Here is an installment by M.D. Owen.
"What do you think happened to our military? Think they all went underground after the Secretary of State ate the President on national television?" Mikey glumly asked as Don uselessly tried to erase zombie fluids from the windshield with the saturated windshield wipers.
Don pounded on the breaks and the battleshell lurched to a stop. "Probably milling about eating each others' brains while the Chinese are busy inoculating people in concentration camps." He pulled a ratty notebook from the glove box and opened it to the last written page.
Mikey said, "You should have upgraded the windshield wipers instead of bothering with all the bombs and crap."
"I guess I was thinking World War Z style zombies instead of old school George Romero zombies. But I take what I get." He read the page. "We were here yesterday. We have to go down two blocks and start there." He revved up the Battleshell and sped through the 25 mile per hour residential zone at 70 miles per hour.
"I bet we'll find some today!" Mikey said, voice tinging with optimism. "Don't you? I know I punched you in the face a bunch of times this morning, but now I'm feeling really good. Especially since the clouds went away and all the zombies had to go hide again. You know, it's important that us mutants use our advantage like this. I like the feel of the wind through my toes and I'm sure if I had hair, I would like that, too..."
Even though his face ached from their altercation earlier, and he did agree with Mikey the weather was quite nice, the shape of a smile creaked through Don's cheeks. Less of the city filled the windshield, fewer stranglers on the streets, even fewer of the menace with dead eyes and black mouths. Absolutely none by the time New York's border passed under the wheels. Hello, Massachusetts.
And Mikey never stopped talking, either. Don rolled down the window.
"Did I bore you, bro?" Mikey said, half of his words a chuckle and more embarrassed.
Don didn't miss a beat. "I like the idea of us building mobile suits together actually. Even if I will be the one who does the grunt work. Have you smelled air this clean before? Just... a big one." He inhaled, lifted his foot off the pedal, and closed his eyes for a brief moment.
Mikey's head was already sticking out the window, like an excited pooch. He tasted the air with a slurp of his tongue and stretched for as much sunshine as he could imagine to taste.
"Mm, poptarts," he mumbled, hearing a low growl from his stomach.
Don opened his eyes slowly, and he remembered he hadn't looked at the gas gauge for quite some time. As soon as he saw the 'almost empty' buzzer light glow, the engine made an inhuman noise.
"What was that?" Mikey ducked back in the van and rolled up the window with lightning speed.
Don wasn't smiling anymore. He pointed at the gauge and said slowly, "Tell me how a gas pump works, Mikey."
Mikey's neck craned in Don's direction, and he felt a little insulted but brushed it off with a snicker. "I stuck it in the right hole this time." Cheesy grin attack.
"There should be NO reason we're almost out of gas. Do you see any gas stations around? I thought you filled us up." He squeezed the steering wheel.
"You passed one back there, actually. I think you had your eyes closed. Well so did I but I'm not driving and you won't let me drive because of the bonus points thing and Raph said that I-"
Don felt his left eye twitch. "Unless you feel like pushing this damn thing, keep an eye out for another station. No hanging your head outside either. It's dangerous." The sound of his window sliding into the door fell on his last word.
"I'll tell you what's dangerous," Mikey waved his finger at the windshield, "me without food in five minutes. So I got this!" He parked his face over the dashboard with his butt sticking up in the air.
"What if I have to slam on the brakes? There's a big possibility I might with zombies and deer running around."
"You got bandaids and aspirin back there, right?"
"Sit down."
"I'm on patrol for petrol!"
"Sit down."
"I see something!"
"Wiggling your ass is unnecessary. I see it, too. Stop jumping in the seat!"
As soon as Mikey landed in his seat, squeals and warbles erupted from the BattleShell, and while Don did everything in his frustrated power to keep it running, including thumping on the steering wheel and laying down as much force into the gas pedal as possible, their ride cruised no more. It stopped within a few feet of the gas station ahead.
Don sighed, staring into the distance, through trees and more trees, leaves on the road, and that lone little gas station, which sharpened the edges around his anger.
"So, um," Mikey said, appearing in body armor and talking through a mask, "I'll push if you steer. Come on. We can do this!" He was out of the tank before Don could say anything. Don heard his brother straining behind the tank, with all of his strength pushing the van an inch at a time. They would arrive at the farmhouse in exactly two years by his calculations. The sigh deep in chest felt more exasperated, but partly humored. Something about the un-dead and Mikey's tenacity through it all, even after trying to beat Don's skull in, balanced on this damn crooked see-saw of a life.
"We're gonna make it, Bro!" Mikey's cheers boomed through the woods and the almost-crimson Battleshell at this point. If Mikey's vocal cords gave out, nobody would really cry over it for a while.
Don muttered, "If only we were on a hill going down!" and exerted as much force as his tired arms and legs could stand. He knew if they didn't find a safe haven, or the farmhouse, to rest soon, the Battleshell wouldn't be the only thing not moving.
"Funny how-" Mikey popped between breaths, "-the birds stopped singing. That's not good, is it?"
A grundy noise rummaged in Don's throat as his response, which Mikey said, "Don? What was that? A zombie?! Go! GO!" and bolted extra momentum to their deceased vehicle, enough where Don broke into a light jog. He almost lost sight of the gas station until Mikey pounded on the back door, "You're missing the turn, Magellan!"
After a shipwrecked parking job next to the closest pump, Don and Mikey struggled to gain control of their lung functions again. Don wiped dripping saliva from his lips. "Magellan had over two hundred and seventy pair of hands. Do you see that many here?" Don looked in Mikey's general direction, but the hyper guy was standing behind the driver's side door.
Mikey pointed at himself, happily grinning inside the mask. "But they didn't have ME!"
Don grumbled, "Yeah right," and thumped the top of Mikey's helmet. "Let's see if there's any gas left."
"Or twinkies! They last forever."
The Battleshell's gas cap was usually a little tough to find. It was parked so close to the pump, Don had to reach between the pumps for the cap. "Actually they don't, and I didn't equip the tank to run on twinkies. Let's do this first, okay?" He wiggled his shell between the gap and steadied a tight grip on the gas pump. "Thank goodness, it runs on old standards. You think they built this thing when Magellan was around, Mikey?" He hit a eureka moment when the pump machine coughed and sputtered gas into the tank. He smiled a mile wide and assumed his brother would join in his cheering, "Look at that beauty! WOOHOO!"
But it was met with the sounds of the gas splashing into the empty tank and a faint breeze through the parking lot. No Mikey, as he soon found out. He called for him like a little puppy.
"TWINKIES!" Mikey's sudden burst of excitement made Don almost smash through the gas pump with his shell. Mikey chewed on two of the sponge cakes at a time and said, "It's a good day! We're alive and I have these babies!" Bags upon little bags of the cakes crackled in his arms. Before Don could catch his breath, a twinkie was shoved into his mouth. And he didn't complain.
Their moment of triumph soured when a strange noise came from the shop: more living than dead.