Partially

Traumatized Birds and People Everywhere

(Original chapter title was Traumatized Birds and People Everywhere—Convience Stores, Bathrooms, Gas Stations, Cars and More! But the last part was just because I wanted the chapter title long. Wattpad only allows eighty characters.)

   The first two days have no right to go as well as they do. Getting out of the city had been a bit of a challenge—cars are abandoned everywhere, zombies wander the streets and sometimes, the zombies looks a little more like a person (maybe in the process of turning?) and instead of wandering into the street and trying to follow them in the car, they stand by the side of the road, watching, as if they're waiting. Other than the weird amount of abandoned buses—many of which are splattered with blood which strikes Vio as odd and sad—and the occasional horde that consists of three, four, the largest five, they do just fine. They are out of the city in  six hours and manage to take a stop to fill up the tank with no one in sight and then keep going. They take turns driving. Shadow has a couple CDs and the two have similar taste in music, or at least two song artists they both like and they get along fine.

   After two days, though, they realize they are seriously going to need to stop for gas.

   There is a gas station and a convenience store (in the middle of nowhere, it seems like) at the side of the road. It seems abandoned. Slowly, Vio—who is behind the wheel now—pulls into the small parking lot of the store. Shadow looks around. "I don't see anyone."

   "I can look around." Shadow is obviously tired—it's showing. Vio isn't that tired. He can do it.

   Shadow doesn't look like he's about to argue. He sighs. "Be careful. I'm gonna wait here." He opens the glovebox. "Do you want to bring the gun with?"

   "No," he says. "It's fine. I've a pocket knife if I really need it." He opens the car door and looks around. No zombies anywhere. "I'm gonna look inside." It sounds risky, maybe even stupid to just go in there with only a pocket knife, when he doesn't know what's inside, but he decides he's going to do it anyway.

   He walks up the the glass doors in front and peers through the glass—it looks empty, but it looks clean. Vio grabs onto the handle and tries to pull it open—the doors stay still. He tries again—it's locked. He takes a step back.

   One of the car doors open. "Is it locked?" Shadow asks, halfway out. One of the things Vio is slowly coming to learn is that Shadow is eager to help—with anything. Constantly. He seems to like helping Vio with anything.

   "Definitely. You stay in the car, I'm gonna go see if there's a back entrance or a window I can go in through."

   Shadow frowns. "Are you sure?" He sounds weirdly concerned. "If you want, I can come with you."

   "No, it's fine," he insists. "Let me see if I can get in here."

   "We don't have to get in there," Shadow says.

   "We're running low on food and this is the only gas station we've seen in hours." Something moves inside. "I think someone's in there."

   "I should go with you," Shadow says. He seems insistent.

   Vio shakes his head. "Really, it's fine. I can take care of it. Why don't you fill up the gas tank while I go look?"

   "Are you sure?" He asks again.

   "Yes," Vio says. "If I'm not out in like, fifteen minutes, then you can start to worry."

   Shadow sighs. "Just be careful."

   The wall is rough on his hand as he rounds a corner and goes behind the building, his fingers brushing against the bricks. He finds an entrance clearly meant for employees and tries to open it—it's locked too, but he expected that. He finds a window and looks through the glass again—he doesn't see movement this time. He supposes it'd be easy enough to break the window, but he isn't about to just punch the glass. That'd be stupid.