I'm back! I thought of spliting this up into two chapters but I thought it flowed better as one. Anyways, enjoy Chapter 11!
They spent the rest of the night driving out of the city in complete silence, as if a token of respect to the fallen member of their group.
Sometime later, possibly around 2 in the morning, they pulled off of the highway which was getting more and more congested with abandoned vehicles by the mile and took down a dirt road a couple hundred yards before pulling over for the night. That is, if any of them slept.
But all of them eventually dozed off, part from exhaustion and another from just wanting to escape reality for a couple hours.
They all awoke from a restless sleep, their minds haunted by the images of caked-blood, the constant thundering of automatic weapons and the face of the missing Deville as the blinding light of the desert sun pierced through the van's tinted windows. The vehicle's windshield peppered with bullet holes, a reminder of the previous night's events.
Kimi was the first out of the car, her eyes adjusting to the seemingly endless landscape of dirt and weeds around them; the glistening highway of wreckage glimmering in the far off distance. 'We're clearly not in LA anymore.' She thought to herself with a yawn, wondering what she was going to have for breakfast when another realization struck her, 'We have no food. No water. No shelter. And barely any gas.'
Panicking inside, even more than during the shootout the night before when her life was inches from death on multiple occasions, she said aloud for the whole desert to hear, "We're fucked."
The van's tank ran dry not even a minute after they pulled back onto the highway, sputtering to a stop in the middle of road.
Getting out of the vehicle, they trudged over the next hill, luckily to spot another pile-up of cars not even a quarter mile in the distance. Where an empty five gallon gas can laid in the road, ripe for the picking.
Not bothering to take the time to siphon the gas out of the few vehicles that had any fuel, knowing nobody was going to be driving them anytime soon; Tommy just crawled underneath, ruptured a neat hole in its tank with his Swiss Army knife and let the much needed fuel flow into the bright red plastic canister.
As the eldest Pickles brother did this to five or six more cars, nearly filling the entire gas can, the rest checked all the abandoned cars for anything that was edible or could quench their thirst. But they left empty handed, some other lucky scavenger had beat them to it.
With the desert sun scorching down around them, their only pair of clothes was drenched with perspiration before noon; their brains aching and mouths becoming as dry as sandpaper from dehydration long before then though.
Phil was the only one who seemed to have his head partially on straight, despite the loss of his sister hours before hand. He had no clue what they were doing roaming through the desert with no clear destination, or any for that matter insight when he finally managed to make Chuckie pull over. "Dude, what the hell are we doing out here in the middle of nowhere? Where are we even going man?
Chuckie turned around and spat back at him, something he had never done before in his entire seventeen-years of existence, "How the fuck should I know?! It wasn't like we had some elaborate 'Plan B' figured out!"
"Well, hate to sound like a pessimist here," Phil retorted, "But nothing is going to come out of us screwing around in the desert except for five rotting teenage corpses on the side of the road. I mean, I can't believe no one else has even spoken up about this yet." The last comment seeming to jar everybody back to reality partially.
"And why the fuck do you think that Phil, huh?" Chuckie shot back, a clear edge in his voice, aiming to hurt, "We're all clearly depressed and still mourning about the death of Lil. Huh, remember that Phil, The death of your sister?"
"Shut the fuck up about that! Of course I do, she was my sister for Christ's sake! But we can't go about like this, like the fucking walking dead! We've got to figure out at least some place to go or some strategy for what to do next. Any suggestions, anybody? Anything?"
"How about San Francisco? Kimi inquired. They were all gathered around the van's hood with Chuckie's road map atlas thrown open, everyone throwing out suggestions on where to head next.
"That was more than a month ago," Dil retorted, "The whole damn place is probably overrun by now. Remember, the exact same thing was setup back in LA, and we all know how that turned out." No explanation was needed for what he was referring to. Practically the whole Los Angeles area and then some relocated to the center of the city where a massive refugee center was established for the frightened masses. The place had some serious perks: barbed wire fences, hot meals, running water, a soft bed for everybody, and enough rounds of ammo to shoot everybody in the state of California ten times over. But these physical barriers are useless when the enemy you're trying to keep out manages to get in. All it took was a couple dozen infected, not even actual 'zombies', just a few people who've been scratched or barely 'nibbled' on to sneak through the National Guard's checkpoint and mingle about with the other half million refugees. Not even a half day later, those seemingly fine few took a bite of their fellow evacuees and soon a couple hundred infected were on the Army's hands. A hundred became a thousand. A thousand became a hundred thousand. And a hundred thousand, well I bet you know what happened to the rest?
"I guess you got a point there." Kimi replied, biting her lip, remembering for herself how the refugee centers were in many cases the worst places to be for any of those who still had a beating heart.
"We could try for Santa Barbara," Tommy informed, "People on the internet were saying not even three weeks ago, that is, before Google crashed that they were shipping people out to the islands."
Chuckie immediately shot that down, "Even if that is true, and we actually manage to catch a ferry to Santa Cruz, if an outbreak happens on the island, it would leave us trapped with nowhere to go. And we all know what that means." Running his finger across his throat like an executioner's knife, miming their certain death.
Tommy mumbled an agreement with his shoulders hunched when Dil piped up, "I got one," Revealing a bright smile none of them had seen in a while, "And don't laugh guys, even though it sounds crazy."
"We won't." They all chorused in an almost exasperated moan.
"Ok, well remember my friend Trevor?" No one had any idea what he was talking about until Kimi added, "Oh yeah, that weird math genius kid from our Economics class, right?"
"The one and only," Dil said smiling, clearly enthusiastic about what he was going to say. "Well, before all this went down we exchanged satellite phones to keep in touch and exchange valuable information."
"Cut to the chase." Phil butted in, followed by Kimi elbowing him in the ribs.
"Well, to make a long story short, five or six days ago he said him and his family who've been staying at his uncle's place in the suburbs were going up to South Dakota to stay on his cousin's farm." That was met by Phil bursting out in mock laughter and everybody else watching the youngest Pickles intently, as if actually wanting to hear what he had to say.
"Again, it sounds crazy and all but he was saying his cousin urged him to go to his ranch. Saying the whole place had a low population, not even a hundred people in the nearest town that is like twenty miles away, and that is before everybody got bite. Meaning few to none biters or marauders; which we all know sucks worse than the living dead. And being a farm and all he was saying there'd be plenty of corn we could all live off of if we pulled our weight. Not to mention his cousins are a bunch of gun nuts, meaning protection from anybody or anything that tries to screw with us."
"Are you done yet?" Phil asked bitterly.
"Shut up Phil," Kimi said back to the last remaining Deville, "Continue Dil."
"Thank you Kimi," Dil replied with a smile before launching back into his rant, "Anyways, here's the important part. At same time Trevor told me this stuff he was urging us to join him, you know, strength in numbers, pool resources and whatnot, but I said we had a pretty sweet set-up that was built to last, if that is as far from the truth as it could be…" His voice drifting off partially, his face for a millisecond turning into a frown with a deep sigh, "Nevertheless, I think we should consider taking Trevor up on the offer. He even gave me the address and everything. He was saying the place was going to be for the long term, not just some 'second refugee center. I mean, come on guys, it sounds like a sweet deal."
"More like a pipe-dream to me." Phil sing-songed pessimistically, followed by Kimi roughly elbowing him again.
"I like the idea," Kimi said, "Best one I heard in a while."
"Same here," Tommy agreed, anxiously looking behind Dil at a few biters grudgingly making their way toward them across the barren landscape, "But have you had any contact with this Trevor kid since last week?"
"No," Dil said with a sigh, "But my satellite phone's battery went dead shortly after talking to him. But if we find some batteries communication with Trevor will be good to go."
"Ok, then I'm in." Tommy said with a smile, watching the two biters growing closer. Possibly fifty yards away.
"Like wise." Chuckie added, "Just the only matter is how we would manage to get up there. Even if all the roads were partially clear it would take a week-plus to drive to South Dakota, not to mention the whole walking dead/blood thirsty pirates factor. But it still has potential, so I'm up for it."
"And Phil…"Dil asked, with a brighter smile than before.
Cursing before agreeing, "Yeah, yeah, what the hell, I'm in. What worse could happen anyways?"
I hope you liked it, thank you for reading. :) Please feel-free to review, favorite, follow, etc. I like to know how you think the story is going. Until next time. -Crocy98