Second Chance

Chapter 68

Alex leads me down to her basement, where I did not even know farmhouses have basements, but apparently they do. We make it to the floor, and I half expect her to turn around and stab me with a knife until I bleed out and die again, but luckily that doesn't happen. Instead, she walks over to a table in the middle of the dimly lit room. I join her, and see that there is a giant map that stretches across the also very large table.

"This is us here," She points to a red dot inked onto the map where there's a bunch of farmland. "and this is the last city." Her hand trails halfway across the map where there's a large cluster of tall buildings and a looming forbidding wall circling around them.

She looks at me with concern in her eyes. "If what you say is true, then the outsiders must have broken in and started burning everything to the ground."

I shake my head. "No. In the past, when I've had these types of dreams, they always warn me about what is about to happen, not what's already happening right now."

"Alright, well at least you have some time to get your ass over there and save your girl." She says with a slight smirk.

"She's not my girl!" I protest.

"Whatever she is." She crosses her arms and rolls her eyes at me.

"I also need your car." I remind her.

Alex hesitates, giving me a suspicious look. "You better return it in one piece."

Shit. That reminds me. I don't know how to drive. "Uhhh....yeah, that reminds me." I say slowly. "I don't actually know how to drive. Could, uh, could you drive me there?"

She gives me a dry look. "This isn't a two hour trip, Justin. It's probably going to take a few days to get there. Plus, I'm waiting for someone."

I give her a sympathetic look. "Alex, your family isn't coming back, and you know that. Whatever happened to them must be terrible, but there's no point in hiding out here for no reason. If you come with me, then maybe you'll find a new purpose in life."

She stares at me with watery eyes for a moment, then says shakily. "They said they were going out to get some supplies, and they would be back in a few hours. That was two years ago."

Without realizing what I'm doing, I wrap my arms around her in a tight hug. It's not because I like her or that I want to hook up with her or anything, it's because I truly feel bad for her, and I want to make her feel better. To my surprise she hugs me back, which makes me feel really good.

When we pull away from each other, she smiles at me and says. "Okay, I'll go with you."

—-

Farmland flashes by me in a blur, but we're not anywhere close to somewhere more populated. We're still stuck in the middle of nowhere, and it makes me wonder how far Morgan has gotten, and where she is now.

"Do you know what happened?" I ask randomly. "What caused the apocalypse, I mean."

"It was a virus, a really bad one that wiped out most of the human population. That was about twenty years ago though, but the world isn't much different, besides most of the infected dying off." She tells me.

"What happened to the people who got the virus?" I wonder.

"They turn into zombies, of course." She says, but I can't tell if she's joking or not. "After a while though, the virus completely killed them, or they turned on each other and killed each other and probably ate them too."

"Ew." I comment, scrunching up my face.

"They had nothing else to eat, so it was kind of their last option." She laughs, glancing at me.

"How do you know so much about this?" I demand, giving her a quizzical look.

"My parents." She sighs. "They told me all sorts of stories. How come you don't know anything about it?"

"I was born into the apocalypse a few days ago." I admit, and she laughs, probably thinking I'm joking. "No, I'm serious. When I died in my old life I came back as the same seventeen year old male prick I was before. It's fucking weird, I know, but that's just how it happened."

"Well, you know what?" She starts.

"What?" I respond.

"You're a fucking wizard. That's how it happened." She explains, her voice vibrating with laughter.

"Yeah, you're right, actually." I agree, laughing too. "I'm a goddamn fucking wizard."

We end up laughing for a solid five minutes, and after that we fall into a comfortable silence. Alex keeps on driving for a while, but once it starts getting dark, she pulls over. This isn't my first time sleeping in a car, and I gladly stay in the passenger seat while she stretches out on the back seat.

I sigh contently, the whisper. "Goodnight, Alex."

There is a beat of silence, then I hear her whisper back. "Goodnight, Justin."