Homecoming--The Team-Up Challenge

The Team-Up Challenge

As 1/4 of team #TheRaconteurs, I am proud to present (Why do I feel like a circus ringmaster all of a sudden?) 1/4 of our story.

Prompts

1 - A talking car with a mind if its own

2 - Your best friend is a zombie

Curveball

Stereophonics - Billy Davey's Daughter

Genre

Apocalyptic

***A/N: The word count comes in at 999 on Microsoft Word, though due to formatting choices (spaces between letters for style) and a stuttering 't,' it clocks in as higher. Without the spaces on Wattpad, it still is 999.

Homecoming

T u r n   r i g h t   i n   t w e n t y   m e t r e s.

"Fucking car's trying to kill us."

Wilson glanced at the drop-off to his right, his hands tightening on the steering wheel as he carefully manoeuvred around an abandoned car. "No kidding."

There was a laboured laugh from behind him. "Dude, relax. We're fine."

A nerve twitching in his jaw, Wilson tore his gaze from the winding mountain road. In the rear-view mirror, he watched Danny's chest rise and fall in spasm, feeling helpless.

A sheen of sweat glistened on his pale face, and the fever burned in the pits of his hollow eyes. Dark blood bloomed above Danny's heart like some sort of sick flower, soaking through the makeshift dressing, a bedsheet held in place by desperation and a belt Wilson had scavenged from the ski resort where they had been holed up. They had found the car, an expensive-looking Audi, in the lodge's parking lot.

Not that it mattered. Not while his best friend lay dying in the backseat, a fatal set of teeth marks in his chest.

Stupid.

He had been so goddamn stupid.

And Danny had paid the price.

H e a d   s o u t h   o n   F e r r a n d   R o w   t o w a r d   S p r i n g   V i l l a g e, the car interrupted, breaking through his guilt. C o n t i n u e   u n t i l   C h e r r y   B r o o k   D r i v e.

Wilson dragged his eyes back to the road. They were coming up to Horseshoe Bay, twenty minutes out from where the two of them had spent their childhoods. Their homecoming should have filled him with joy, but instead there was a knot in his stomach and a knife in his heart. But it was what Danny wanted—to be buried at the place he had once called home.

M a k e   a   U - t u r n   i n   t – t – t – t – t – t – t – t – t – t – t – t—

He thumped the dashboard.

—t w o   m e t r e s.

Wilson still had to choke down a strangled laugh sometimes. It didn't seem real. Two months ago, he had been waiting tables and playing video games when he wasn't snoozing his summer away. Back then, his biggest source of stress had been the looming prospect of university in the fall.

Then the world had gone to shit.

36 hours of pure hell on Earth was all it had taken to infect the greater Vancouver area and destroy their lives forever.