Subject 48

Gift

"Wow! I've never had so much fun driving!" Trix exclaims. I just look at her with complete and utter disbelief. She doesn't see me because she's looking out the giant window on the front of the 'car' so she can do 'driving' better.

The boy sitting behind me apparently doesn't like the the way things are going either. He yells back at Trix, "Wow! I never thought I would die this early into the apocalypse!"

Axel gives his input as well. "I never thought I would last this long!"

I still have a lot to learn about the world and what happened to get it to be in the middle of a full blown apocalypse. Has this happened before? Was anybody prepared for it when it started? How do they already have such an odd name for these monsters? I don't know anything, do I?

"Could you please slow down" Brett pleads.

"Okay, okay. Calm down. I'll stop driving so fast," Trix says, though I'm unsure if she really means it.

She does slow down, but I don't know how long she'll keep this calm pace.

---([])---

We come to a building with gray, brick walls. It has a big yellow M hanging over the door. The door looks like it was made of glass but the glass had been shattered. We stop the car in a rectangular area that looked a lot like what we were driving on earlier but was wider and the yellow lines were positioned to outline slanted columns. The lines used to go through the middle of the black stuff. 

"Alright," Trix says as she somehow makes the car stop doing anything. It lays dormant. Quiet and peaceful and calm. It has returned to what it was before, a big metal thing that people come in and out of as they please. "We're doing a quick raid. Hopefully there's still food in this place. There could be food, and there could be zombies, so watch your back. Be prepared for anything! Arm yourselves with your weapons! This is war! We will destroy those zombie punks!"

Brett gives Trix a blank stare and says to her, "I swear. Sometimes you can be such a disappointment."

"Your face is a disappointment!" Trix fires back at him before getting out of the car.

I watched Drew open his door to the car and did the exact same steps on my side and was able to open my door. I step out into the daylight once more. I grab my bat as Trix had told me to and decide if I should take my bag or not. I see Axel out climb from the back seat and go out the door Drew opened.

"Am I going to be allowed to come with you for this one?" asks the boy -- I still don't know his name.

"No, Bernie," Axel responds. So his name is Bernie. Good to know. "You don't have a weapon to protect yourself with. Without one, I'm scared of what might happen to you. I've told you numerous times, what you do during these raids is important. Somebody has to watch over the car." Bernie sits in the back seat with his arms crossed. I kinda feel bad for him.

I wait for when the others are getting their weapons from the hatch in the back, that way they don't see me. Then I open up my backpack. I can see Bernie watching me from the corner of my eye. I turn my head to face him. He's caught a bit off guard, but what I'm about to do next is sure to startle him at least a bit.

I find the blanket inside my bag. I pull out what I had hidden in it's folds back at the lab and hold it flat in my hand so it isn't threatening . . . then hold it out for Bernie to take.

He sees what I'm giving him and stares at me in awe. "For me?" he whispers to me. I nod in response.

He reaches out, hesitating. Finally, he takes the pistol from me. Now, I no longer have to bear the burden of having a fire arm in my possession, especially when I don't know how to use it.

"Terra!" Brett's call for me made me jump. I'm not really used to that being my name, but it's not a problem. I know that I go by that from now on. Subject 47 is a thing of the past. I'm Terra now, a normal woman -- who can't speak and is trying to survive an apocalypse, as well. I see Brett look over at me. He is still behind the car. I hold up my index finger so I can get bit more time to gather my things. I pull the battery powered lantern out of my backpack and grab my bat from off the the floor of the car. Then I give Brett a thumbs up. I spare Bernie one last glance. He's curiously inspecting the pistol I gave him.

Hopefully Bernie doesn't let anybody know he has it unless he absolutely has to. If the others do find out he has it, I can only hope he doesn't tell them I gave it to him. He might not know how to use it, but he's been in this group long enough I think he'd at least understand it a little bit. Either way, anybody would know more about how to use than me.

I join the others behind the car. Trix is holding her assault rifle. Axel has a shotgun and Drew has a pistol in a holster wrapped around his waist. Our teams looking pretty good. A rifle for distance, a pistol for close-range attacks, a shotgun for hitting multiple targets at once, and a spiked bat that can crush a monster's skull in one hit.

"So, are we ready to go in?" Brett asks. I realize that his weapon isn't a gun; it's a machete. Looks pretty cool but I'm not completely sure how much damage it can really do. In his other hand he's holding a plastic bag. There appears to be something inside but I have no idea what it is.

"I think taking all of our weapons is a bit much," Drew says. He has a point though. If there's just a couple of monsters inside we should be able to fight them with ease. "Axel, put your shotgun back in the car."

Axel does so with out complaining, almost as if he didn't like holding it in the first place.

Trix, gripping tightly onto her rifle knowing it would be next to leave if it had to, says, "We're good to go! Let's head into this place and check it out."