They Called It The Apocalpse

Chapter 20

It wasn't much later when the tents were up and fully operational as night shelters. They discarded their bags inside, Jason, Cassie and Tate placing their things in the same tent, then Jason and Tate went further into the woods to find some fallen trees to use as seats. They came back with a log in their hands, sharing the load between them. Another log came later then they set to work plucking materials for the fire. Jason collected some dry material like leaves and bark whilst Cassie collected twigs and Tate collected branches. Thalia sat in the tent, sulking about her newfound back pain and aching soles of her feet. Tate allowed Jason to strike the flint and steel, based on the fact that Jason had done it before at a scout camp, the fire burst to life and they sighed at its warmth. The nights were dropping colder so the heat was a welcome addition to their camp. Tate sat down on one of the logs, stretching his legs out in front of him and leaning back to look up at the stars. "Man. Never in a million years did i imagine I'd be here right now." He breathed wistfully and Jason smiled, sitting down on the log opposite, he shook his head and stretched his own legs out, "Me either." He whispered but there was an air of sadness behind it. Cassie decided to sit too, flinching at the weight put on her arm as she used it to help her swift properly, she recovered quickly though and held her hands up to the fire, smiling at the lick of heat that the fire was emitting. "Come over here Thalia." Cassie encouraged, patting he log next to her and watching as Thalia shook her head. "No, thank you. I think I'm just going to go to bed." With that she crawled forwards and took a sleeping bag off of the pile then disappeared inside of her tent. Jason shook his head, wrapping his arm around Cassie and appreciating her that little bit more now they had a member like Thalia in their group. Cassie tried not to let it show but Jason's arm hurt, it was a nice gesture of closeness but it shot bursts of pain through her whole arm. She gritted her teeth, attempting as best she could to ignore the pain. Her eyes connected with Tate's and she realised he'd been watching her, the whole attempt to hide her discomfort had been observed. She shuffled away from Jason, sitting just out of his grasp as he looked down at her hurt. "You know, I think I'm tired too. I'm gonna go to bed." She got to her feet, selecting a sleeping bag then heading into the second tent. "We're gonna need a watch out tonight, I think." Tate explained and they fell silent to listen to the noise around them, things shuffled through the underbrush or rummaged in the dirt, there was creatures everywhere. "I'll stay up, you get some sleep." Jason nodded, smiling half heartedly at Tate. He stood up and frowned at Jason as he collected his sleeping bag, he got to the entrance to the tent where Thalia slept then turned back to look at Jason, "You sure?" He asked, and Jason laughed then nodded slowly as though it was a fact that he had to be the person who stayed up. "Yeah, now go to bed." Tate gave him a thumbs up then went into the tent.

Inside he zipped up the tent then shuffled further in, Thalia lifted her head to see who it was, one side of her black curls plastered to her face. "Who?" She asked, seemingly stopping before she got her whole sentence out. Tate stayed silent, as he unrolled his sleeping bag next to her then crawled across it and stretched out on his stomach, "Tate." He finally responded as he smashed his face into the padded heading of the sleeping bag. "Great, just what I wanted." She grumbled, putting her head back down and flipping over to face the wall instead of him. Tate rolled his own head sideways to look at her, "oh, come on, there's no one else you'd rather spend the night with." He smiled sarcastically at his own crude remark. "F you Tate." She muttered under her breath and Tate chuckled before he pressed his face back into the sleeping bag and went to sleep being amused by her childish nature.

Jason stared at the stars as they twinkled, tracing pathways between the other stars then stopping when he reached the moon. He sat up a little straighter then his mouth fell open, he hadn't seen the moon in months, it never appeared in front of the clouds anymore but tonight it shone brightly above him. He leaned a little closer to the fire, trying to get just a bit warmer. In his pocket the letters he'd written seemed heavy and daunting and he pulled them out to take a look at them. His eyes skimmed the words as he read them in his head. Fear filled his insides with stone, he'd written them as an eventuality but each day they seemed to grow closer to relevance. Something rustled in the brush behind him and he whirled round, staring at the spot where it had made a noise. Everything seemed incredibly still and us alive as he watched without moving, until finally a small bunny popped out from the closest bush and sniffled along the floor. Jason slowly reached for his gun, drawing it from its holster and aiming it directly at the rabbit. Unaware it continued its hunt for food, scavenging across the road and making small clicks with its overgrown claws as it hopped. Jason waited patiently until the rabbit looked up, its beady black eyes, tiny pin heads in the moonlight. He lowered his gun, relief flooding his body as the rabbit foraged then picked up a leaf and began to munch on it. Jason smiled, reaching into his bag and drawing out a piece of stale popcorn, he tossed it to the rabbit and mused at it crunching on it with a renewed vivacity.

Cassie woke up disoriented, a hazy blue light shone through the canvas sides of the tent and confused her. She could barely see through the blurring of her vision and she winced at her shoulder, feeling the sharp pain spike each time she moved. She reached about blindly for her satchel then rummaged around inside until her hand clamped around the circular medication bottle. She drew it out and unscrewed the cap as rapidly as she could before tossing a couple pills into her mouth and swallowing. She felt them scratch their way down her throat and sat up coughing, she could taste metal but she swallowed it back, coughing again due to the dry air flowing in and out of her body. The zip at the front of the tent undid and Jason's head popped through the door, he raised his eyebrows in concern but Cassie thought he looked tired. "You alright?" He asked, crawling a little further into the tent and sitting down with his legs crossed. He stared at Cassie expectantly as she shuffled up to a proper sitting position with her back straight. "Yeah, I'm just thirsty." she coughed again and Jason reached from her satchel to grab her water bottle. She snatched it away from him and terror rose up in side of him, "no." She whispered, hugging the bag against herself and staring intently back at him, "there's things in there." Jason laughed to disguise his sigh of relief, she hadn't figured out yet that it was him who had been snooping in her bag. He rolled his eyes but waited around until Cassie brought out the bottle of water herself and took a sip.

She took a moment to let it wash over her scratchy throat then looked up at Jason, he wanted expectantly to see if she was going to cough again but she never did and instead she pulled the sleeping bag further up her body to try and block out the cold that was seeping in from outside. "Wow, its cold today." Cassie remarked as she huddled further into the protection of the warm bedding. Jason nodded in response as he turned back and zipped the end of the tent up to trap in some warmth. "It's been cold all night." He explained as he crawled further into the tent and sat down beside her. She undid the zip of her sleeping bag and offered it towards it, intending to share it like a blanket but he shrugged it away. "You think its going to be this cold all day?" She asked as she fumbled with the zip which had somehow gotten stuck on the way back up. Jason shrugged again, during the night it had been so cold at some points that he'd found himself trying to stoke the fire with what little twigs and dirt they had left in the camp, only for the majority of the fire to burn out just before sunrise. "Anyone else up?" Cassie asked, nodding towards the door and Jason shook his head, "No, I could hear Tate snoring all night though. It was ridiculous." Cassie chuckled to herself, leaning sideways against Jason and resting her head on his shoulder. "I've missed this." She mumbled, closing her eyes and absorbing the moment for just a few more seconds. "I've missed you." She turned and looked up at Jason, he was looking straight ahead instead of at her, his facial expression sad instead of content like hers. "Cassie..." he started but stopped himself. He couldn't look at her, not right now, in the moment where she was most vulnerable because he didn't know what he'd promise her if he did. "What if something happens? Someone gets bit or worse. The apocalypse isn't the time for relationships." He thought about where he was going with his point whilst he explained but he kept coming back to the same image in his head, the one he'd had for as long as he could remember. He always saw his future as her, sitting on the porch of a rickety farm house, hands joined together in the centre of their two chairs. Cassie has a little dog on her lap in his ideal future and their grandchildren play on the open fields beyond the house. "I....I couldn't take it if..." Cassie's hand came up, stroking his cheek affectionately and bringing his eyes back around to look at her. She smiled warmly but in her grey eyes he could see understanding. "It won't happen." She stated as a sadness filled her up inside, she'd never meant to make Jason worry or ever get this far from her safety net back in the drab little room with no proper working water. "Maybe, at the resting place, it'll be better." Jason tiptoed into the possibility, "maybe then we can...not start again but be together." A smile blossomed on Cassie's face and Jason's mind couldn't help but bring back up the image of her bloodied lips. "Maybe we can just be together now and be content with what we've been given." Jason shook his head as if to disagree but when his eyes caught Cassie's again he found it hard to deny her of what she wanted. "Alright..." he whispered cautiously, leaning down over her face to press his forehead against hers. "But this time you don't get to call all the shots." He tilted his head down and planted a soft kiss on her lips and she smiled into affection with a warm buzz inside.