“We left Yue.” LeBron said quietly pointing at the open door and empty seat beside him. Drew immediately forgot about the gore he had smeared all over him in his haste to get outside and see where Yue was. Seeing her running up to the truck he breathed a little easier. Looking behind her he saw another surger tearing across the concrete trying to catch up to her. Checking his holster, he realized he’d lost his gun somewhere.
“Get down!” Bart yelled with his head stuck out his window and his rifle pointed in the direction of Yue’s head. Yue threw herself to the ground. She knew her dad pointing the weapon in her direction and yelling to get down meant there was more than likely a monster about to jump on her from behind. She’d barely had time to rip her jeans open on the rough concrete when her dad started blasting away. A blood covered Drew then helped Yue up off the road before flinging her back in her seat. He slammed her door shut and got back in.
“I hate to say this, but I think we need a new car.” Drew said once he had them moving down the road again. Shopping bags were fluttering around like crazy at the unsafe speed he was driving at. He shifted around uncomfortably in the puddle of blood he was sitting in.
“I think we need to find a nice safe hole to crawl into. This open road stuff sucks.” LeBron said to the general agreement of everyone in the truck.
“Let’s get the hell out of Florida and figure it out.” Bart said before once more lying down to rest. Yue hurried to dig up some pills for him to take before he went to sleep.
Chapter 25: The Hell Out of Florida
Despite Yue’s complete lack of enthusiasm, they opted to spend the night in the Expedition again. The late afternoon rain had brought the mosquitos out so that was wonderful. It really helped to enhance the overall ambience along with the humidity and blood-soaked seats. They’d kept driving north for another hour after leaving Gainesville in the rearview before deciding to look for a place to pull over. They’d driven past an exit that looked pretty deserted. Drew had turned around, gotten off the interstate there then driven them deep into the woods to spend another fabulous night being eaten alive by the bugs.
They hadn’t seen anyone else on the road recently. That observation corroborated their dad’s insistence they not get out of the truck back where they’d been ambushed. The number of people they’d seen on the road prior to the ambush site had been a pleasant surprise. Even if most of them had been super creepy. At least none of them had tried to massacre them to steal eighty gallons of unleaded and a bunch of ace bandages. It was still nice to know there were other survivors out there. Hopefully a lot of people just weren’t up to road tripping quite yet.
“We need to loot a Ross or something. I’m on my last pair of boxers.” Drew complained. They’d all taken the time to give themselves sponge baths and change into whatever fresh clothes they had left. The problem with dirty clothes in the apocalypse was that dirty had evolved to mean completely unwearable. That’s what happened when about once a day you ended up covered in the insides of another human being. On top of being gross their clothing became a biohazard as well. If any of the juicy grossness they kept getting covered in managed to get in their bloodstream they could end up with an insatiable hunger for brains.
Not that they had any clue why they hadn’t all turned already anyway. All of them were covered in scrapes and cuts. They’d all been drenched in blood and other squishy sticky substances pouring out of dead humans who were infected. They actually tried not to think too much about what all they’d been covered in. Their working theory was that whatever made you turn must be in the mouths of the infected. Maybe that’s where the bulk of the bacteria/virus/bio mold or whatever the hell was the cause of all this stuff accumulated in the quantity needed to make someone turn.
“I honestly don’t know why you bother getting out of the truck to take a piss bro.” LeBron said indicating the blood caked boxers Drew had thrown into the grass in disgust.
It was a valid statement. When you’re marinating your nether regions in some kind of nasty zombie goo for a couple of hours in the hot Florida sun a nice cleansing urine rinse may be exactly what the doctor ordered. At a certain point you just couldn’t ratchet up the gross factor any higher.
“Ok. We need a new ride, more ammunition, fresh clothes and supplies. I know dad just wants us to get out of Florida but honestly where exactly are we supposed to go? Everywhere is going to suck. The weather just happens to be better for camping up north.” Drew was venting. It wasn’t the first time he’d brought this up. They were rushing north with no real plan in mind. They were burning through valuable resources to get them there. At the rate they were going they’d wind up broken down and hungry on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. They’d be stuck trying to defend themselves with hammers and screwdrivers. To top it off they’d be wearing ace bandages wrapped around their crotches since they’d be out of wearable clothes by the time they got there. Wherever ‘there’ was.
“What do you think we should do?” Bart asked. He was sitting up and listening in. Yue
