm not playing anymore."

"God, you're such a douchebag!" I snarled, all my warm feelings disappearing.

"Fine. No girlfriend. Dad was a lawyer. Mom was a dental hygienist. And before you ask, Anna was five when she died."

We drove in silence for a while after that.

While we were near Forks, I was able to show Edward the back roads where I knew there would be less traffic. However, now we were in unfamiliar territory and unfortunately we had begun to enter more populated areas.

The roads were littered with abandoned cars and then with the stray dead that wandered along the road.

Gripping the wheel, Edward sat forward in his seat, his gaze alert and fixed on the wrecks and the dead on the road.

Edward kept his speed steady, not too slow or we ran the risk of a stray monster hooking on to us, but also not too fast because there were so many wrecks on the road we could easily run into one of them.

At one point, the passenger side of our vehicle collided with a corpse. For a moment it was dragged along half caught by the front wheel. But then with a sharp jerk of a tree branch hitting the back of its neck, off came its head in a spray of blood and it was torn away from the vehicle.

The impact of the crash caused the car to fish tail along the road for a moment as Edward frantically tried to regain control of the vehicle.

But finally we made it through the obstacle course and were on the open road again as we turned down a side road.

After putting a few miles between the highway and us, we both heaved a sigh of relief.

When I saw that the road ahead of us was clear, I decided it was time for us to get something to eat, so I unhooked my seat belt and began to crawl into the back seat.

"What the hell?" Edward said, causing me to freeze halfway between the front and the back.

"What?" I said, sliding back into my seat.

But I didn't need for Edward to answer. A few yards ahead of us, I saw an RV parked on the side of the road. It wasn't destroyed or parked haphazardly like the other vehicles we'd seen. And I was even more surprised to find someone was sitting on the top with their legs dangling over the side.

As we got closer, I saw that there was a huge cardboard sign propped up against the side of the vehicle.

BATS, AXES, GUNS, AMMUNITION, BATTERIES, MAPS AVAILABLE.

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO SURVIVE THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE.

CASH IS WORTH SHIT.

BARTERING ONLY.

FOOD ALWAYS WELCOME.

I took a closer look at the guy on top of the RV. He was a large barrel-chested guy that despite his size looked around twenty years old.

As we drove by, he waved at us, flashing a dimpled smile. It was a shocking sight because he seemed so normal and carefree despite the fact that he was twirling a bat with spikes in it and three of the dead were pawing at the sides of his RV as they tried to grab a hold of him.

"We should stop, Edward," I said, looking back at the RV that was disappearing in the distance.

"No," he said.

"He might know whether there are any sanctuaries in the area," I said, looking at Edward seriously.

Edward was the first person I'd encountered since the apocalypse. I'd begun to think that maybe we were the last ones alive. So, seeing another human being filled me with hope.

Why wouldn't Edward want to meet other survivors?

Edward clenched his jaw and shook his head.

"Why?" I asked. "Why don't you want to stop, Edward?"

"We can't trust him. Only assholes survive, Bella… Please believe me," he said.

I quirked an eyebrow at that, which brought a small smirk to his lips.

"Well, I'm not an asshole…" I said with an answering smile.

I looked back one more time at the RV that was only a speck in the distance before heaving a sigh. I wanted to meet other survivor's but I needed to trust Edward. He'd proved to me that he had my best interest at heart.

With that our discussion about the survivor was dropped.

We drove another half a day before things started to go wrong.

It was around dusk when Edward interrupted the doze I'd been in.

"What's that?" Edward said, sitting up in his seat more.

I looked in his direction, but he wasn't staring ahead of us.

Following his gaze, I saw that through a break in the woods flames were flickering in the distance.

"Fuck, it's a fire," Edward said with a tense sigh.

He slowed our vehicle to a crawl as we came around a bend in the road.

Immediately, we saw an overturned truck, lying jackknifed across the road along with three or more cars, engulfed in flames.

"That's just fantastic," I said with a deep sigh.

It was obvious that we wouldn't be able to move the wreck. We were going to have to backtrack.

"This just happened," Edward said, breaking the tense silence.

"What?" I asked. "What just happened?"

"The fire. This fire hasn't been burning for that long."

I looked more closely and saw how the pavement was blackened and scarred, but the smell of diesel and melted rubber was still thick in the air.

"We need to turn back, Edward…" I explained.

"No, we can't. We need to keep going," he said. "Last exit was a long way back. I'm thinking that maybe we should…"

The slapping noise came out of nowhere, cutting Edward off.

"SHIT!" I gasped, jerking away from my window as a corpse appeared next to it.

"Roll down the window, Edward. I'm going to kill it," I said, pulling my ice pick out of my tool belt."

Edward looked at me intensely with his hand on the automatic window button.

"Okay… are you ready?" he asked.

I unhooked my seatbelt and turned towards the window, holding my weapon as I prepared to stab.

"Ready," I said, one hand braced on the back of my seat.

With a whirring sound, the window came down and I lunged forward jamming my pick into its eye, the only place where my strength would allow me to kill it.

The thing went limp and slid down the outside of the passenger door, with a bang as its head hit the door.

The echo could be heard a mile away, piercing the silence.

Both of us froze at the sound, frantically scanning the flickering darkness for movement and we weren't disappointed. Out of the flickering dark, shadows began to writhe and clamber to their feet.

A lot of them.

"Back up! Back up!" I shouted, slapping the dashboard as I spun around in my seat to look out the rear-view mirror.

"I don't know how! I haven't learned yet!" Edward gasped, looking around frantically for an escape from the horde that were staggering towards us.

"Shit, shit, shit…" he muttered, turning half around in his seat as he slammed the car into reverse.

Edward tried to steer us back out of the obstacle course of vehicles, but everything was backwards which caused him to turn left when he should have turned right. This made us bump from vehicle to vehicle until with a screeching bang, the car ground to a halt as it wedged itself against another vehicle.

"Well… fuck…" Edward said, calmly.

"What do we do, Edward?" I moaned, scanning the area. "There's no shelter!"

Edward looked around us, scanning the darkened forest.

"Do you see that outcropping of trees?" he said, pointing me in the direction of a group of fir trees.

"Yeah… Yes…" I said, my anxiety clear in my voice.

"Okay," Edward said. "You run for the trees and I'll hold them off."

"What do you mean?" I said, looking at him incredulously.

He reached for his crossbow. "I'll get rid of a few of them while you make it to the trees and then I'll follow you."

"Wait!" I said in a high-pitched voice. "We have to stick together."

"It'll be okay, Bella. I'll be right behind you," he said, reassuringly.

"We agreed to stick together. No matter what," I pleaded, but he ignored me.

"Ready?" he asked and then threw open the door.

I did the same and together we dashed to the edge of the road.

"Get going, Bella," Edward said, his tone abruptly changing as the dead got closer, becoming low and even. "Now."

"No… Edward. I can help you," I stated. "I'm not weak. I've killed plenty-"

"BELLA! GO!" he snarled at me.

With a whimper, I ran down into the ditch and prepared to cut into the trees.

But I just couldn't do it. I turned back towards Edward and the dead.

For a while, Edward was winning. The dead fell to his slashing blade as he yelled his fury at them.

But I saw that others were approaching. Soon he would be overtaken.

So, ignoring Edward's order, I hauled out my bowie knife and ice pick and slipped out of the woods and up behind the corpses.

The dead were so focused on Edward's growling and slashing form that I was able to creep up behind them.

Of the ten that encircled Edward, I took down three before they noticed that I was there.

At first, Edward didn't notice me, but when the third fell to the ground his eyes locked on to mine.

His eyes widened in alarm and his blade faltered for a moment.

"NO!" I yelled as Edward's hesitation allowed one of the dead to get a hold of him.

Suddenly, Edward disappeared underneath the swarming bodies of the dead.

"No, no, no, no, no…" I moaned, fighting to get to him, but I wasn't strong enough.

In desperation, I thought about the only thing that could distract the dead from Edward.

I grabbed my knife and slashed the back of my forearm, holding it up in the air as the blood dripped down it.

Almost as one, the corpses' heads snapped up and zeroed in on my bloody arm.

I stumbled backwards and shouted.

"COME ON! DON'T YOU WANT SOME OF THIS?!" I shouted. "YUMMY TASTY BLOOD! FRESH AND WARM!"

The dead climbed to their feet and started to converge on me as I walked away from them.

I desperately looked for Edward as I walked quickly backwards, my heart thumping hard in my chest when I couldn't see him.

More dead appeared out of the darkness, searching for the blood that they smelled.

Without Edward, I was dead. There were too many of them.

I let out a shriek when I felt arms grasp me from behind.

"Jesus, Bella! Don't fight me!" Edward hissed.

I heaved a sigh of relief and allowed him to propel me towards the woods as he slashed at the arms reaching for me.

Together we ran into the trees with a string of dead following us.

So what do you think? What should they do now? They seem to be in a pretty difficult spot. Do you think Bella could have done something different to save Edward?