by Raymond Lee
“Are you serious? You think it was blown up?”
“I’m no expert but I’d be willing to bet on it. I only saw one plane and a few helicopters, none of them salvageable.”
“Why would it be blown up?”
“Sara.” He spoke her name like he was speaking to a fool. “Why do you think Russia sent those infected women over here in the first place? They want to destroy us. It makes perfect sense they would blow up our military bases. Hell, the women themselves were bombs if you really think about it.”
“Shit. So what’s our plan?”
“Get away from here, get back on the interstate and stay on it until we get blocked again or really need to get off and find gas. Actually, you should get off it again as soon as you see a sign for a gas station anyway.”
“You sure you want to get off again so soon if we don’t have to? We just refueled an hour ago.”
“Yeah, I know, but you really need a breath mint.”
“Torres… Gas.”
“I know, I know,” Torres said, scanning the area as he drove. “The last residential area we went past was crawling with infected and I wasn’t expecting to hit this stretch of nothing. Shit, not even a single gas station or burger place. What the hell do people do here if they break down?”
“Before this apocalypse thing happened, I imagine they prayed for good cell service,” Sara said, turning to look at Sky. “How are you doing back there, kid?”
“I really have to pee,” she said, shaking her legs. She’d been holding it for nearly an hour as they traveled through Utah, past zombie infested cities and now miles of desert for as far as the eye could see.
“I told you I can pull over and you can just go on the road. There’s no one who would see.”
Sky gave Torres the same look she’d given him the last time he’d made the suggestion. “I’m not going on the road.”
“It’s not that bad, I promise. I’ve been doing it.”
“You don’t have to squat!” Sky reminded him. “A zombie might creep up on me and bite me in the butt.”
Torres barked out a laugh, quickly squelching it as he glanced in the rearview mirror and met her gaze. “We can keep a lookout for zombies without watching you pee. We won’t let any creep up on you. You’re not going to get bit in the butt.”
“What if I lose my balance and fall in my pee? Then you’ll have to drive with me smelling up the car like pee.”
“Don’t be silly,” he said. “I’ll tie you to the roof until you air out.”
Sky folded her arms over her chest and stared out her window.
“Great, job, you guys.” Sara’s left leg started shaking. “Now I have to pee too.”
“The two of you are going to make me have to go,” Torres griped, adding more pressure to the gas pedal.
“Should you be using more gas?” Sara asked. “We’re already low and this map doesn’t tell me when we’re going to see civilization again.”
“Sweetheart, civilization is gone,” Torres said, “and neither of you are willing to pop a squat on the road so it’s either speed up or piss all over the inside of the car.”
“I guess we’re annoying you?”
“You are always annoying me. Sky’s fine.”
“Jerk,” Sara muttered. “You’d miss me if I was gone.”
“Maybe a little bit,” he conceded with a grin as he continued down the interstate. “What is that? Are we coming to something or is this one of those desert mirages I’ve heard about?”
Sky read the sign as Torres slowed down. It warned against not filling up before going farther into the desert and an arrow pointed to an exit ahead.
“That sounds promising,” Sara said as Torres drove toward the exit.
They weren’t off the interstate long before Sky saw gas stations up ahead on both sides of the street and a few fast food restaurants. She would have bounced up and down in celebration but was afraid to risk it. Her bladder felt like an overfilled water balloon. “Are we stopping there?”
“If it’s safe to,” Torres answered, easing up on their speed again as he drew closer to the gas stations.
“We have to stop there, Torres. We’re going to run out of gas.”
He flicked an irritated look Sara’s way before bringing the Mustang to a stop along the road just before it forked. They all scanned the area, looking for danger. If they turned right they’d be on a long road that looked to go back to a deserted area. They were unable to see anything but dirt and foliage. There was nothing on the right side of that road. A gas station set back on the left side, a Little Caesars pizza restaurant a bit farther than it. If they craned their necks they could see that turning left would bring them to two gas stations and at least five more restaurants, plus a couple of stores.
“It looks like we’d run into a residential area if we took a left and kept going the length of the road. Over here on the right it’s just one gas station and the pizza place. They look new.” He pointed to vehicles left by a construction crew between the two buildings. “It looks like they were still doing some work on the pizza place when everything went to shit, but the gas station looks like it was functioning. This side would be our safest bet. We only have two structures and any infected would most likely linger around the residential area.”
“So we’re all good,” Sara said, leg shaking faster. “Let’s go.”
“Are you forgetting zombies aren’t our only enemies?” Torres put the car back in drive and took a right. When he reached the gas station he slowly crept around it, scanning as he did, paying extra attention as he passed the glass-paned front. He finally parked near the gas tanks and cut the engine. “I suppose the two of you want to use the actual bathrooms?”
“Duh,” Sara said.
Torres shook his head and opened his door. “I’ll do a walk-through to make sure it’s all right.”
“We will all do a walk-through. Quit trying to be the grand hero.” Sara said. “What happens to us if you get attacked in there? We need to be good at this stuff too.”
Torres glanced back at Sky and sighed. “Fine. You have your weapons?”
Sky showed him her gun. Sara raised her gun and switchblade.
“All right. Let’s do this,” Torres told her before exiting the car. Sky and Sara followed him out, earning a dark look when they closed their doors too loud.
“What?” Sara asked. “Like you driving around in circles wouldn’t have caught anyone’s attention if there were people here?”
“Just try to be quiet,” he told her as he positioned himself in the lead, making sure Sky was fully hidden by his body as they approached the building.
The mixture of fear and excitement coursing through Sky took her mind off needing to pee. She hadn’t been out scavenging with Torres in over a month, since he’d declared it too dangerous for her. She knew he’d been shot at, and she’d seen for herself how the infected had multiplied since they’d taken shelter over the bar. She wiped her sweaty hand on her pant leg so she didn’t drop her gun.
Torres took a moment to scan the inside of the gas station once they reached the doors. Not seeing anything, he gripped the door handle and pulled. It swung open easily, unlocked. He took a step inside and called out, “Hello? Is anyone here?”
“You’re just announcing us?” Sara asked, her voice an incredulous whisper.
“If there are any infected in here, I’d rather know while we can get back to the car or at least fight them in an open space. If there’s any uninfected people here, I’d rather announce my presence and hope they’re friendly rather than waltz right in and get shot, especially since we have a kid with us.” He did another scan. “We’re friendly! We’re just looking for a bathroom for my little girl and we’ll be on our way! We’re coming in!”
Torres stepped farther inside and motioned for Sky and Sara to stay just inside the door. He did a quick check of every aisle, gun pointed out, ready to fire. Once he cleared the aisles he checked behind the counter. “
Is it still good out there?”
Sky and Sara looked outside. “All clear,” Sky told him, her overfull bladder making its presence known again with a vengeance. She started bobbing up and down. “I really gotta go.”
“I know, honey. Hold on a little bit longer.” He crept toward a door that said EMPLOYEES ONLY, quietly pushed it open and disappeared inside.
“My bladder is going to burst and I haven’t even had to go as long as you. Come on.” Sara started walking toward the sign for the restrooms.
Sky looked back at the door Torres had disappeared through, wishing he’d pop back out but he didn’t and she had no idea how big of an area he was securing back there. Her stomach hurt and she started to worry she was going to spring a leak soon.
“Come on Sky. We have guns too.” Sara stood just under the restrooms sign in the little alcove at the right corner of the store behind the checkout.
Torres reentered the room, nostrils flaring when he didn’t see Sara. He quickly crossed the room to Sky and saw Sara standing under the restroom sign. “What the hell?”
“I have to use the bathroom,” Sara snapped. “I was going to clear the restroom while you were off doing whatever you were doing.”
“I was making sure it was safe for you to use the bathroom!” Torres snapped, eyes hot with anger. “You could wait.”
“Or I could just be my own hero,” Sara shot back before turning on her heel and disappearing from view.
“I’m starting to regret allowing her to stay with us.” Torres looked down at Sky. “All right, kid. Quit bobbing. I haven’t heard her scream so I assume it’s safe enough for you to come clear the bathroom with us.”
Sky followed Torres to the restrooms, moving slow as she had to walk with her knees together and everything from her teeth to her pelvic muscles clenched to prevent an embarrassing accident. Torres looked back at her and grinned before they reached the bathrooms.
The doors to the men’s room and women’s room were side by side. Sara was already inside the women’s room, gun out, body on full alert. She systematically went down the row of stalls, opening each one with her gun ready to kill anything that might leap out at her.
“It’s clear,” she said, turning toward them. “Permission to piss, master?”
Sky didn’t wait for his response nor pay attention to what it was, too uncomfortable to wait through another round of their bickering. She ran for the nearest stall, slammed the door closed, latched it, dropped her pants and plopped down on the toilet seat without a care who had sat on it before her or what bacteria she should have wiped down first. The urine flowed out of her before her bottom hit the seat, bursting free with the force of a firehose. Her belly cramped as her bladder released, the result of waiting too long, but she still couldn’t recall ever feeling such relief in her near decade of life.
“I’ll be outside,” she heard Torres say and shortly after Sara entered one of the stalls.
“Geez, kid, are you going for a record?” she asked.
“I’m not drinking anything again until we get to Lincoln.”
When they finished they walked out to find Torres at the end of the hall, looking out onto the sales floor. “Feel better?”
“Oh yeah.” Sky walked toward him much quicker than she had walked to the bathroom and he handed her and Sara plastic bags.
“I’m going to get the gas. The two of you should grab whatever is still edible here, and water and medicines.” He looked down at Sky. “More than just candy bars and potato chips.”
“Potato chips are made from potatoes,” she reminded him. “That makes them vegetables.”
He grinned, and shook his head. “Keep your guns handy. I’m trusting you to keep her safe in here, Sara. I didn’t see anyone in here, but it’s best to never let your guard down while out in the wild like this. Hurry up.”
He slipped outside, stopping long enough to scan the perimeter before jogging toward the car where he would remove the caps from the underground gas tanks and use a hose to fill their car with gasoline.
“Let’s grab some stuff, kid.”
Sky followed Sara out to the floor and started filling her bag. Knowing Torres preferred to eat healthy foods whenever possible she bypassed the chips and candy bars for the assorted nuts and beef jerky. She filled her bag with just those so she went behind the counter to grab another. A glance out the window showed Torres still working on getting the gas.
“Grab me another bag too,” Sara called over as she stuffed various pain relievers and medications into the bag Torres had given her. “I’m going to grab all the bottles of water.”
“Shouldn’t we leave a little bit in case someone else needs them?” Sky handed her a bag and went over to the aisle with the protein bars. She was sick of the yucky bars, but Torres ate a bunch of them and insisted she eat them when they were low on anything else.
“I suppose you’re right, but we could run out ourselves. I’ll leave a couple bottles.”
“Why not just take one of those cases of water? Leave the loose ones in the refrigerator for others. They’re not cold anyway.” She looked at the towers of plastic-wrapped cases of water stacked along the front window next to the two liter bottles of soft drinks. “Isn’t it strange this store has so much food and water left? Torres said every store near us was completely picked over.”
Sara finished stuffing her bag and shrugged. “This is a far cry from Hollywood. This is the desert. This gas station most likely made ninety-nine percent of its money from travelers passing through and I guess not that many have made it this far. Once we got out of Vegas the number of pileups on the interstate started decreasing. The people living in that residential area up the road probably split for the military camp as soon as they could, before they even knew the full extent of what was happening in the world. I couldn’t imagine choosing to stay in such an isolated area if there was even the tiniest hint of an epidemic.”
“They didn’t stock up first?” Sky looked around. She hadn’t seen so much food since before the outbreak. If not for some of it going bad there’d be no sign that anything had happened in the area.
“I guess not.”
A cold chill skated down Sky’s back. As nice as it was finding a gas station so well-stocked it was downright creepy in the given circumstances. She finished filling two bags with the healthier food Torres preferred and then filled a third with the stuff she preferred. Potato chips, candy bars, and snack cakes quickly filled the third bag.
“Are you girls about ready?” Torres asked, stepping inside. He glanced at Sky’s stuffed bags and smiled. “Get enough, pequenuela?”
“Two of these bags are full of nuts and protein bars,” she complained. “So I don’t want any fussing about my candy bars.”
He laughed and did a little salute. “Yes, ma’am.”
“I grabbed a lot of medicines and other necessities,” Sara said, “even some breath mints.”
“Thank goodness. Talking to you was starting to make my eyes burn.”
“You’re such an ass sometimes, Torres. Think you can be bothered to use those muscles to carry a case of water out to the car?”
Torres grinned and effortlessly grabbed two of the 24-count cases of water before stepping outside, pausing long enough to scan the area before gesturing with his head for them to follow.
“Hey, is that a little grocery on the other side?” Sara asked as they reached the car.
“Yep,” Torres answered as he stuffed the cases of water into the trunk and took Sky’s bags. “It’s over there on the other side where we agreed it would be more dangerous due to the proximity to the residential area you see past it.”
“I don’t remember agreeing to that. Sky, do you remember agreeing to that?”
“No,” Sky answered, “but I do what Torres says because he’s in charge.”
Torres closed the trunk and leaned his hip against the back of the Mustang with his arms folded over his chest and a wide smile stretched across his face
.
“No wonder you love this kid so much,” Sara said, grinning herself. “Well, you’re not in charge of me.”
“I’m in charge of whoever I allow in this car and who I allow close to us. We’re full on gas and looks like the two of you found some food inside. We’re good to get back on the road.”
“We have nuts and bars,” Sara told him, “and that’s just the stuff you’ll eat. Our supplies before leaving were really low. The inside of this gas station was hardly touched. There was plenty available. Just imagine what the grocery will be like. Remember vegetables, those things you like to eat? Oh, and meat? You can find that stuff canned in a grocery store.”
“Sara.”
“Torres! We don’t even know if the military site is going to be there when and if we make it to Lincoln. We’ve already seen one military site blown to bits along the journey. We’re a few days shy of November. Do you have any idea of what winter is going to be like in Nebraska?” She placed her hands on her narrow hips and stared him down. “Vegas was awful and we have no idea how bad it is in Colorado and Nebraska. This may be the last decent place we can stop and really stock up for who knows how long. Do you really want to skip the opportunity to give this growing child food that might actually nourish her?”
“That’s dirty. You’re using the kid’s well-being against me.”
“Is it working? If not, I was planning on going into gross, lengthy detail about how many pads and, or, tampons I can go through in a cycle and point out that we’re low on those too. Of course I suspect that’s partially because even in a zombie apocalypse it’s near impossible to get a guy to make a tampon run.”
Torres did his version of an eye roll which was more of a twitch. “I told you a hundred times every store I could get into had been cleaned out.”
“All the more reason to take advantage of our current situation.”
“You don’t think it’s weird that there’s so much left here?” Sky asked, unable to shake the creepy feeling she’d gotten while collecting food. “It feels weird.”