When I lean in closer to the toilet, my knee hits it clumsily, making me say a word that would've had my Dad giving me the 'look'. I almost don't hear the lid of the tank shaking as it rocks precariously. The sound draws my attention and I curiously lift the top of the tank and shine my flashlight inside. The back of the tank is full of water. I pan the light around to make sure I'm not missing any weird stuff growing in the deepest darkest regions, but it looks clean, like completely clean.
My fingers start to shake in excitement as I sling my backpack off and dig around until I find the empty plastic water bottle that's kind of crunched up, and has definitely seen better days. I fill it up and chug the ice cold water until the entire bottle is empty and my stomach aches, but I don't care. It's almost like I can feel the slowly dying cells in my body bursting back to life. I refill the bottle and resist the urge to drink from it again, my stomach already feels water logged and gross and it's not like I have an unlimited supply. I make sure the lid is on tight and then tuck the bottle back into my pack and carry on with my exploration of the store.
There isn't one useful thing left in the whole store, but I do find a bunch of scratch and win tickets behind the counter and I stuff them into my bag, on a whim, as I head towards the office at the back. It's a small dusty room that doesn't have much to recommend it, but it does have an old scuffed up leather desk chair and it's a hell of a lot softer than the ground. In all our days on the road, I've never spent the night in a gas station before, but it's here and it's already cleared out, so I settle in for the night, after double checking that the doors are locked. I don't want to push my luck trying to find somewhere new to sleep when I'm already here, it has four walls, and the zombies are cleared out.
I pull the shiny emergency blanket out of my pack and tuck it around my legs and set to work scratching at the tickets with a quarter that I found in one of the desk drawers. It hardly matters anymore that there were once strict laws prohibiting me from doing this, I can't even ever cash them in, I just need something to keep my mind busy and the panic at bay. I scratch the enormous pile until it's gone and my finger and thumb are sore from gripping the quarter so tightly. My math is not exact, but I stopped tallying my winnings at around ten thousand dollars- not too shabby.
"Would've been nice." I mutter to myself. I think I say it out loud just to hear something other than the ringing silence that is somehow the most overbearing thing I've ever heard. I thought hearing a voice would make me feel better, but it actually creeps me out, like it's out of place. I lean back and close my eyes and the face of the man that I stabbed today is the first thing that pops into my mind. I watch his mouth open in an agonizing scream as the first zombie rips into him and my eyes pop open. I know it isn't real, but my heart is hammering.
A tear leaks down my cheek and I angrily wipe it away and close my eyes again, leaning my head down on the desk like we used to do when we'd play duck, duck, goose in school. The horrible face of the gravel voiced man pops prominently back into my brain and the tears come with it. I'm a monster. I never thought I'd be the kind of person that would kill another human being, no matter what the circumstances, but I am- I now know that I'm the type of person that will do anything to survive. The apocalypse has turned me into a monster, I'm just not the noticeable kind with the rotting gray skin. This guy wasn't even the first person I hurt, or even the second. I lay my head back down on the desk and let the gruesome images come- I deserve it.
The sound of breaking glass wakes me up and at first I don't realize what the noise is- I just can't believe that I've actually managed to fall asleep with the horror show playing in my head. I hear a male voice and it turns my blood to ice inside my veins. I sit straight up and the chair lets out a super loud groan, and I want to jump out of my own skin. I freeze and strain my ears in the dark, praying that they didn't just hear that.
