Lisa
She awoke in the driver's seat, hunched over the wheel. The truck was firmly lodged against a tree and inoperable. Dried blood stained around her forehead and nostrils. Pain soon followed – a splitting headache and a dull throb where her cracked nose begged for a doctor's attention. She slowly reached towards her face and assessed the damage to herself before attempting to look around and survey her surroundings. The area was wooded, and she was in some sort of ditch or small ravine. She struggled to remember how she'd gotten there. There was a great deal of panicking... she remembered driving as quickly as she could into a wall of the undead... but the pain was too great. She rubbed at her throbbing temples.
Outside, it was daylight, but she had no idea what time it was. The truck's clock and radio were no longer working. The door stuck as she tried to open it, eventually turning in her seat and using her legs to force it into submission. As it creaked open, she hesitated before exiting. The others, she thought. I have to find the others. But there was no one else. No other vehicles. No road visible. The only evidence of a car was her own, with a solitary set of tracks leading to the sudden stop.
She doubled back on her tracks to where the trees broke into an open field. There were other tire tracks here, but they split in three different directions: one was her own, the other two seemed to go either way looking for a break in the trees. It seems only she'd made the wrong choice from the lack of other wrecks. She looked down at one of the corpses in the mud, tire tracks running over it. Did I do that?
She followed one of the tracks north, though she didn't realize it. In her daze, she found herself pawing at the wound on her forehead. The steering wheel had been a cruel cushion. The tracks ran over rocks and corpse alike, indiscriminate in their destruction. She followed diligently until she came to a forested road. The tracks went into the pavement before the dirt and detritus was shook loose from the treads and she lost track of their journey. Dismayed, but not defeated, she continued walking. No signs of life or death could be found here.
After an hour of walking, she came across a small rest area – little more than a gas station with a large parking lot. There were vehicles there, but they were all abandoned or wrecked with no signs of life again. Steeling herself, she entered the small gas station. Most of the supplies had been looted, but a few packs of bandages and first aid items hung on the rack near the door. She quickly wrapped her head in gauze, carefully dabbing rubbing alcohol against the wounds from one of the last bottles rolling on the floor. It stung with as much clarity as she needed to assess her situation. The sun was going down. She'd need to stay here, indoors and in relative shelter, if she planned on surviving the night. She canvassed the store for items, reminding her of the days with the dog. The dog, she thought.
Did the dog make it?
After gathering enough touristy t-shirts into a makeshift bed, she covered herself with a heavy, winter coat and lit one of the small candles she'd looted from a pack. The light was meager, but it sufficed for her to read the label for the aspirin. She cracked open a bottle of cheap energy drink – one of the few food items still left – and took the pills along with a meal of stale chocolate bar and pack of peanuts. For a weapon, she found a hockey stick hanging above the cashier's station. She didn't count on needing it, but old habits die hard. She curled up into the pile of clothing and, despite her best effort not to for fear of never waking up again, she slept.
She awoke with the first light creeping through the plate glass windows of the storefront. She moved slowly, as if every bone in her body screamed at her for medical attention. She gathered what few supplies she could and set out, following the road north with her hockey stick in tow. A road sign read that the first sign of a settlement would be found in three miles, causing her to pick up her pace. As she approached, she noted the telltale signs of any town: wrecked cars along the outskirts, a farmhouse that'd been thoroughly ransacked and even a large, industrial building that looked as if it had burned. She continued onward, looking carefully for any sign of her group. There was none.
The town was small, with a quaint main street lined with brick buildings and storefronts. She followed the sidewalk along the smashed-out plate glass windows with the remnants of civilization within. Plates sat on tables at a café. Items sat uncharged at counters in stores. Any food had been long since looted. All valuables were stolen equally. It was eerily quiet. There were no people, alive or dead. She kept walking until she'd left. There was nothing to help her here. As she departed, she noted a road sign: MOAT CAILIN 64km. She didn't know the town but grimaced at the length. At 64km, at her current pace, she would make it in three, possibly four days – if she had food and water. She stopped to look around for any sort of vehicle, but there was nothing.
Once again, Lisa Stone was all alone and out of luck.