Living Monsters

Chapter 3

The sky transformed into a tint of gray as heavy rain wreaked its havoc on the road. Lana was still operating her car, traveling along the countryside, the part of the town where nobody went.

"Um, I believe we haven't met yet," a deep voice said from the back row of the car.

"Uncle Paul, the girl who's driving is Lana and the other one is Penny."

"They don't look related," Paul remarked, noticing Lana's bleached black hair from the space in front of the seat.

"Stop it. You're being rude," Aarav snapped.

"Hi," Penny slightly smiled for a split-second, but didn't turn around. Then she shook her head, frowning.

"Now where exactly are we going?" Penny questioned to Lana. "Use the GPS."

"Your phone lost service," Lana said, still keeping her eyes on the road, watching for any of the infected. She already had to make a few curves, again not giving a care about the rules of society as she crossed lanes several times again.

"How do you know?" Penny asked.

"Because mine did, okay?"

Skeptical, Penny took out her phone. She pressed the main button, but to no avail. "Damn it!" Penny shouted.

"Keep it down," Paul lectured.

"Oh, pardon me."

"So what do you guys know about this virus?" Aarav inquired.

"Well, Lana and I don't know about it any more than you do," Penny stated. "Weren't you the one that wanted to protect everyone in the neighborhood?"

"Thank you for bringing us along. This is a nicer car than what we had," Aarav complimented with a slight chuckle.

"Hey! Don't you dare insult my convertible, Aarav!" Paul reprimanded.

Turning around, Penny just took one look at Aarav's built physique, his sun-scorched skin, and his neat hair. She tried not to blush. No. What was she thinking? This wasn't the time or the place.

Meanwhile, Lana took note that more houses were showing up on the sides of the road, meaning that more of the infected could lurk.

"Keep on the look out for those... things, okay guys?" Lana said.

"We should turn," Penny brought up, pointing to a rectangular street sign. "There's already some walking around. Oh, Jesus!"

It was like the whole town fell apart in a matter of days. Nobody dared to go outside, but the more someone waited, the more precarious of a situation they were in.

"Calm down, little girl," Paul assured.

"Just turn," Penny instructed.

There were less suburban, two-floor houses and more dark green trees, with no person or infected in sight. The street was very narrow and the car was shaking. Lana thought it was because of that the road was bumpy, but no. Everyone could hear the engine sputtering.

"Oh, no..." Lana cursed under her breath, once the car finally stopped. "What do we do?"

Aarav pointed at the front window. "I remember there being a hardware store of some kind up ahead that hill there. Convenient if we want to find tools of some sort."

"You're saying we can walk?" Penny asked for clarification, turning to the back yet again.

"It's worth a shot. We could walk to the top of the hill and find more gas there," Aarav said, shrugging.