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

<ELEVEN>

08:33
July 4, 2023
Day One~Hundred and Six

The truck bucked wildly, attempting to uproot my foot from the gas. I refused vehemently.

Behind me, the car swerved, tracing my own line of burnt rubber. The driver swung into the flat part of the field and sped ahead, tearing a hole in the tall-grassed pasture.

I gassed it towards the hills, and suddenly the truck was the apex predator. Tyrese jolted wildly in the back seat, and a few more rounds popped off from the long pistol.

Raina gripped the seat's armrest and squeezed her little eyes shut as he hills began. The truck's dual terrain tires ripped at the ground as it kicked up stalks and dust.

Ahead, an aged barb wire fence attempted to stand above the overgrown grass. It was almost completely hidden.

I sped forward with narrowed eyes, and before I could warn anyone of the fence, impact. A half rotten post positioned itself inside the grille, and thankfully, the rest of the posts it was connected to were also mostly rotted.

Two other posts on the left left from the ground, and one on the right snapped in half, creating a gaping hole in the fence.

I didn't slow. Barbed wire and fence posts waved in the wind beside the truck like featherless wings in the afternoon light.

The left side of the fence began to sag, the weight bearing the momentum of the wind. It connected with the overgrown grass, and soon the tearing of grass was all I could hear. Despite my efforts, the tuck still slowed slightly.

The car, following in the trail I had made in the grass, was making its way over with ease.

Bad plan.

The car gained, so much so the man in the front seat could afford to aim his weapon at Tyrese and fire again.

A sharp pop, and a groan of pain.

My heart skipped a beat as I spotted another fence ahead. If the truck couldn't take the fence, there was no way in hell the car could.

I urged the truck further as I stood on the pedal.

"Tyrese," I said, my voice quivering.

My heartbeat was louder than the roar of the massive engine. My voice was drowned out by the heat of the moment, and as we approached the fence, I yanked the clutch into 'R', and never once did I take my foot from the petal.

I swung the the wheel to the left, hard. I gassed it yet again.

As I approached the highway again, the car careened into the fence, and I heard the shattering of the windshield. I grimaced, but I never looked back up as I sped down the road to anywhere but here.
****
20 minutes later

"Tyrese," I said yet again.

His only answer continued to be a pained groan or the occasional smart-ass remark. I refused to stop driving for fear the man in the car survived, and I couldn't ask Raina to get in the back seat with a gunshot victim... Shot twice.

About 15 minutes ago, I had discovered a first aid kit in the glove box, per Tyrese's order. I'm sure he knew some first aid, but he hadn't been trained like myself.

"Tyrese," I said again,"we're going to find somewhere to stop."

"No," he growled out.

"Why?" I ground my teeth together as he continued to deny the fact that he needed help.

"Because we need to get somewhere they won't ever find us," he said.

I shook my head and spotted a small 7-Eleven up ahead. Ignoring Tyrese's wishes, I turned into it and came to a stop beside a gas pump. Out of habit, I guessed.

"Stay right here," I instructed Reina.

I hopped out and moved to the back where Tyrese was. I yanked he tarp from under the seat and opened up both back doors. I then lifted the tarp into the slight opening on the innermost part of the doors. I closed each one with the tarp wedged in between them so that there was a curtain blocking reina's view of what was going on.

"Idiot," Tyrese grumbled at me as I lifted up the first aid kit. A large red pool coated his abdomen, and his shirt had done nothing to halt the bleeding. Gauze covered the wound, but it did virtually nothing.

I shook my head as I applied more gauze over the dark red clumps of cloth.

"Damn," I whispered.

I looked along his side for his butt wound, and then I tugged out the sewing kit.

Tyrese's eyes, while foggy and distant with pain, glared at me with contempt.

This would take a little while
****

"Spero," said a tentative voice from the front seat.

"Not now, Raina," I said as I finished one wound.

I came back to the wound on his abdomen and began removing the gauze. The bleeding had finally come to a slow run.

I nodded and began shuffling around in the box for tools.

"Spero," she said again, urgency lining her young voice.

"Raina," I said warningly.

"Spero, there are people coming up the road!"

I froze.

"What?"

"There are people. In a white car."

Shit.