The Runaways

Chapter Two

Mom served us all a plate of scrambled eggs and toast (both of which we got from ration coupons that the government sends out to all registered addresses). We were even allowed ketchup, something the government doesn't produce, and something you can only find on the N.B.M., or the New Black Market. In layman's terms, it was an illegal item to have that could mean death if a government official caught us with it. Coffee too.

But government officials don't really even bother checking houses outside of the rich sectors, so it's not a big deal.

The real threat for the people in the poor sectors is not being able to pay back the debts to the New Black Market vendors for getting the illegal items that you desire. They aren't particularly forgetful or merciful. Plus, they get offended quite easily.

And that can be like asking for a death wish.

I scratch L.T. behind the ears again as I sit on my bed and wait for Kat to emerge from the bathroom. I swear, all women take an hour to get ready for even a quick trip to their next door neighbor's.

Me, I just throw on clean clothes and brush my teeth. The joys of being a guy instead of a girl.

"C'mon Kat!" I yell to her impatiently, "Hurry up already!"

"Shut the hell up!" she counters back. "I wanna look semi-presentable, at the very least!"

I sigh, slightly irritated. "We're burning daylight! By the time you're ready to go, the zombies will be out!"

"Jesus Christ, it's the middle of summer! The days are longer," Kat snaps.

"That's not the point," I mutter to myself, mostly.

L.T. gazes up at me with his friendly, intelligent eye. His other eye was severely scratched by some wild animal when he was younger, and he's technically blind in one eye. There's a scar that runs over his eye, and it looks cloudy and glazed over, now that it's had years to heal. Still, though, it hasn't slowed him down. He's still my best friend, and a hearty comrade.

"Whaddya think, bud? Think Kat's just being a slowpoke on purpose?"

L.T. says nothing, but he just gives me that look. Like he's had one hundred past lives, and now that he's been reincarnated as a cat, he's got time to reflect on all of them and share that knowledge with the remaining humans.

"Yeah, so do I," is all I say to him.

L.T. rubs his head against the palm of my hand. Grandma once told me that cats mark their territory with their scent glands, and if a cat marks you, technically, you're part of their family.

I smile as L.T. proceeds to cover my whole hand and arm, and then he jumps onto my shoulder and settles into a comfortable position.

I chuckle at him just as Kat emerges from the bathroom, finally. Her hair is pulled up into a simple ponytail.

"Jesus Christ," I remark incredulously, "it took you twenty minutes just to do that?"

"Do you know how hard it is to get my hair up into a ponytail? Do you?!" she snaps back, walking over to her own bed and snapping on her utility belt, "My curls are very hard to tame. The length makes the knots a bitch to get out. Don't even get me started on trying to coordinate an outfit-"

"For God's sakes Kat, since when has any of that mattered?" I ask as I stand up. "We live in an apocalyptic world where you could get killed by zombies, bandits, angry N.B.M. traders, or the government. It's not like it was when Gran and Mom were younger..."

Kat sighs. "I know it's not. I know, me and you, we didn't have the luxury of growing up in a normal world..." she trails off, and then comes and grips me by the shoulders, a tad weary of L.T.'s already claimed spot. "But we've heard stories, stories of the glory days of the World Before. When life was nice, pleasant, and not full of so much death..."

I look into Kat's glittering, green eyes. I say, "What's that got to do with getting dressed to go to the market?"

Kat sighs, and punches me lightly in the chest. "Idiot! And I was getting all poetic and sentimental!" she sighs again, and then says quietly as she walks back to her bed to stash weapons into her belt, "...If we die, at least I won't look like a filthy scavenger."

I can't help but burst out in a laugh and run out of the room as she yells and chases after me.

It's a slightly quiet walk, up a few streets, to the re-vamped 7-Eleven that Gran says had been in the exact same spot, ever since she moved out to this house when she married my grandfather.

L.T. keeps a watchful eye on the cracked, broken asphalt, and the surrounding trees and plant life that have overtaken the small houses. It makes me shiver when I think that, as the traces of civilization breaks down and falls apart, the zombies' territory grows every day. In just a short time, there may no longer be any place that the sunlight can penetrate.

The world will belong to the zombies.

It seems that I've been so deep in my thoughts, that I missed the entire conversation that Kat was trying to have with me. I feel a punch in my shoulder, and I jar myself out of my thoughts.

"Wait...what?"

"Asshole," Kat mutters, quickening her pace so that she's in front of me and I'm behind her by a good few feet.

"I'm sorry for whatever I did," I say, as I catch up to her. "Because I know I probably did do something..."

Kat mutters, "Would it KILL you to listen to me for once?"

"In reality? Probably, yes..." I say, honestly.

That earns me another punch in the shoulder. L.T. yowls in my ear as I stumble a bit, nearly tripping over a hole in the cracked asphalt.

"Men," Kat says with slight disgust as we finally reach the parking lot of the 7-Eleven.