SAM
When we parked in the driveway, I felt a weight drop inside of me. I'm back at the place where I had killed my family. I swallow the lump in my throat. A thought occurs to me; how did the contaminant spread if all of the beings carrying it died in a contained area? I think back to yesterday, and it clicks. The rat. It had gotten away and I didn't even care to stop it. It must have bitten someone and it wouldn't be unusual for it to have spread this rapidly from there. I choke back tears, biting the inside of my cheek hard. I have to look strong. I am strong.
"I'm going alone. I'll be back in ten minutes tops." I say, pulling at the door handle. It clicks. Locked.
"Not a chance, little girl." Billy says. "Either sit your little booty down or we all go."
"No way. Perhaps you've forgotten that I've already lost my family, and my heart could never bear losing you guys too." I argue. I yank at the door again, another click. "If you could unlock the door, please?"
Billy narrows his eyes. "No. And besides, we lost our families too."
I whip out a pen and press it against Pepper. "Don't make me ink the pig."
Hunter gasps. I hit her in a soft spot, I know. It's incredibly low of me to threaten something so near and dear to her, but the thought of them dying stabs at me in no way I would ever think of hurting them.
Hunter gently hits Billy and he clears his throat. "I'll give you five minutes." He clicks a button and the sound of all the doors unlocking is made. I slide my door open and shut it. I smile and run into my garage.
My house is as disheveled as it was when I still had a family. The ladder to the attic is still hanging from the ceiling. I climb up it and run into my small lab area. My brother is still lying on the examination table, and I bite my lip. The one phrase runs through my head; my fault my fault my fault. I run to my vomit bucket and give it a go for its intended use. After I finish, I wipe my mouth clean on a towel and walk over to the safe. 2-7-10-18. The safe pops open with a soft hiss.
I grab my notebook and my green pencil. As I turn around to climb back down, I hear a faint moaning noise. But it sounds collective, echoed even. I look to the tiny attic window and wipe the dust off with my hand. There is a hoard of zombies making their way down the street. But they aren't slow. They are running at a track team's pace. I look to the Rustbucket, and neither Hunter nor Billy are in sight. I slide down the wooden ladder, heedless of the splinters,and run into my house. Billy and Hunter stood in my kitchen, towering over the dead bodies of my parents.
"I'm sorry, Sam" Billy says.
"You shouldn't have found out this way. It looks like the zombies got to your dad, not sure about your mom." Hunter adds.
I feel like vomiting again. My fault my fault my fault. They don't even know that I did it. It feels like my heart is tearing itself out of my chest. What, with puking my guts out and having my heart and brain at war, surely I will not have any organs left to support me.
"Guys, we need to go." I say, snapping back to the matter at hand. The zombies will be here any minute. I grab both of their arms and drag them out of the house. When we settle in the car, the zombie are making their way into my yard. We back out, running over a few. The high-pitched squeal of the engine was no match for the higher frequency of the shrieking corpses. As we drive away, it hits my mind that I forgot to lock the door.
BILLY
After a few hours of driving, no one had said a word. It is now around noon, and we haven't seen another car on any road yet. My stomach growls, remembering that I hadn't eaten this morning.
"Who wants to eat lunch?" I ask.
"That sounds great!" Hunter smiles. She was hungry too.
"Not hungry." Sam mumbles. Hunter gives her a weird look, and I understand completely. Sam was always hungry.
"Are you sure?" I ask, "You didn't have breakfast this morning."
"Not. Hungry." Sam insists with a stern tone. She looks out the window and spaces out.
"Well, okay then," Hunter says with her hand on her waist.
+ + +
We pulled over on the mainly empty highway and parked in a grassy field beside the interstate. We flipped down the middle row so that it was flat with the floor, and pushed the front seats forward, making enough room for the three of us to sit on the floor.
Sam was polite enough to crawl to the back row and grab the coolers with our food supply and drinks. I unzip a food cooler and grab sandwiches for Hunter and myself. I unwrap mine immediately, impatient to eat.
"We're going to be living off of sandwiches?" Hunter asks with a cocked eyebrow.
I pick up Pepper, who was trying to steal from my sandwich. "What, it's not like it's-" I cover the little pig's ears, "pork sandwiches."
Hunter gives a chide laugh, then takes the pig. I was perfectly fine with that, in my opinion, pigs should be bacon, not pets. She hands the pig some of her turkey sandwich, which Pepper eats with a happy snort.
Sam sitting with her chin on her knees, the same position she sat in last night, against the wall. She took off her lab coat, a good decision considering I turned off the air conditioning. Pepper started trotting over to Sam's crisply folded coat, and Sam puts her arm in front, blocking the pig.
"Nope." She says, handing the pig back to Hunter. "I don't need grubby pigs touching my lab coat." She pauses, then looks at me. "You, either." She flicks her eyebrows with her mischievous smile.
Hunter laughs, and I do too. Sam laughs and hugs me.
"Just kidding, you dork." She giggles. I smile, bringing crows' feet to my eyes. After we finish, I get back to my sandwich. We joke around for another good thirty minutes before Sam peeks out of the window.
"We'd better get going, zombies at 10 o' clock." The petite brunette states.
"Would you like to drive?" I ask Hunter. Part of it is to be gentlemanly, but the other part is because I am really tired.
"Uhm, sure." Hunter says. So Sam moves to the passenger seat, whilst I sit in the middle row and Pepper remains in the back, cocooned by pillows. I swipe one and lay down. I'll need energy for later; Hunter will get tired at some point and Sam can't drive.
