Since she'd made her way to the camp, she'd kept busy working, or reveling in her friends being alive. Even though part of her had wanted to genuinely sit down and just think, she'd avoided it, more because she was afraid her head might explode from trying to understand it all than anything else.
Looking up into the mirror, she saw that Mills hadn't returned and decided to break one of his rules. Slipping her shoes off, she put her feet up on the dash and stared at the roof. He would scream and yell if he caught her, but she didn't really care.
In all the madness, Bunny had gone from being a stripper, to being hand-picked to drive a state-of-the-art military vehicle through a walking dead infested city in an attempt to deliver more than one thousand people to an airport so they could fly to Hawaii.
If it was a movie, Bunny would’ve cried foul, on the simple principle that it was totally unbelievable. Who in their right mind would give a stripper the keys to a vehicle like the Beast in the first place? Not to mention, she shouldn't even have survived long enough to get to the military base. That alone was hardly within the realm of realistic, she thought, and she’d lived it.
But here she was, sitting in the vehicle in question. Perhaps it really did just come down to Williams believing she was the person best suited for the job. Maybe there was nothing more to it than that. If their positions had been reversed, she had to wonder if she would follow the same course as the Colonel.
If she really was going to be in this implausible scenario, what then? Do the best she could, same as she always had. Ever since she was a child, when the idea of being one of the good guys had first germinated in her brain, she had devoted herself to that ideal.
As an officer, she’d lived by it. She had given her best, and never held back. Even after that, as a dancer, she had thrown herself full force into it, and never hesitated. She didn't even know how to give a half a damn. It was always all or nothing for her, and nothing less was acceptable.
She shook her head, tossing the cigarette butt out the open door. Never mind the absurdity of her situation, the sheer Hollywood improbability of it all, it was real, and she had to deal with it. No amount of blowing smoke up her own ass was going to change that, or make it go away.
The dead had risen. Some of them were smart. They wanted to eat every last living person on Earth, and had one hell of a head start. She’d been given the task of trying to save the last residents of Chicago. No matter what, she knew, she would do everything she could.
Bunny looked down into the passenger seat, at the small object that lay there, and wondered for a moment if her best would be enough this time. So many lives had been put in her hands that she had to ask at the very least, if she could save them all.
Realistically, no. She already knew that. Odds were many of those people out there weren't going to live. As chilling a thought as it was, she knew she needed to accept it now, or be paralyzed later. Learn to deal with seeing people be eaten as they screamed, or die yourself, that was the either or she’d struggled with since the day the world ended.
She picked up the thing in the passenger seat and held it in her hands for a moment. She’d long known that life was fragile, that it could end at any moment, without warning, and often in horrible fashion. Since the rising of the dead, however, she had learned just how precious life really was, how important it was to hang on to, no matter the futility of the struggle.
It was in that act, the struggle to live and carry on, that people were often at their best, and strongest. In the last week, she had seen strippers working side-by-side with ministers for a common goal. Had watched people of different faiths huddle together, thankful to be near another living being. She’d seen the best of humanity, as all the old grudges and prejudices fell away, and felt sad that it’d taken the end of everything to bring it about.
She turned the small thing over in her hands, wondering why it all had to be this way. Why did the world have to end, consumed by a ravenous hunger. Why did people have to find their common ground only when that same hunger descended on them without mercy? Why did it take such extremes to accomplish such a small thing as understanding?
Saddened by it all, she hung the only thing she still truly owned in the world around the atmospheric display set where a rearview mirror would normally go, giving it a small tap with her finger, sending it rocking back and forth. She stared at it for a long time, wondering if it was too late to start praying. Was there even anyone listening? Would they listen to her?
Had she been guided here for a reason, or had it been pure dumb luck she’d lived this long? Better people than her had died along the way, while she still lived. Was it part of some unseen plan, or did she really just have a knack for not dying, as Williams had said?
When the day came, and she drove out of the Park, some modern day Moses parting the sea of Death, would her invisible protector still be there, or would
