Least Likely To Survive

by Lisa Biesiada

  He closed the book and handed it back to me. “Why don’t I drive.” It wasn’t a question.

  I stared up at him, and couldn’t hide my outrage. “Is something wrong with my driving?”

  He grinned and winked at me. “No, Ang, there is nothing wrong with your driving. But I enjoy it and would like to take the next leg. Besides, you drove all day yesterday; it’s my turn.” I couldn’t fault his logic, especially as I wasn’t fond of driving in general. Plus it would give me a chance to study the maps further, and figure out how we would get all this crap from the car to a boat without being attacked.

  “Fine, but it wouldn’t have killed you to ask instead of just telling me.” I turned around without waiting for his response and stomped around the back to the passenger side. After opening the door and climbing into the seat, I slammed it shut, and sat back with my arms folded across my chest. I didn’t want him to not pick up on my irritation. “And quit calling me ‘Ang’. It sounds like a venereal disease.”

  “Fine, sorry, Angie.” He chuckled as he climbed into the driver seat, shut the door, buckled his seat belt and turned to face me. “So which way?”

  I had just finished unhooking the gun harness, and was setting it on the floorboard. Looking up I nodded my head towards the direction we had been heading the night before. “Just get back on the road and follow it. We’ll be crossing into Texas soon, and then I’ll give you directions as we go.”

  “Okay.” He steered us out back onto the deserted highway and continued down the road we had been following the night before.

  After a few minutes of silence, I plugged my IPod back in and started scrolling through the playlists, finally settling on one. As Tom Waits’ ‘Bottom of the World’ filled the speakers, I again reached for the Atlas, and began to study the roads that would take us where I wanted to go.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t pick some famous person’s island to go to; wouldn’t that have better accommodations?” Jack glanced at me briefly before settling his eyes back on the road ahead.

  “Why? Believe it or not, not everyone is entranced with celebrities. I was more focused on a place that would be empty, rather than meeting someone. Notice I haven’t exactly fawned over you.” I stared at the maps, and started to wonder if maybe I had been too quick on the whole ‘down to earth and human’ summation I had made the day before.

  Sure, he was a mess when Steve died, but his arrogant side certainly liked making appearances. Then again, it could just be his defense mechanism; the guy’s life wasn’t exactly ‘normal’. At least not like mine. And wasn’t I doing the same thing with my sour attitude?

  “Don’t be so surly, I wasn’t trying to be smart. I just figured most girls in this situation would want to go to, say, Johnny Depp’s island or something.” He turned back to the road with a casual shrug.

  The thought had occurred to me, but I wasn’t about to admit that. “I didn’t pick his island for a few reasons.” I turned to him and held up a finger. “One: it’s huge. There is just too much acreage to be defensible. Two:” I stuck another finger up, “What if he’s there? I don’t want to kill Johnny Depp; zombie or not. Same reason I didn’t go and find anyone I knew before leaving. Just killing the couple of people I sort of knew on my way here was hard. I happen to admire his work, so meeting and killing Zombie Johnny Depp would kind of suck. Besides, if he owns an island, he’s probably heading there anyway as the world is ending and all.”

  He didn’t answer right away, just looked at me for a minute before looking back at the road. “I can see that. I’m sort of glad it went down while I was on set; at least I wasn’t at home with my friends, or something,” he shuddered slightly before finishing. “Fuck, the idea of taking down my housekeeper gives me the chills. I love that woman.”

  “Your housekeeper? Don’t you have a wife, or a girlfriend, or kids, or something?” The shock on my face was more than I could hide.

  I saw his eyes narrow as he fashioned a frown. “No. I had a girl, but we split some time ago. It’s just been me for a while now. Was there anyone special you left behind?” For truly, he was the king of subject changes.

  I let out a bitter chuckle, “Nope, been alone for a few months. And thankfully so, considering.” Never had I looked upon my lack of love life as a good thing up until this very moment. It’s a lot easier to get gone when you don’t have someone who loves you to worry about. Who knew being single would be my saving grace?

  We were silent after that, so I reached over to the pack of smokes, pulled one out and handed it to him. Wordlessly he accepted it and we both lit up. After a few drags I felt a little more myself. Apparently my sour attitude just needed nicotine.

  “I still can’t believe you stopped to grab smokes while running for your life. Now that’s fucking dedication,” He said after a few puffs, and not without a little laugh.

  “I may not have had anyone special to worry about escaping with, but in my defense Marlboro never forgets my birthday. They send me a gift every year,” I couldn’t help but laugh with him at my frivolous acquisition of tobacco.

  Turning to me, I could hear the horror in his voice. “What the fuck are we going to do when we run out?”

  I looked over at him, and with the straightest face I could muster, “I’ll just have to kill you so that you don’t drive me crazy.”

  His eyebrows furrowed, and he looked mildly concerned for a moment. “Don’t say that; you look fucking scary, and I’ve seen you handle a shotgun.”

  Sitting back with a smug smile, I had to congratulate myself on completely freaking him out. He was going to be fun.

  The hours passed. I kept track, or didn’t; I wasn’t real sure at that point. It’s odd how when shit really starts to hit the fan, and you know you’re running for your life, you start to lose track of time. It just didn’t matter anymore.

  We had spent our lives on the constant watch of time; spending it, saving it, wishing we had more, wishing we had less, and for what? We destroyed ourselves anyway. So no, time was no longer relevant.

  I wanted to think I was remaining optimistic that someday I would be watchful of time again, or it would at least matter, but I was beginning to accept everything had changed. In just a few short weeks, the whole world was a completely different place and damned if I knew how I would fit into it.

  I was entirely mystified over the shortage, and somewhat abundance of time I was now faced with. It was a very real possibility I wouldn’t live to see another sunset, and yet here we were, still alive and trying to get somewhere safe. Would we make it? I had no idea. No fucking semblance of a clue what was going to happen, or how this shit got started in the first place for that matter.

  I had a strong feeling all along the news wasn’t giving us the whole story, for if it had been, things might have gone down a little differently. But seeing as how I was pretty much at the bottom of the totem pole, I would probably never have any real answers as to how this all came about.

  What I did know for sure, was that zombies were taking over. I never really thought I would ever see the day, or that a person, a real person could be overtaken with any sort of virus to cause rage and cannibalism. How the fuck did we get here?

  I was aware I wasn’t exactly the greatest person on the planet, I had my fair share of faults and fucked up things I’d been party to; but I didn’t think I deserved to go out like this; most of us probably didn’t. I knew this line of thinking was neither here nor there; as we were here and this was the situation at hand.

  This line of reasoning and inner dialogue continued into much of the day. We hadn’t said much in the last few hours; what was there to say really? Why go through the whole ‘getting to know you’ shit when there was a sobering chance one or both of us wouldn’t be alive much longer? I didn’t see much point in learning more about my happenstance companion as I highly doubted we would both make it out alive. No sense in getting attached just so when he was bitten it stabbed the knife a little deeper into my che
st.

  No, there was no sense at all. It occurred to me I would probably spend what was left of my life alone, which was actually okay, seeing as how it wasn’t much different than how I had spent most of it anyway.

  I was looking down at my hands studying my manicure, bemoaning the loss of my nail salon when I looked over at Jack. Here he was, a flesh and blood person sitting right next to me, and I couldn’t help but think about the absurdity that we met under these circumstances. I had to wonder if I would have acted any differently had we met another way. If we had bumped into each other at a grocery store, or I had spotted him outside some hip club. I probably would’ve been too shy to do more than stare awkwardly, and yet now that was the furthest thought from my mind.

  Several hours later, I was seeing signs for Lubbock and Abilene, and knew things were about to get complicated. I reached over and turned down the stereo and looked at the gas gauge. “We’re gonna need to stop for gas soon,” I looked over at him, concern filling my words.

  Pulling himself back from his own thoughts, he too looked to the gauge; “Yeah, I suppose we should start looking for a station.”

  I began assessing our surroundings. We were still outside of anything remotely urban, but there were more and more road signs, and I could see little clutches of suburbia scattered here and there. We passed a few more signs, until we caught sight of one advertising gas and food.

  I pointed at the sign, and the truck stop it was referring to, which was just outside Lubbock, “That’s probably our best bet. The further we get, the more people there’ll be.” I turned to look at him to get his take on things.

  Clearing his throat, I watched him squint from behind his Aviators, “Yeah. That one it is.”

  He turned the wheel to the right, guiding the Hummer onto the off ramp that would lead us to the truck stop. Reaching the stop sign, he jerked the wheel right, coasting us down into the parking lot. He stopped the car, and we both anxiously studied our surroundings.

  There were two cars and a semi in the lot, but no other vehicles. I figured that meant it was likely we would run into to trouble, as I doubted they’d been abandoned. I unbuckled my seatbelt, and reached to the floorboard to grab the guns. Heaving the holster into my lap, I proceeded to strap myself in, and checked to make sure each gun was fully loaded and ready to go. I grabbed the short sword and secured the sheath to my thigh. I wasn’t looking forward to this, but the truck was going through gas faster than I’d have liked, and both cans were emptied into the tank that morning.

  I looked up and watched as Jack was finishing the task of loading the shotgun and handgun I had lent him that morning. I felt a little better after seeing him handle the weapons. He knew what shells to use, and was apparently adept with the magazine cartridge. I just hoped he could fire one as accurately as he could load it. He clicked the magazine back into place, and checking to see that the safety was off, looked up at me and smiled. “You ready?” The smile on his face reminded me of the look someone gets right after they say, ‘”Here, hold my beer.”’ You just knew something stupid and dangerous was about to occur.

  I held back my sigh of dread; I really wasn’t ready for this at all. It had only been 24 hours since I’d left my apartment and already I was tired of killing. I tried to hide my fear behind a plan of action. “Ready as I’ll ever be. Okay, let’s pull up to the pump, run a card through the scanner, hope that it works, and I’ll pump gas while you be the lookout, K?”

  He looked thoughtful for a moment, “What if the card doesn’t work?”

  I could feel my face scrunch as I thought about that. It hadn’t really occurred to me that the card wouldn’t work, but the place was deserted, and seeing as how it was still late morning, I couldn’t really tell if the place had power. “Well, then I guess Plan B is we run inside and turn on the pump.” I looked around the parking lot at the other vehicles scattered about. “Judging by the cars and that truck, I doubt we’re alone, but we should have enough ammo to take out any threats.”

  He was quiet for a moment as he surveyed the area and weighed our options. We both knew the card was the best case scenario, but the whole thing was a crapshoot. “Okay.” He put the gear back into drive and eased us over to the first pump, making sure the coast in front of us was clear in the event we needed a fast getaway. He lined us up, and turned off the engine. We both took audibly deep breaths, and opened our doors.

  Wasting no time, I hopped down from the Hummer, and closed my door. I raced around the front heading for the gas tank and the pumps, as he passed me trying to cover as much of the vehicle as possible. I reached the tanks, and my heart sank when I saw that the screen was blank. Fuck, the pump was off. Some asshole had probably hit the emergency OFF switch in a panic. Yeah, like a fucking gas fire was really the most pressing of concerns.

  “The fucking power is off, we have to go inside,” I yelled over to Jack as quietly as I could. He ran back around the Hummer to stand next to me and also checked out the screen. I was slightly miffed that he felt the need to double check, but quickly set that aside for a later time.

  After coming to the same conclusion I had, he cocked his head in the direction of the building, “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 5: Gas Run.

  We fell into a brisk walk, and I reached into the holsters at my waist and pulled out the Smith and Wessons. I thought about the shotgun for a minute, but quickly dismissed the thought as I would probably be firing at close range and needed to have better control. We reached the front doors, and briefly glanced through the glass. The lights were on, and the slushy machine was blinking at us merrily, but I didn’t see anyone around. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s in there, but I can’t see behind the shelves,” I whispered, chancing a glance at Jack and catching his nod of agreement.

  Seeing both my hands full, he used his free hand to open the door, and we stepped in as cautiously and quietly as we could. Unfortunately, this door too, had a bell that jingled in excitement, announcing our arrival. As the beeping ceased, the thought occurred to me that if I ever came across whoever it was that came up with the bright idea to put a bell on every goddamned door I opened; I would throttle them.

  Before we even had a chance to head over to the register, a zombie came tearing out from behind a Doritos display. It was obviously the clerk, as her little green smock was a dead giveaway, and the entrails dangling from her face didn’t make it look any better. She looked about late thirties, and was probably pretty, in that ‘small town, frizzy haired’ sort of way. Where I was from, we called it ‘frumpy’.

  While conducting my assessment of the unfortunate woman in front of me, Jack had pulled the Ruger from his waistband and fired a shot directly into her face before she could get too close. I couldn’t help but admire his accuracy.

  I didn’t hide my admiration as I asked, “Where’d you learn to shoot like that?”

  He glanced at me, before looking back at the clerk, who had crumpled to the ground like an empty bag of chips, and was now leaking blood everywhere. “I grew up on a farm.” It was becoming clear that Jack Jones was a man of few words. I had to admit it was slightly disappointing as every word he uttered seemed to glide over the empty space like honey, but I guess considering the circumstances was better than being stuck with a chatterbox.

  “Huh.” I was somewhat surprised to hear of his humble beginnings; I never would have pegged him for a farm boy.

  We didn’t stop to chat, but continued to the counter, where he nimbly hopped over it. Yeah, I was mildly jealous at the skill with which he had cleared it, remembering my own only technically successful counter hop from the day before.

  He looked around at the register frantically before asking in his low growl, “Which button is it?”

  “How should I know?” I answered while scanning the store for the owners of the abandoned vehicles in the parking lot. They may have just been spare parts by that time judging by the condition of the clerk, but I figured better safe than sorry.

&nb
sp; Continuing his search, “Well haven’t you ever worked in a gas station before?” He pulled every knob, and had pushed every button to no avail.

  “Why the fuck would you think I worked in a gas station? Do I have a sign that says ‘Gas Station Attendant’ around my neck or something?!” I turned around abruptly forgetting my careful surveillance. I shot daggers at him while planting my hands firmly on my hips. I couldn’t believe the audacity of this guy assuming I’d worked in a gas station. “Isn’t there one labeled ‘pumps’ or something?”

  Ignoring my outburst, he glanced around for a few more seconds, before finally finding the lever to turn the pumps on. He flicked it into the ‘on’ position, and smiled up at me triumphantly, “Found it!”

  I couldn’t help rolling my eyes at him. “This guy.” I grumbled as I shook my head.

  He jumped just as gracefully back over the counter and we headed back for the door. Before we could reach it, I spotted someone else over his shoulder. It must be the trucker, as he had on a trucker’s hat and a ripped up flannel shirt. He was the biggest bastard I had seen in a while. Like Gladiator big; I wondered if a bullet would even be enough as he growled and ambled our way. Before he could reach Jack, I raised my right arm, aimed, and fired a shot straight into his eye. He dropped like a sack of potatoes, and I was pretty sure I felt the floor tremble.

  Jack looked at the behemoth in surprise, then back at me. “Nice shot.”

  I shrugged, trying to hide the blush of pride creeping up my cheeks. “Thanks. I keep hitting everyone in the eye; I don’t know what that’s about, but it’s working for me so far.”

  He chuckled and shook his head a little as we continued to the door. Reaching it, we thrust ourselves back outside and started towards the Hummer. I got to the pump, and looked up at the screen and sighed in relief that all appeared to be back in business as far as our ploy to get gas was concerned. Lifting the handle, I shoved it into the gas tank, and let it fill up.