Spero: A Post-Apocalyptic Short Story |COMPLETE| ✔

<TEN>

08:15
July 4, 2023
Day One~Hundred and Six

As the truck bumped onto cracked asphalt, the rev of a vicious engine sounded from down the gravel drive. I narrowed my eyes, and pressed down in the gas even more.

Reluctantly, the dial kicked up past 95 mph. The truck snarled like a starved timber wolf as it tore down the country road.

Why couldn't they just have stayed away?!

I shook my head as I pressed all of my weight onto the pedal. The engine was in pain, and the truck hadn't been built for this. I think back to the small white car that had been parked by the house. A low-to-the-ground vehicle...

My eyes dart up the rolling hills that surround the road that I speed down. The pastures seem to go on forever. I clench my teeth as I make a decision.

I glance in the rear view to see if the car is near yet, and I am surprised by Tyrese's wide-eyed look.

He points to something as I glance back once more: the small slide-open panel in the back window of the truck. I raise an eyebrow at him and the medium sized doorway.

"Raina," I say loudly as I glance back once more. The car has pulled into the road, and it's not slowing down anytime soon.

The man at the wheel has a bloody nose, from me smashing his face into the back of the truck if I'd had to guess.

"Open the window at the back," I told her. Stealthily, the little girl slid from under the seat, the black mask still on her face. Her small frame jolted at every pothole or bump. I reluctantly slowed the vehicle down, and she tugged open the window with her petite hands.

As soon as she got it open, I reached my hand back and tugged her small body into the passenger seat.

Tyrese immediately moved to go through it, but not before a sharp POP sounded. Tyrese winced, and my eyes widened. Despite what I figured had happened, he pulled himself through the window. He thudded onto the empty backseats, and I kept my free hand over Raina's eyes.

"Tyrese?"

"What, man?"

"Are you good," I asked as I kept my eyes on the road. I heard an audible huff, and a slight grunt of pain as he rearranged himself.

"I got grazed on the ass, Spero. Nothin I can't handle, man," he said with a pained lining.

I glanced back at him quickly.

"Good," I said as I handed him one of my pistols after taking my hand off of Raina's face.

"Cause i'ma need you to shoot back," I said with tangible rancor.

I could practically feel the want for revenge for what the men had done to Ava as it radiated off of him. He shifted his leg so that the graze wasn't in a painful position, and a series of uneven gunshots began to round off between the two vehicles.

Tyrese braced his free hand on the roof as I pointed to the fields with a plan in mind. I glanced in the rear view as the white car got closer and closer, beating the beefy truck in every way on the flat terrain.

I looked at Raina as I jutted the wheel.

"Buckle up."