A New Type of Realism

(7) Dress Like A Target

I sat in the passenger seat as Kyle started the car from the driver's seat. The engine roared around us as the car sprang into life. The gates in front of us opened, and we rode, side by side into the rising sun.

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I looked behind me, and through the back window of the car. 'This is it, huh?' I mumbled.

'Don't worry about it, if we stick together, we'll be fine.' Kyle sent me a smile as he drove along the road. I turned to face forwards. We'd become like a family, albeit a slightly dysfunctional one. We'd been together for less than hours, yet we all had our roles in our small community. We all had responsibilities. It was just amazing what a few days of dangerous living can do to a group of people. I'd hate to think what would happen to the rest of our apocryphal family if Kyle and I never came back. 'You any good with cars, kid?' Kyle asked me out of the blue. I frowned in confusion.

'What?' I asked, slightly taken aback.

'For example, can you syphon fuel out of one car and into another?'

'No, you're joking...'

'I only need you to assist me, so don't worry if you can't.'

'I can help, yeah, I can help.' I grew more confident with each word.

'That's great, Dile.' Kyle said before he pulled off of the rad and into a small car park. I recognized it from the drive up from the hospital to the bunker.

'Wait, what are you doing?' I asked as he pulled the car over and started to get out. I grabbed his sleeve as he stood to leave. 'There's infected out there!'

'We'll be fine, come on.' He said with a smile.

I gulped and looked around the car before I too, left the vehicle. A few infected stumbled around, though none were close enough to cause us alarm. I ducked down behind the car in front to hide myself from their view. I pulled Kyle, who had previously been standing in clear sight, down next to me. 'What are you doing?! You're going to get yourself killed!' I hissed.

I was seriously beginning to think that the man had lost his mind. I was going to die. This was it, I was going to be eaten alive by some guy who was missing a jaw. Dear God!

'We'll go for this one. You okay with that?' He said as he walked round to the boot of our car, and pulled out what I presumed was the necessary equipment. Why was he so calm all the time?

He gave me an empty canister that I presumed the fuel would have to go into. How could we do this with the infected surrounding us? I put my fingers to my temples and tried to forced myself to concentrate. I didn't do well under pressure. I was the only one in my entire family who succumbed to stress in high pressure situations. I squeezed my eyes together to stop myself from catching a glimpse of the infected; they had begun to stumble towards us. My breathing increased dramatically. I tried to get it under control. I felt a hand on my shoulder and jumped a mile before realising it was just Kyle. He told me to hold the empty canister while he got the fuel out of the car I was kneeling by. I closed my eyes again and tried to calm myself. A few moments later I began to feel the canister filling up, and started to focus on the sound of the liquid instead.

'We're nearly there, Devyn. Just keep calm.' I nodded. I desperately wanted to get out of the car park and safely on the road in a large heap of impenetrable metal. I felt something try to claw the canister out of my hands, and so I gripped onto it tightly in response. 'Devyn.' It had just been Kyle. I let go. Again I heard the sound of pouring liquid, and it deafened me. It was too loud. The infected might hear. 'Devyn, just get back in the car.' Gratefully, I ran to the passenger's side of the Mercedes and got back in. I closed the door and instantly breathed a sigh of relief; I was safe.

I looked round to see Kyle just ambling along, taking all the time in the world. He really didn't seem to understand that if the infected caught up to him, he'd die. I looked back round to the front of the car and was knocked down with a tidal wave of déjà vu. An infected stood in front of the car just staring though the window. Upon meeting of our eyes, it didn't try to attack me, or make any attempt to stop me watching it. A second infected stepped forward and noticed my fixation with its friend. I looked round at Kyle again. He was just walking as slow as anything to put the equipment back in the boot. Out of the corner of my eye, I could've sworn I caught the infected's head turn to the other, and the mouth moving up and down. The other infected grabbed its stomach and laughed silently. I snapped my head back to look at them, to find that they were glaring at each other.

My hysterical mind had begun to make me see things that weren't there. I watched in shock as the two infected lunged at each other and started a sparring match on the floor that I couldn't see from my vantage point. They hadn't been telling jokes to one another at all, they had been exchanging 'moans' in a pre-territorial war. Now, not only Kyle, but I, was losing my mind. Perhaps, in an attempt to cope with reality, I had tried to personify the infected. I had tried to give them human qualities that they so obviously didn't have.

'Kyle, come on.' I whispered to myself as he began to slowly make his way to the driver's door after slamming the boot with no regard for the sound it made. Hysteria began to wedge its claws into the cracks in my already shattered composure.

I flinched from the sound of the car door opening and frantically ushered him inside. After what had seemed like forever, Kyle finally started the car up, and began to drive out of the car park. Finally, we drove away from the tsunami of foul creatures that had been about to pounce on us.

'What the hell is wrong with you?!' I shouted, once the car park had faded to a mere blip in the rear view mirror. I yelled loud enough to walk the dead, which in our cases, wasn't really that hard. 'Were you trying to get yourself killed?!'

'I was testing out a theory.' Kyle explained calmly. He didn't sound guilty or scared at all. I glanced at him with ridicule before I snapped.

'Those things will kill you if you give them half a chance, and you were just 'testing out a theory'? What the hell were you thinking, you senile, old man?!' I spat.

Kyle's nostrils flared, but he decided to just sit back and take it. It seemed like the wise thing to do, regarding the state I was in.

"Okay. You want me to explain, here I go." Kyle took a deep breath before he began.

"I've been thinking, and a lot of the things around us don't make any sense..."

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I sat in shock after Kyle had finished. It was only a theory, but it made a hell of a lot of sense. Even if it was completely ridiculous.

"Of course, it's only a theory. I could be terribly wrong." Kyle countered.

I nodded. I had given up trying to explain the world around us. Accepting it for what it was seemed the easiest thing to do.

Kyle turned right at a fork in the road, and passed through a cluster of old oak trees where he pulled up. The building looked to be just a fair way into the distance. It was just as Kyle had expected. It was surrounded by the infected, who stood as if to guard the bunker from any intruders. "You ready?" I asked Kyle before I potentially committed suicide.

"I was ready before you were born." Came the reply. I laughed, though the moment was short lived.

"On three?"

"Sure."

"...THREE!" I yelled as I pushed the door open and sprinted towards the embrace of certain death. It was strange, but the closer I came, the more void I became of negative emotion.

I didn't care.

I could get seriously hurt in seconds...

...and somehow I felt invincible.

I smirked, and ran faster.

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Re-written: 26th May 2016