Don't Whistle Past the Graveyard

Ch. Forty

I don't think that people used to appreciate how glorious boredom is. If you're safe enough to feel bored... you've got a pretty good thing going.

That's what we were. We were stuck inside, with limited sources of entertainment and we were bored.

And it was great.

I mean, every now and then, things would get a little tense between certain members of the group... but it never resulted in anything serious.

By the end of the fourth day, we were stir crazy as all hell, and food was getting thin.

I guess karma started to take pity on at least one of us, because the sun finally decided to make an appearance on the fifth day. By the end of the seventh, the snow had melted enough for us to leave.

Nothing had really come of the zombies. They'd moved slowly through the deep snow, but since I didn't have an altercation with any cats, they didn't ever know we were there.

We left, and Shane decided it might be a good idea to head south. We all thought that, minus the possibility of random ice storms, the likelihood of getting stuck like that again would be slimmer the more we headed toward the equator.

We made it another week before it came undone.

I think we were somewhere in Virginia, maybe North Carolina, I'm not really sure. Then again, does it really matter?

We needed gas.

Here's Rule #26: If it feels shaky, don't.

Shane spent a long time just watching the parking lot. There were scattered zombies, but there were a lot of cars that looked like they'd been just left too. Like people had all gathered up at what I think was a school, then something had chased them off.

If we were lucky, there would be something more than gas to find down there.

The problem with #26? It's just not always viable.

The apocalypse life lesson here, that goes hand in hand with the rule, is that necessity will always trump uncertainty.

#26 is a good rule. It just so happens that a lot of the time, an empty tank or an empty belly supersedes it.

When another five minutes had passed, with Shane still looking at the parking lot, Kyle asked, "Yes or no, Shane?"

Shane sighed. Pointing to the zombies, he asked, "Why aren't they moving more?"

Cassidy frowned. "'Cause they're dead?"

"Hilarious," Shane muttered, watching the zombies. "That would be funny if a zombie hadn't tried to chew my face off this morning."

Unfortunately, he wasn't exaggerating. Shane had left the house we had stayed in this morning to take a look around, and had run into a group of about three zombies coming around the corner.

Cassidy just shrugged, a finger tapping against the trigger guard of her rifle.

"We still need gas," I murmured.

Shane scowled then shook his head.

See, the problem here, is that Shane always wants to follow his gut. But that's just the first problem, because there can't ever be just one, right?

The next problem is that his gut is usually right.

Doesn't seem like such a problem, now does it?

The problem is that sometimes he can't listen to it, even when it's right. Then he's got to try and pick up the pieces when things go wrong, just the way he thought they would.