REWRITTEN 6/25/16

Samik: PSA, PSA, I regret to inform you that our lovely authoress, Enia Silverson, has died in a most horrible accident.

Enia: What are you talking about? I'm right here.

Samik: No, she's not. She's actually dead.

Enia: Oh yeah…I died. It was most unfortunate.

Samik: She was killed by a bunny.

Enia: Hey, it was an angry, killer rabbit with giant muscles, huge claws, and sharp teeth, thank you very much.

Samik: No, it wasn't. It was a cute, little, fluffy, bunny.

Enia: …Shut the fuck up, Samik.

Road Trip

"We have a problem."

Onyx didn't ask me to come with her. She didn't say she had something to show me or even offer any sort of explanation for her statement. She just walked up to me, grabbed my arm, and yanked me away from the make-out session I was having with Samik.

"Oi!" I yelped indignantly, looking back at Samik pleadingly for help. The dick just laughed and waved goodbye with a wiggle of his fingers, grinning vibrantly. "I hate you," I mouthed at him, and he made a mocking heart back at me with his hands. His brown hair flopped adorably into his eyes and brushed the tops of his high cheekbones.

Onyx dragged me through the library and past clumps of silent, morose humans, weaving through the maze of scattered tables and bookshelves. The floor plan of the library looked nothing like it had when we'd first taken the building over. There were no more neat rows or perfectly square clusters of tables. Everything was haphazard and slapdash. "Where are we going?" I whined, trying to pry her fingers of my wrist.

"You need to see something," she replied, her grip like that of a goddam steel cuff. She strode forward purposefully, eyes fixed on a point in the distance, and I struggled to keep up so I wouldn't be pulled off my feet.

"What?"

But Onyx decided to remain mysterious and annoying and not answer me. I began to mouth insults at her back, each one more creative than the last, snarling and making faces and chomping at the air as if I was going to bite her. We passed Teemo and Arin just as he leapt down from a bookshelf to sneak attack his wife. Arin calmly punched him in the nose without having to look over her shoulder and sent him reeling.

Onyx and I left them behind to deal with Teemo's bleeding nose and arrived a minute later at the far end of the library. Onyx pulled me to a stop before the door to the makeshift storage room, the sunlight filtering in through the windows around us. "You gonna tell me what this is about yet?" I demanded.

In reply, she turned the knob and shoved the door open. The lights were out, shrouding the room in shadow, but we always kept a flashlight on the table next to the entrance. I grabbed the heavy handle and prepared to shine the light in Onyx's eyes as a petty revenge. I wondered briefly if I should work on my maturity levels, but then a second later, I jumped to 'screw maturity'. But just before I could point the flashlight in her face, its beam fell on the interior of the storage room.

It was…my mind struggled to come up with the best term…pretty much empty.

Not long ago, our shelves had been practically overflowing with supplies looted from the small grocery store just across the street. Now, each plank and every box stood barren and dusty, and the trashcans were overflowing with discarded wrappings. I slowly stepped inside, looking around in bewilderment. "What the hell happened?"

"I don't know. Your boyfriend probably got carried away with the cooking."

"He hasn't cooked anything in two weeks," I snapped defensively, pointing the beam of light at her face and forcing her to cover her eyes. "Don't blame him."

Onyx made a rude face at me, scrunching up her nose and curling her lip, and left the storage room. I followed, shutting the door behind me. "What do you want to do?" I asked her, figuring she wouldn't have gotten me if she didn't have a plan.

A patronizing face replaced the scathing one. "We go out and get more supplies, just me and you. I've been itching to get away from everyone lately."

"And you'd rather spend an extended period of time with only me for company?" I asked skeptically, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, no."

"Wow, thanks," I said drily.

As we made our way back towards the main area of the library, Onyx continued as if I hadn't spoken. "I figured you're too much of a control freak to let someone go in your stead, and two people seems like the right number for the job."

I would have been offended by the control freak comment except that I knew it was true. Even so, I snarled and made a face at her in order to retain my dignity.

"Which car do you want to take?" I asked.

"Police car, maybe," she answered. "But just until we get away from the humans. Then I'm going to run!"

I hesitated. "Onyx, I don't think I can keep up with you."

Onyx casually pushed me into a bookshelf. "What are horses for, dum-dum?"

I rubbed at my shoulder, wincing, and pushed myself away from the shelf, books tumbling to the ground behind me. "Uh, riding?"

"Good job," Onyx said in a patronizing tone.

"I didn't think you wanted people riding you."

"Well, you thought wrong. Now come on, let's get going!"

Onyx seized my wrist again and once more dragged me through the bowels of the library, nearly tossing me into the books each time she turned a corner, and then we left the dark rows of shelves for the wide open computer area where everyone tended to gather. Onyx didn't even slow as the heads turned up to look at us.

"We're going scavenging," I explained as I was pulled relentlessly past the humans and my friends. "If you have any requests, give them quick, because I don't think Onyx is stopping."

Instantly, practically every single person leapt to their feet and began to follow us, crowding in as close as they could get. "More food!" Samik called, and I narrowed my eyes at him. Well, no duh. "Better cooking supplies! Spices!" Only he would think about getting proper cooking gear at the end of the world. I shrugged. At least we would be eating better than every survivor out there.

"Toiletries!" Arin suggested, and then the humans started yelling, drowning each other out.

"Cigarettes!"

"Booze!"

"Pornos!"

I was going to turn around and smack someone. I fucking hated stereotypes and clichés.

"Books!" someone called.

There was a thud followed by a yelp of pain. "You're in a library."

"…Oh yeah."

"That's enough requests," Onyx decided as the crowd took a breath to continue shouting. She pulled on my arm harder, and we hurried down the staircase into the demolished first floor. The midday sun was right at its apex in the sky when we left the building, and it beat down on our heads as we made our way towards a set of five dangling ladders. Over the past week, we'd crafted them from various ropes and cords we'd scrounged up, and I thought they were pretty impressive.

Onyx and I each picked a ladder and raced the other to the top. I lost by a rung, because part of my ladder decided to break on me halfway up, and I barked my shin against the wall. I resisted the urge to push Onyx off the top as she celebrated by jumping up and down.

We had exactly one muncher visitor when we looked at the street. He had obviously died at a swimming pool, because all he had on was a black pair of swim trunks and goggles looped around his neck. He hadn't been an attractive swimmer, either. He was pasty and white, and his flabby belly flopped down over the waistband of his shorts. Coarse, black hair coated his chest and stomach and peeped over his shoulders. Death hadn't helped his looks any.

Onyx whistled as he looked up at us and groaned with outstretched arms. "Hello, ugly."

"Stay right there," I murmured, pulling out one of the three knives I had strapped to my belt. I closed one eye and poked my tongue out, taking careful aim at Swimmer Boy's head. I dropped the blade, point down, and it stuck in Swimmer Boy's forehead. The muncher tumbled to the ground. "Direct hit!" I cheered, pumping my arms.

Then Onyx, the kind and loving friend that she was, decided it would be fun to push me off the wall.

"Bitch!" I shrieked as I fell through the air, flipping over at the last second to save myself from crashing into the pavement with a puff of air. I barely avoided landed smack-dab on top of Swimmer Boy.

Onyx calmly slid down the ladder. "Jerk."

"Get in the damn car," I snapped good-naturedly, picking myself up off the ground. Onyx skipped over and claimed shotgun, leaving me to drive. I freed my knife from Swimmer Boy's skull with a squelch and hooked it back through my belt. Then I slipped into the driver's seat of the police car, adjusting my seat to the proper spot, and fiddling with my mirrors. I turned the car on and tossed it into reverse, not even bothering to check over my shoulder as I pulled away from the wall. I put the car in Drive and hit the accelerator as hard as I could.

Vroom vroom.

Enia: If you've got any ideas for an item or series of items that we should kill munchers will, leave a review and let me know!