Oh god, it's been months by now. I lost track of time so long ago. All our testing and experimenting proved useless, there's no way of reanimating the dead. We wasted so much time when we could have been heading to some safe haven. Not only that, but it was down to four of us: myself, Pogan, Danny, Desmond, and our little rotter.
I'm looking over her right now. She's looking back. Only now, she's defrosted and clawing at the glass. God, she looks awful.
"Danny, can we try my plan now?" Desmond's voice. He's been on guard, but he has a halfway good idea.
"Go ahead. Our testing was useless, just do it." I step behind her and get ready to open her container. He has a machete prepared.
"Are you sure this is gonna work?" I ask for maybe the twentieth time today.
"Trust me, man. Open it." I crack open the capsule, and the smell of a human is enough to make her furious. She opens it the rest of the way. Danny rushes to help me hold her arms wide. Sickening cracks and rotten blood flying doesn't phase us at this point, and both her arms are promptly cut off. "Put her on the ground." We get her face-down, and her jaw is broken in. She's suddenly so calm. "I saw this on an episode of The Walking Dead. Get a rope and tie it around her neck." I grab an old rope ladder and cut out a sturdy leash. She's tied up tight.
"She's so calm."
"I guess once you take away their arms and jaw, they lose the will to eat. And she can't die, she's already dead."
"Alright. Now, to Canada with the last of us."
---
She was sitting in the truck bed while the rest of us were inside. I was driving. Danny stuck his head out of the back window and spoke to her.
"How ya doin' back there?" In the rearview mirror, I saw her look at Danny with a glazed look. Honestly, she looked lost and confused. "Sorry we gotta treat you so harshly, it's just protocol." I could hear gurgling from her.
It was so quiet now that humanity was 90% dead and 10% M.I.A. Canada was bound to have somewhere for us to set up a camp if it was anything like America. We just needed to be careful about gas. While I drove and Danny kept Ariana occupied, Desmond looked for anything on the radio.
"You're just getting static, man. Just put on some music."
"Gimme two more minutes. If there's nothing, then I'll hook up my phone and we can pretend we're on a road trip."
"With our deceased dog in the back," Danny added.
"Very funny." He kept the search up. Nothing, nothing, nothing.
"It's AM radio just like before the outbreak, holy shit!" That got a chuckle out of the two.
"Desmond, just play some music, even the rotter's getting antsy from the static." He groaned and hooked up his phone.
"Let's see if Pandora radio is still a thing..." He was successful, but all he had was 50's stations.
"I guess we can put up with it, but only for so long."
---
The great thing about Ariana's step dad's truck was the GPS function. Only 11 hours and 2 minutes left 'til Quebec if we go slow and don't waste gas. We listened to a variety of 50's music along the way, and so far only made two bathroom stops. Not only did we just sit in the truck and wait, but we all noticed something: nature was slowly taking over. Tree saplings were all around us, even in the street, there was a large herd of cows that had passed maybe a half hour ago, birds had returned and were singing their songs.
"Just wait 'til a few years from now, full grown trees all over and hybrid animals and shit," Danny said.
"Think so?"
"Yeah. Especially the hybrid animals, since now any kind of animal breeding's gonna go unchecked for a very long time."
"I suppose you're right. Maybe we'll get larger cows for more steak." My mouth watered at the thought of a big, juicy steak, but that wouldn't happen for a long time.
"Maybe the zeds'll grow dumber and weaker and kill themselves off?"
"Imagine that. Even if it's years from now, just imagine it. Taking back our town just because a few zombies fell in the ravine.
"Or the last of humanity joining together and making one large population. Then we can move back up from there. We have some technology left, and a lot of generators."
"That would take literally years of thoroughly searching every house in America just for those two items. Personally, maybe we should remake such things and base our next inventions off history. Like water wheels for power, and we lived in trees away from danger..."
This conversation continued for quite some time; I didn't even bother to check the remaining travel time or the gas. The next time I'd check, we were down to half a tank and six hours left.
Day turned to night fairly quickly, signaling the coming of the colder months. and judging by the truck, it was August 26th, 2015. Damn, just last year we were getting ready for the upcoming school year. We'd all have been sophomores by now. Times have definitely changed.
