Have Mercy {Z Nation AU}

Safetyhouse

We drove. And drove and drove. God knows how long passed, but eventually we found a church.

"We should rest here, we've been driving for days." Murphy mumbled, we met his demand with tired groans.

Addy had ended up climbing in the back with us, and she had her head on my shoulder, half asleep. We pulled up to the church doors, Mack, Cassandra and Charles hopped out and scoped the area, we slowly got out of the truck, and Doc helped us take in the food and med supplies inside the church. It was empty. Addy and 10k went into the spare room to make sure there weren't any Z's, and soon after, the rest of the group came back. It started getting lighter , so we settled down.

"I'll take first watch," 10k offered as Addy and Roberta started pulling cans out of the food bag. We sat down on the floor in a circle, and passed around the cans of food. We broke them open, most of it was beans, but there was potato and meat, and even a gross spaghetti. We ended up sharing cans around, talking about the things we missed about the world, pre Z.

"I miss movie theatres." I said, followed by nods of agreement. By the end of it, everybody knew what everybody missed. Doc missed online porn. Roberta missed being able to go out with friends for lunch. Addy and Mack somehow both missed college life,
Cassandra missed showers, as did Murphy, Charles missed his family, and 10k missed his father.

Everybody settled down for the night, as 10k started getting ready. We found a couple of blankets and two pillows in the supply closet. we put one blanket down on the hardwood floor, divided the pillows into the centre, and put the other blanket over the top. I closed my eyes and ignored the giggles and footsteps all around us.

It was almost dawn when I sat straight up, gasping for air. 10k turned around from his position, but returned to it without saying anything. I got up and stretched. I walked over to where 10k was sitting.

"I know you were one of the ones to vote against me coming with you guys, you don't have to completely ignore the fact that I exist though, I mean I get it, I could've killed your friend. But you don't need to pretend like I don't exist." He didn't move, and I felt anger pulsating from him. I moved and sat on the floor and crossed my legs.

"I didn't." He said without looking at me.

"what?" I questioned.

"I didn't vote against you. Garnett told us what happened to you. Simple." He fired at something, but there was no gunshot. I looked towards the end of his rifle and saw a silencer, he mumbled something under his breathe. I decided not to press him any further. I went and stood by the window opposite, and just watched as this skeleton of a world woke up. There were no birds, or animals. 10k waited until Garnett woke up to go outside, he came back with wet hair, and he looked awake.

"Found a pond." He pointed towards the back of the church.

Garnett and Roberta took out the med and food bags and put one in each truck. We left as soon as everyone had done their business. Garnett and Murphy jumped into the truck, I decided to ride in the back. Roberta and everybody else rode in the other truck. I slid along the side of the truck barriers, 10k swung over the other side barrier, and sat directly in front of me.

For the drive, I decided to fix my stare to a single point. By the time I zoned out I realised I was staring at 10ks leg. He still never said anything to me on the way to wherever we were headed. I dug around in my bag, and pulled out my old half used journal. I held it in my hands and for some reason, I couldn't bring myself to open it. I grabbed the pen, opened to the next blank page and started to write.

Since I joined this group, I've felt as if I'm nothing more than either an outsider who will never be welcome, or some dumb kid. There's a girl here, her name is Addy, she's really the only one - who I think - is trying to be nice to me. She's really nice, she's tough too. She's what I aspire to be.

I don't know how to feel about all of this.

I closed the book, and shoved it back into my bag. 10k stared into the distance, but he wasn't really looking at anything.

"How did you get here?" I tapped his boot with my shoe.

He looked up at me, and shrugged.

Great.

It felt like hours had passed, and nobody said anything.

Robertas truck slowly started to fall behind, so we stopped. There was. surprisingly, nothing wrong with the truck, except an empty tank. We filled it up and kept driving. There weren't many Z's out, but we knew we'd come across some eventually. In a way, we jinxed ourselves. We found a group of about 50 Z's. We didn't know about what was inside them.