Still Breathing

Chapter 5

Gas 'N Gulp

Dawn broke sickly and gray over the ravaged campus, casting long shadows through the makeshift shelter of the library. Rose stirred from her fitful doze, cheek mashed against a scratchy tweed shoulder. For a bleary moment she was back in Lecture Hall B, nodding off to the drone of Professor Castillo's soothing baritone.

Then the events of the previous day came crashing back and she jolted upright, heart slamming against her ribs. Not a dream. Oh God, it hadn't been a dream.

"Easy," Castillo murmured, warm hand cupping her elbow. "You're alright. We're alright."

Rose looked to him, taking in the five o'clock shadow dusting his jaw, the tired lines around his eyes. But beneath the weariness, there was something else. Something fierce and determined that made her want to believe him, to believe in him.

Around them, the others were stirring awake, stretching sore limbs and blinking sunlight from gummed eyelashes. Nina sat up with a jaw-cracking yawn, cinnamon hair tangled around elfin features. At her side, Margot scowled at a run in her tights, lips pursed. So impeccably put together, even in the midst of Armageddon.

"Please tell me civilization has magically pieced itself back together while we slept," Max groaned, arching his back until it popped. "Lie if you have to."

"'Fraid not, compadre," Tobias drawled in an exaggerated cowboy twang that was eerily spot-on. "Still the end times out there, best I can figure."

Rose scrubbed her gritty eyes, battling a swell of exhaustion-fueled hysteria. Of course. Of course the theater kid was treating the apocalypse like an improv workshop. Why expect anything less?

"Speaking of out there..." James made his way to the window, lifting a slat of the blinds to peer through. "Looks like our adoring public has mostly cleared out."

They all crowded around, jostling for a glimpse of the campus below. He was right - where there had been a seething mass of infected beating at their doors yesterday, now only a handful of stragglers remained. They lurched across the quad, some dragging mangled limbs, others making grotesque meal of the fallen. Rose's stomach turned and she swallowed hard against the sour rush of bile.

"We should go now," Castillo said, voice low and urgent. "While the herd's thinned. We're sitting ducks here."

"Go where?" Nina asked tremulously. "The dorms? Home? I hate to break it to you, Professor, but something tells me Podunk U isn't the only place that's gone to hell."

"Maybe not," he allowed. "But we've got to get off campus. Find food, supplies, somewhere more defensible than a room full of relics and first editions."

"He's right," Rose said, surprised at the conviction in her own voice. All eyes swung to her and she lifted her chin. "We all saw how fast those...those things move. It's only a matter of time before another wave hits. We need to be long gone when it does."

Margot fiddled with the strap of her Balenciaga, brows furrowed. "Okay, but again...go where?"

There was a beat of heavy silence, seven minds churning behind seven pale, pinched faces. Then:

"Gas station." It was Max who spoke, snapping his fingers like a lightbulb had just flicked on. "There's a Gas 'N Gulp right off campus, maybe half a mile west. It's small, easy to secure. And I'd bet my Xbox it's got at least some food and water squirrelled away."

"Weirdly practical, my dude," James said, clapping him on the shoulder. "I'm in."

"Seconded," Tobias chirped, eyes gleaming. "Operation Snack Attack is a go."