Emy POV
"LIFE IS A HIGHWAY, I WANNA RIDE-"
"JOHN, JASPER, could you tone it down a bit?" I ask as politely as I can without wanting to strangle both their throats. They've been driving me UP THE WALL for the past thirty minutes singing whatever road-trip appropriate song pops into their heads. We've been following Johnny through the streets, since the highway is filled with empty cars. Occasionally we'll stop and search some of them to see if we can find anything of value, and luckily we do. Mostly money, food, water, toys, blankets, batteries, radios, and gasoline that's stored in the trunk. Right now, we're about five miles away from the city, but I have no idea which mall we're heading to; Sara never told me and there are like five different malls scattered throughout downtown.
Downtown is a pretty tricky place to navigate through, since at every stop light there are three streets to choose from, each heading towards a different destination. The entrance to downtown has been completely sealed off by a huge fence that was put in place by the military, to keep walkers in and people out, but that idea failed once the situation got out of hand and the walkers broke free from their holding area. Now it's littered with tanks, guns, medical supplies, food, tents, and barricades; every survivor's dream, but you would never be able to inhabit downtown because of the hundreds of walkers that roam there.
I look through the windshield at the van in front of us and realize that it's slowly going out of view. I feel the car slowly come to a sudden stop.
"What?! No, no, no, no, no!" I get out of the car and run as fast as my legs will take me after the van. I'm waving my arms frantically, yelling out for them, but it's useless when they're going at sixty miles per hour. I turn around and run back towards the car. I slump down and rest my agitated body against the steel exterior. Damn! I forgot to fuel up before we made the errand! I run my fingers through my hair, tugging once I reach their ends.
"John! Jasper! Get our things, we're going after them!" I yell, knowing that they know to just follow my orders without any questions. After doing a few runs with me, they know not to ask too many questions when I'm angry or frustrated. I dust myself off and heads towards the back of the trunk. I pop it open and grab all of our bags containing our weapons and blankets. I look at us and we each have one bag slung on our shoulders. I reach up and close the door, hard, angry at myself.
"Ugh, how could I have been SO STUPID!" I yell, kicking the back tire with my right foot. I can immediately feel it start to become numb, but I don't care. I've never been so reckless in my life! I know that these runs are important. You never know if you're going to be separated, or worse, attacked by a human or a zombie. Johnny should've noticed by now that we're not following him...or what if he doesn't notice until they get to the mall? This is too much for one person to handle.
"E-Emy, don't you think we should try and catch up with them?"John asks, tip toeing around the bubble I've enclosed myself in.
"You know what...how come YOU didn't fill up the tank? Huh?" My finger is drilling into his chest, causing him to lean back a bit. He staggers backwards, not knowing how to reply, but making sure not to say something that'll fuel my rage. I can see fear flood into his eyes; my self-inflicting blame already leaving my system.
"Whoah, Emy take it down a notch, okay? No one is to blame here, it was just a simple mistake, no big deal." Jasper intervenes, putting his hands in front of my shoulder blades.
"No big deal? NO BIG DEAL?! Jasper, we're in the middle of a fucking meadow! Johnny and Sara have almost all of the weapons! We're out of gas, probably SURROUNDED by walkers, and, and, we don't even know where the others are headed! We're four miles away from the city, it's gonna take us about forty minutes to get there! So, NO, this isn't a big deal." I cross my arms in front my chest and face away from them, hoping my actions will get my point across.
"Well then we might as well get going." Jasper says in an annoyed voice, but trying so hard to keep his cool. John tugs on his bag, securing it tightly over his shoulder. He walks past me, heading down the lonely road, kicking pebbles out of his way. His body mimics the figure of a puppy kicked to the curb.
"John, I-" He puts up his hand, silencing me, not turning his body to face me.
"It's okay, I get it. You were mad. No big deal." He says coldly, trying to spare my feelings.
"No it's not okay, I shou-" I stop midway when I feel I hand on my shoulder. I look back to see Jasper slowly nodding a 'no'. I retreat my apology and all three of us continue walking down the road in silence.
Five minutes later, John breaks up the tension and speaks up.
"You know, I think I may know why you went all out on us." He says with a smirk. I'm afraid of his response, but I feel compelled to ask why.
"Oh really? What's your explanation?"
"Oh this is gonna be interesting." Jasper interjects, looking at us with a face of amusement.
"I think it's just all the hormones in your system."John says with a smirk, looking out into the distance and back at me. He's obviously amused by where this conversation is headed, but I'm not totally on board.
"What do ya mean, 'all the hormones in my system'?" I look at him with a confused look on my face, while Jasper is having a giggle fit to my right.
"Emy and Lindsey, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G..." Jasper starts to sing, but before he finishes, I cover his mouth with my hand, muffling the words.
"What?! No! That is SO not true!" I say, half laughing, and half horrified.
"U-um, Lindsey, I-I think I like you." John says, in his best impersonation of me.
"HAHA!" Jasper laughs, stopping to bend over and slap his knee caps. Honestly, they can be so childish sometimes!
"You act like such a 13 year old boy around her..." Jasper can't continue his sentence, he's too amused by my silence, interpreting it as a confirmation to everything they've said. We walk the rest of the way in comfortable silence, my mind flooded with thoughts of Lindsey.
Sara POV
"Damn! They're coming in from every angle! Make a right Johnny! To the right!" He does as I tell him, the van almost tipping on its side due to the sharp turn onto Main Street. I take my aim and shoot, letting the gun shot ring through the empty streets. Another goes down, its brain matter spraying the sidewalk. Another walker approaches the car and stops in front of it, unaware that we're about to run into him. Johnny runs him over and we hear a loud thud as he tumbles off the hood.
"Where did they go?! Weren't they following us?!"
"I don't know, maybe they took a shortcut?" I respond to Johnny's question. I know it's a stupid answer, but I'm hoping they did; at least they wouldn't be that far away if they did. Tegan shoots a walker down with a gummy smile on her face.
"What are you smiling for?" I ask her half annoyed that she finds the situation funny, while the other half of me is staring at her in adoration. She has the most amazing smile I've ever seen; celebrities got nothing on her.
"Nothing…all this just seems so exciting. I've only done these kinds of things in video games, and I was kind of horrified, but I don't know…this kind of life seems almost…exciting in a way you know?" She looks at me with weak smile, not sure if what she's just said is the right thing to say. There are hundreds of things I could tell her right now that would prove otherwise. Our lives are literally fucked up. We no longer have running water, much less hot water. There's still electricity, but who knows how long that'll last. We have to live the rest of our lives in fear because we don't know what's out there, and we don't know if we'll have weapons to defend ourselves in the future. Families have literally been torn apart (mostly by the zombies) and good luck if you're pregnant and a survivor, I mean that would be extremely hard, but having a kid is totally worth it, sure not in this period of time. I could tell her all of these things, but I don't want to wipe her smile off. She looks so excited by the idea that she's killing zombies left and right, and I don't want to take away her excitement, I mean who knows if she'll ever experience the kind of giddiness that she's experiencing right now? How can you in this world? Let her be giddy, for what's probably the only time she'll feel giddy for the rest of her life.
"We're such bad asses." I tell her with a smirk. She smiles at my joking around and turns around to continue shooting down walkers.
"Sara are we almost there?" Johnny asks, frantically weaving in and out of the crowded streets at high speeds.
"Yeah, we're probab-JOHNNY LOOK OUT!" CRASH! I see someone fly out of their seat, while I double over in pain and see Johnny struggling to get the door unlocked. When it doesn't budge, he kicks it as hard as he can, wincing in pain. The door falls to the ground, and he gets up, coming over to my door and opening it. He clutches his ribs in pain and walks over to Tegan's door. I get up from my seat in the back of the car and head over in Johnny's direction.
"Sara, Tegan's not in here!" He sounds frantic and turns his head in all directions desperately looking for Tegan's body. We spot her about ten feet from the car, near the military tank that we crashed into. Oh my God she's dead. No wait, her chest just moved. Thank God!
"Tegan!" I run frantically to her side as I see a walker moving towards her. I stop my running and start to calmly walk in her direction, my gun in front of my face, aimed and ready to fire. Down goes one walker, I quickly look to my left and take down another, then another, and then another. I walk past Tegan's body and stop near her head. I shoot down another walker.
"JOHNNY! She's over here, hurry up!" I yell, but not looking in his direction.
"Tegan, open your eyes, talk to me, move your face, something!" I can hear Johnny say to Tegan.
"Oh thank God…okay, Tegan tell me what hurts."
"I can barely feel my right leg. My arm, it hurts so much."
"Okay, I'm just going to roll up your jeans and check your leg." I hear the rustling of clothes, but I can't look back, these walkers are coming from every crook on the sidewalk.
"Tegan, your leg is…well, it's broken, but I don't want you to look at it."
"What why?"
"Because…just don't look at it."
"Umm…okay?" I steal a glance behind me, and quickly look away. Tegan's bone was literally jutting out of her skin. It had snapped in half…how could she not feel that? Suddenly, I hear thunder…wait what? It's not raining…I look back, fear taking over.
"J-Johnny! Grab Tegan, we need to go!"
"What? Why?"
"We need to go NOW!" He looks back at the hundreds of zombies turning the corner onto the street that we're on.
"Sara, get Tegan inside the tank! I'm gonna go back for the medical supplies!" He shouts, and no later is Tegan's body limp in my arms. I shove us both under the tank and open the hatch. I manage to help Tegan get in first, soon followed by me. Johnny's face appears through the hole and he quickly climbs in, throwing the heavy medic bag in first.
"What do we do now?"
Bruce POV
"Are you sure? You're guaranteeing us all of the weapons?"
"Yes…all of them." I respond. They're playing right into my little trap. In a couple of days, we're gonna be storming into the useless camp…finally getting my revenge.
"What do we have to do again? I wanna make sure we do this right the first time."
"All you have to do is drive where I tell you to drive, and attack. Take all the women. Kill all the men. Leave the children. Take all the supplies you want. All you're doing is helping me…I keep three of the women…the rest are yours to keep." My patience is wearing thin with these dumb fucks, honestly why couldn't I hire a smarter group. The boss sits there stroking his chin, contemplating his decision.
"All right…deal." He extends his hand to shake mine, but I deny it.
"Deal…but just know that I'm in charge of the whole operation."
"Alright, fine with us." He leans back into his chair and looks at his fellow men. They all nod in agreement. It's only a matter of time.