Forgetting the Apocalypse

38. First Night Out

Boaz POV*

I was freaking out. More than when I got the news I would need surgery and more than when I saw those zomb... Nope. I'm not gonna say it. I know that reasonably, what you see with your own two eyes you can't dispute. I mean you can't get more proof than your eyes but it's just too much to say that word.

Anyways, I've been freaking out long before the end of the world happened. But hearing that we would soley be traveling at night, day time if it was life or death made my heart race faster than the Indi 500.

How the hell would we see those things? Sure we knew that night was safer than the day but we had our safe zones. We never moved out after sunrise and when night would come we only set perimeter fires. Now they want us to actually go out and move about in the middle of the night with those things.

I know I should be grateful. Who knows how long we would have been stuck up on the roof, though most likely we either would've died up there or trying to escape. So them coming along and dispatching them like the badasses they are was truly a miracle. But I'm not the only one freaking out. I saw the way my sister went stiff when they said about night travel.

We've never done that. Last thing we want... I want to do is slow them down or even get them killed. Maybe whatever plan they're going to tell us about will make it easier or whatnot.

I look over to sis and see her putting her hair up in a ponytail, taking deep breaths. She had finished packing her things already. So did I.

When we rushed home from the hospital that day, mom and dad were already packing a few things. Some were more for sentimental value and others were what we quickly packed into the car when we got evacuated. We had more food packed than some were able to because we had our go-bags all set beforehand. So that extra packing was just extra stuff that we realized we had room for.

Our family wasn't one of those doomsday preppers or anything. Although, looking back we probably should apologize to them and I am curious to know how many of them have actually survived this. The reason our father was so deadset on us having go-bags was that he didn't always live in the U.S. He was born in the Philippines. A beautiful place really, one that my sis and I have had the pleasure of seeing once. However, as beautiful and wonderful as that place is, it had dealings with numerous tragedies such as typhoons and earthquakes. My father had survived both.

While the disaster itself had obviously taken many lives my father always said that he never felt the pains of struggling, helplessness and need until afterwards. It seemed to him that more people died from starvation, lack of medicine and supplies that the actual disaster.

When he came to the states he met my mom, he fell in love, had my sis and me and he moved to a place that had little to no natural accidents. Though it is life and it is the world, every place has its own perks. That's why he insisted on our family always having a go-bag and able to be ready in any emergency. That extra food we packed? It helped us in more than just keeping us fed.

Cans of beans and fruit cocktails have helped more for flu medicine than getting that stupid shot at Walmart every year that only made you sicker than just getting sick in the first place. Once those ran out we finally started using those vegetable medley cans.

So now here we are staring at our car slash home for the last time. It was just a car. One that I wasn't even to get since I was supposed to be saving up to buy my own. And even though we were in safe zones, this car was our home. It was like when we moved out of apartment and got our first house so my sister and I wrestled for dibs on the rooms. Only this time it was us trying to wrestle for the trunk space instead of the backseat.

"Listen, I know that we owe these people our lives but you are the priority. The minute you feel like you can't keep going then we take our chances on our own no matter how fucking low our chances are alright?"

I wanted to smile and tell her that I was with her all the way but I didn't want my voice to give me away. My sis has always been the cool cucumber. Always been the one to make sure that we were all calm and collected whenever we found ourselves in any kind of stressful situations, so I thought I could be that for her for a change.

With as much conviction as I can muster I replied, "Together, no matter what."

Slinging my bag over, I shut the trunk of our car and walk next to sis over to where they were waiting for us. All four of them looked badass. Well, eight of them if you count their dogs. I should count them. Even they had their harness and gear. The one that was on that girl's leash, even her dog I could see had some weapons strapped to his harness. The more I looked at them all, the more they reminded me like a love child between the avengers and the punisher.

"Alright, first rule of travel. Keep quiet. From this moment on, nothing above a whisper. Unless it's absolutely important, no talking. We clear on the first rule?" he asked.

That was fair. We knew how any little noise attracted these dead cannibal freaks. Heck, even the animals have learned to keep noise to a minimum.

"Good, rule number two is that we don't stop. We keep going all night until a couple hours before sunrise. That's when we make camp. However, don't be a hero. You're injured or anything then speak up and we slow pace. You get hungry or anything then silently snack on the way. Clear."

This time, it was one of the brothers that spoke. The one with glasses who looked closer to my age. He looked pretty cool. His older brother looked a drill sergeant. As if a smile was a foreign concept to him.

"We have a way we walk. You two will be in the center. One word from us and you follow it like law, got it?" he didn't even bother waiting for our reply.

Yeah, he wouldn't hesistate to leave me or my sis behind. But I'll take being left behind any day than the look I get from the girl. She looks like she'd use us a bait.