Don't Take Your Guns To Town
The Holliday van had sped off away from the hotel just as the SUV carrying their friends had, only they had taken off into diffrent directions. The SUV east, the Holliday van west. Tatiana held her legs to her chest as she sat in the back with Bryanne and Lexi at each of her sides, her knees tucked neatly under her chin.
Antoinette was at control of the wheel, her aviator sunglasses covering her emerald eyes. Tatiana thought she looked quite brave and fearless as her left hand shakily took the wheel and her right reached for her cup of coffee. Antoinette was so carefree sometimes, even in this entire mess of the world, this entire mess of a situation. Antoinette took a big drink of her coffee from a white thermos and she almost dropped it as a zombie came stumbling out the broken window of a tailor shop.
"Piece of shit...," She mumbled aimlessly. Antoinette was smart and cool, just like Tatiana wanted to be. Tatiana knew she would get this job done and she would make sure with the life of her that no one would get hurt. She had to say that her very best friends were gathered together in this old van taken straight from the seventies. She couldn't bear to live with herself if something would happen to them.
It made her wonder how she had made it this long. These long agonizing months of despair and fear. It was them that pulled her out of the darkness.
Scott sat in the passenger seat, his hands glued to the radio even though as he clicked the dial numerous times, all that filled the van was static and white noise. On the other side of Tatiana, Lexi, and Bryanne were Eli, Lucie, Natasha, and Lleyton. Each of them had expressionless faces, faces that didn't betray their minds of their thoughts.
Tatiana glanced over at Bryanne, whose almost white hair was held high atop of her head in a ponytail tied with a hot pink scrungie. She was sitting nervously in her place next to Eli and Lexi and ever so often, she looked out the yellow tinted windows, her ponytail bobbing with every mood she made. She looked sheepish and sick, her skin almost greenish.
Tatiana placed a hand on her knee and Bryanne looked at her, a delicate rosy pink comming to her cheeks. Tatiana could take a small chance to guess that Bryanne was trying to search for the casino that her family had went to. She wanted just a glance for a billboard or maybe a quick peek of a tall, ominously bright building but there was no such chance in the deep, golden morning light clashing with the deep blues of the early morning sky.
Tatiana turned away from her friend, her heart wrenching with pain and her stomach flittering with nervous excitedment. She turned to face the window to watch the lonely brick buildings pass by, to see the sunbeams bounce off car windsheilds moist with dew, to watch shells of men, women, and children's forms meterialized out of the silvery morning mist.
She placed her finger tips up to the glass and drew a pattern in the fog that had built up on the glass.
Antoinette dodged abanonded cars stuck on the sides of roads and even in the middle. She sandwiched her way through trucks and cars and did her best to avoid splattering the zombies against the windsheild. As Antoinette guided the aging van onto the highway, they all got a good look at the sea of cars left in a puzzle on the pavement.
"Hold on you guys," Antoinette said, adjusting her overly large sunglasses on her model-esque face, "This could be a bumpy ride."
Everyone lurched forward in their seats as she stepped on the gas pedal and began to weave the van through the cars, occasionally the loud ear shattering sound of metal sliding against metal filled the van as the outside of the van scraped against the lonely vehicles.
As she took advantage of an almost clear space of cracked pavement, a dark flash flew at the van. Antoinette screamed as she her foot went searching for the break until the figure revealed itself as a charred, bony zombie with blackened clothes and burnt, sagging skin. Her foot steadied on the accelerator and Tatiana's hand searched wildly for something to hold on to. She made up her mind quickly and grabbed onto an arm rest on her chair.
With the speed of the van soaring from 45 to 60, Antoinette gripped onto the steering wheel tightly, her knuckles whitening agains the worn material. The zombie crashed against the glass and could only be seen for a moment and the dusty form flew over the top of the car and slammed into the pavement, crumpling against it. An arm, as limp as a dolls, was stuck against the windowsheild wiper as Antoinette, slowing down, switched them on so it could flap off.
Tatiana let go of the arm rest and placed her hands in her lap, a grim expression on her face and sick feeling in her gut.
She was used to this smell of death around her and the mindset that it gave her but... The zombies were decaying and turning dusty. The sense of mortality around her was thick. Death had always scared her and this entire journey had been an entire mindtrip. It gave her a dizzing feeling about her. Something could happen any moment right now and she could be killed.
The van could blow up and one of her friend's guns could go off at random. Anything. Or she could be bitten by one of the fading zombies and then, she would slowly become one of them.
Chills creeped up and down her spine as she huddled against herself. Tatian felt an arm slither around her shoulders and it was Lexi who had her strong, reassuring arm around her childlike shoulders. Bright Lexi gave her a golden smile, her perfect teeth dazzling her and for a second, she could almost forget that they were on there way to maybe even certain death.
They were on an afternoon drive to have a lovely picnic beside the local beach on the oceanfront and traffic was crazy. Everyone wanted a taste of the salty air and the blue-green sea.
Authors Note: Wow. Stockholm Syndrome is 1 years old. How exciting!
I'm sorry I haven't really been writing lately. I just got finished up with exam week and now I'm really ready to get cracking on this story.
Thanks for all of the messages and lovely reviews guys, really. Have any requests for the story? Just let me know!
-Anna
