The Blast

Chapter Two: The Escape

It started with one, then two and then they could be heard everywhere. Suddenly the mood in the room turned into a mix of fear and anger. The four of them silently listened to the deathly screams coming from the townsfolk. It had spread, the radiation was now minutes from spreading to where they stood. "We should get going like now!" Cruze announced.
"But how? We're just going to walk out of town and into the wilderness" Avery said nervously.
"We could use the Jeep in the garage" Wyatt suggested.
"Good idea, but.. I don't know how to drive" Cruze explained, slightly embarrassed.
"I do" Riley quietly muttered.

A minute later they were all crammed into the white Jeep Wrangler, with their backpacks on their laps and the tiny cooler in the back.  Avery had her bow and quiver on her shoulder and wearing a blue jean jacket next to Riley who was driving while the boys were in the back. Cruze was wearing a baseball hat and a grey hoodie with his hatchet strapped to his hip while Wyatt had a grey windbreaker on and was flipping through a book he had found in the garage about plants. Wyatt thought would come in handy, since they could maybe find some plants in the woods they could eat if or when they ran out of provisions. After two tries Riley started up the Jeep since it hadn't been used in a long. Because all of them were used to walking across town since it was such a small town everything was within walking distance. 
They left the house and drove down the gravel driveway into the center of town. They were just about to turn on to a dirt road when Cruze told Riley to stop the car, since he wanted to pick up something at the department store.   "Be quick about it, we don't have a lot of time," Riley said, looking back at him.  " Trust me I'll go as quick as I can " Cruze replied.  He quickly got out of the car and calmly jogged into the store. 5 minutes later Cruze came out of the store with a backpack full of supplies and a big yellow map, he had gotten at the store. "Ok we can go now," Cruze said buckling himself in.  "That was fast, did you even pay?" Avery asked jokingly. "Well, as a matter of fact, I didn't pay because we were in a hurry, plus this town will be deserted once we leave. Everyone will be dead." Cruze explained. "Okay dude, that a little harsh but whatever, let just get going" Wyatt suggested. Riley started up the Wrangler and drove off again onto the dirt path into the forest.  They ride was a silent one, everyone was thinking about something when the car started to splutter.
"Shit!" Riley muttered under her breath.  "What?!" Avery asked, obviously worried.  "We're almost out of gas we have enough for another 2 kilometres, I should've checked how much gas we had before we left!" Riley said defeatedly.  " Well at least we got this far," Cruze said, hoping to lighten the group's mood.  Moments later the Jeep started once again spluttering and soon after stopped in its tracks. "I guess we're going to have to go on foot" Wyatt grumbled. The four of them exited the Jeep and put their packs on their backs. Wyatt was in charge of carrying the small cooler which didn't bother him but Avery, Riley and Cruze still offered to take turns carrying it. Before they left Avery had grabbed a flashlight and a reflective vest and a rolled-up blanket she had found in the trunk when she was giving the cooler to Wyatt.  They made one last check of their materials and made sure they hadn't forgotten anything in the Jeep. They then started the long, tiring boring journey of walking through an endless amount of trees.
" We have roughly a couple of hours before sundown, so we need to find a good place to camp" Wyatt explained.
"Good idea, but so far all I've seen is trees, trees and some more trees." Avery groaned, clearly annoyed. 
"We just enough open space to set up a tent and a small fire" Cruze answered.

They soon found a place to set up camp and started by setting up their tent, which didn't take long since all of them had been camping a bunch of times and had put up multiple tents before. By the time they were done the sun was setting and it was getting dark. 
" I think I'm talking for all of us when I say I'm hungry" Cruze admitted.
At the name of food, their stomachs grumbled. None of them objected since they hadn't had any food other than a small rushed breakfast. They had been all so occupied with packing that they had completely forgotten to grab something to eat. Riley went over to the cooler and picked a variety of fruit for them to munch on until dinner was served. The boys were tasked with collecting all the wood and tinder in the nearby bushes, while the girls were preparing the food to cook over the fire.

The boys came back with handfuls of tinder and big sized logs that had been cut up by Cruze's hatchet for the fire. The girls had cut up some steak into strips to cook over the fire for each person. Their dinner was awfully quiet, with everyone stuffing their faces with food and letting the hot grease of the steak slide down their dry throats into their empty stomachs. Suddenly they noticed ruffling in the bushes, the group immediately froze, daring not to move a muscle. Avery strung her bow and Cruze reached for his shotgun but his hand met open air. He looked around and realized his shotgun had been left in the Jeep. There wasn't time to think about it, so he unstrapped his hatchet, and squinted into the darkness where two yellow beady eyes could be seen. Out of the shadows crawled a giant, momma black bear. They all yelped in fear.  "We're going to have to scare this bear away!" Wyatt yelled frighteningly. 
"Well, h-h-hurry before h-h-he eat-t-ts us!"  Avery Stammered. 
"We're going to have to make as much noise as possible" Cruze stated.
So they gathered a bunch of pots and pans and started banging them
together to scare the giant bear away. They made as much noise as they could but the bear had gotten fed up with the sound and decided to charge at Avery. But before the bear had any time to think Avery hastily fired two shots into the bears' lungs mid-stride.  After a couple of seconds the bear fell down with a big rumble, the arrows had pierced the bear's lungs, he was instantly dead.  A wave of relief washed over the group who were all so surprised with Avery's deadly accuracy and quick reaction. Wyatt smiled to himself thinking how amazing she looked firing her bow and saving the group. For the rest of the night, the group discussed the best, safest route for them to travel to hopefully find another town. The problem was they had no clue where another town was since none of the maps included anything other than a bunch of forest and the town of Arlington. Cruze has decided not to tell the group that he had forgotten his shotgun in the Wrangler, fear of embarrassing himself in front of the others. But After all of the action of the day, none remembered about the shotgun and with that, they decided to go to sleep. Which they should have done a long time ago, they all crammed into their tent and immediately fell asleep. Their muscles enjoying the rest, and stomachs full of food, since they had been working hard walking through the forest all day. Except for Cruze, for some reason, he couldn't fall asleep. He kept wondering why there was nothing on the maps. Surely there was something out there right? It couldn't all be forest? He wondered. He pushed the thought out of his head, closed his sleepy eyes and fell asleep in his cozy neon sleeping bag.

Thanks for reading! Make sure to vote and comment!