Our Apocalypse

Chapter 2

 -Day 5-

I had been walking for hours, days, weeks. I didn't know anymore. I was heading for Oregon, whether it would cost me my life or not. "Hey!" A voice shouted, I jumped and turned to my right, then left. A short stumpy man was leaning out of the gas station door, gun idle at his right side, his hand firmly gripping the handle and his finger was itching towards the trigger. "Kid!" His gruff voice rumbled and his accent circled his words. I didn't know what to do or say, so I just turned my entire body towards him to prove that I was paying attention. "Yes sir?" I said, raising my voice loud enough for him to hear. He stepped outside of the gas station and walked towards me, the sun picked up the lack of hair on his head. He wore a dirty cream flannel shirt and sagging jeans that barely fitted around his stomach. He hadn't any physical protection but he was armed, which was something I took caution of. "What are you doing out here alone?" Fear gripped my heart, what if he wanted to take advantage of me? Use me as bait, or just take my supplies and leave me to die? I shook my head of the thoughts and straightened up, "Escaping the city, sir" my voice losing confidence as I stared at him in his cold brown eyes. They were like a murky swamp that you'd sink into. His shoulders dropped and a small but friendly smile crawled its way onto his face. "Come on in, name's Matthew" He announced, turning around and stepping into the gas station. I followed him slowly and watched carefully and rested his gun on the grey counter. The station on the inside looked just the same as the outside. Beaten down, clearly out of use. The shelves were half full, missing only a few items, the fridges weren't working but still had some crusty sandwiches and cans of soda inside. Matthew sighed and clamped his hands together, "Not seen anybody else come by here, only one kid, just older than you" he explained shortly. "Was just looking for something to eat, is all. I gave him a bit of medicine and he left." His large hands were muddy and looked cracked, he folded his arms and leant against the counter. "You can take anything, if you need it" I nodded at his request and started to look at the shelf nearest to me, my pack was almost full so I had to find another or empty mine out a bit. Matthew wandered off to the back room and started cluttering around, making loud metallic noises. I used this as an opportunity to snag as much as I could get. I grabbed biscuits, chocolate, chips, some paper, a couple water bottles and anything that could patch me up. I had stripped the gas station of all the good contents and slapped a bit of paper onto the empty counter and wrote on it, thanks Matthew -Ender. I didn't want him to know my real name, so I stuck with my online alias.

I walked out of the gas station and started to jog when I got to the road. There weren't any zombies nearby so I decided to run, creating a fair amount of noise, but at least I got away faster.

The roads were all desolate, I hadn't seen any other people except for Matthew and it'd been over an hour since I saw him. A wave of tiredness swept over me, the weight of my bag becoming a problem. The gun I stole from Matthew made my arm ache since it wouldn't fit in my bag so I had no other choice but to carry it.