How It All Ended

Chapter 7

 I turned and ran in an effort to put some distance between me and the thieves.

"Hey! Get back here!" The tall guy screamed at me. "We just want to talk."

"The fuck you do!" I replied. Yeah, they seemed like the reasonable type.

The shorter guy was quicker than his counterpart. He reached out and tried to grab the back of my shirt. His grab attempt missed, and he stumbled, falling on his face in the middle of the street.

"You dumbass!" The taller guy shouted at his companion.

Holding the shovel in my right hand, I quickly spun around and hurled the weapon towards the taller guy. The shovel struck the man in the chest, and he fell down in the street next to his buddy.

With the two car thieves downed, I ran past the two of them, continuing towards Hartwell street. As I left the two scumbags in my dust, I heard them yelling and screaming some type of crap about how they'll get me.

When I was about a block away from the freeway overpass, I stopped to catch my breath. It was quiet all around me, and I didn't hear the thieves anymore. I was sure that I managed to lose them.

"Looks like I ditched those assholes." Yeah, I lost one of my weapons, but I had to get the hell away from them.

I was able to slow down and walk towards the overpass. I noticed that the neighborhood I had been walking through seemed just as deserted as my own.

"Where in the hell did everyone go?" It really did feel like everyone just up and left. That's what I thought until I made it to the freeway overpass.

"Holy shi-" I muttered when I looked down onto the expressway.

Every single lane of the highway was clogged with abandoned vehicles. Even the inclines on either side of the expressway were chock full of cars and trucks. I walked to the other side of the overpass, and it was the exact same thing: empty vehicles, most with their doors open. Personal belongings littered the road. I looked as hard as I could, and I couldn't see any movement at all.

"They tried to leave," I whispered. Where everybody took off was beyond me. I couldn't stick around that area for long, however. Just in case those car thieves were still looking for me, I had to get a move on. Who knows, they could have gotten a vehicle and were riding around, trying to find me. So, I continued to Hartwell road.

Once I made it to Hartwell, I saw that the street appeared to be calm, and there was nobody around. My first thought was, "Where the hell is that VFW?" I couldn't remember, and I damn sure didn't know which way I should head. "Flip a coin, Dom."

Standing on the street corner, I decided I would walk a few blocks to my left first. If I couldn't find anything in that direction, I'd turn around and head the opposite way. If things were safe to do so, that is.

There were more than a few wrecked and ditched cars that lined Hartwell road. It looked like the vehicles just stopped running, and their owners just left them right there on the road.

Trying my best to look down the street to see if I could spot anything that resembled an aid station, I tried to look at both sides of the road, but I was screwed: I couldn't tell one way or another.

"Shit," I sighed. But I did notice a small restaurant on the other side of the road a few blocks from where I was.

"Food," I muttered. I decided to head for the restaurant and see if I could add to what supplies I had.

While I was making my way across the street, things got a little noisy. I heard someone shouting nearby. I quickly took refuge behind a wrecked sedan and listened.