Blood Stains on the Heart

Chapter One: The Blackout

        As the days dragged on, Ivory found that keeping another person alive was not only incredibly stressful, but also nearly impossible. At least at first. Now, three weeks after what Ruth had dubbed “The Zombie Iceop-alypse,” Ivory had nearly got the hang of it.

In the beginning, she just drove. She drove and drove and drove until they weren’t only away from the city, but they were hours and hours and hundreds of miles away from the city. The further they drove, the less zombies were to be seen, which made Ruth feel safer. Keeping Ruth’s innocence was incredibly important to Ivory, right up there with keeping her alive.

Shortly after the apocalypse began, Ivory learned the hard way that Ruth was much overdue for a haircut. What she had since labeled “The Incident,” Ruth was standing outside of the car while Ivory siphoned gas from an abandoned vehicle when out of the blue, a zombie yanked Ruth’s ponytail and she flew to the ground, nearly breaking her wrist trying to catch herself. Luckily Ivory was close by and had time to beat the zombie’s brains in with her trusty metal baseball bat.

The next day, Ivory sat Ruth down in the back of the truck and took to her hair with a pair of old gardening scheers that the girls found on one of their scavenging trips. Her once long, curly hair was cut to right under her ears in a wavy bob, as neatly as Ivory could manage. She even cut her own hair, although she had to admit that Ruth’s looked much nicer.

There were many times when Ivory thought that they would both die. They were taking supplies from an old supermarket when a horde of zombies passed by the window, and Ivory swore they saw them. Another example was when they ran out of water and couldn’t find anything to drink for an entire day and a half. Ivory was sure that they would die that time, until they stumbled upon an old tackle shop with bottles of water stacked floor to ceiling.

The car had been running on fumes for the past half hour, and Ivory knew that if they didn’t find gas soon, they would be stranded for the entire night. That being much too dangerous for Ruth, Ivory immediately nixed that idea before it was even an option. Ivory cast a glance over her shoulder at her napping sister who held a beanie baby to her chest tightly.

When Ruth found that beanie baby in the bottom of the picnic basket that was in the trunk of the car, Ivory had nearly cried with joy. It was the little praying beat named Hope, the very one that Ruth had misplaced the summer before. Ruth had squealed with delight and clung to it so tightly Ivory had to fight back tears. She was not very successful.

They had found other useful things in Ivory’s car after they finally stopped and scoped it out. The picnic basket contained a couple of old water bottles, a fuzzy checkered blanket and, of course, Ruth’s bear, Hope. In the trunk was also a small survival kit, a first aid kit, and tools to work on the car. They found another blanket, an old pair of muddy sandals, and a stale bag of pretzels that was in the glove box. The most vital, however, was the .3a2 caliber pistol that she had kept strapped to the bottom of the front seat, along with a few extra rounds of ammo in the glove box.

As they traveled they realized that they desperately needed to find more supplies that were necessary for survival, so Ivory began making runs. Now they had a few days worth of food, a weeks worth of water along with a filtered water bottle, more blankets, and about a dozen old books Ivory couldn’t pass up.

The two girls definitely were not well off by any means, but Ruth provided Ivory with the extra shove of motivation to survive that she so desperately needed, and Ivory provided Ruth with the motherly affection that was vital to her. So they lived.

As the days passed, Ivory came to the conclusion that Ruth was undoubtedly different now. She had an air of unsteadiness about her, as if the slightest movement could break the poor child. Ruth refused to talk about what happened to their family, and sometimes at night Ivory would have to hold Ruth to her chest so that the little girl’s sobs wouldn’t attract the zombies.