“Okay, sure.”
“You remember how your dad saw us holding hands,” I cleared my throat. “Then showed me his gun case and how to properly oil a shotgun.”
“No he didn’t!” she said, slapping me on the leg. “You never told me that before!”
“I so did too!” I said, rubbing my thigh. “He showed me the gun case then proceeded to tell me that ‘any man who wishes to date my daughter must know how to properly oil a shotgun,” I said in my deepest dad voice.
“You’re lying!”
“I am not!” I said, my voice returning to its normal, somewhat squeak. “Then he offered me cookies! I never understood your father.”
“Cookies? That’s the best thing that you could come up with?” she said in obvious disbelief.
I nodded, “Yup. He gave me cookies and your mother forced tea on me. You know how I feel about tea.”
“You like tea?”
“Well, yeah,” I agreed. “But not in a public setting.”
“My house wasn’t a public setting,” she replied, placing a hand on my thigh. “You know that.”
I’ll admit, my driving sputtered a moment while I attempted to recover from her advance. Let’s just say I shifted into full gear. “We should get back.”
Her smile widened, “Oh good. I thought we might have to do it while driving.”
I shifted into gear five.
“STOP!” She yelled.
My eyes darted upwards, but it was too late. A contaminated was standing in the road, like a deer in the headlights, but I have a suspicion that it knew exactly what it was doing. My brakes screeched as the wheels tried to stop the momentum of the moving vehicle but could not stop the car in time. The contaminated bounced off of the front right side of the car, its head smashing against the hood. The shocks of the car bounced up and down as the contaminated rolled under the car. The front right headlamp was out, shattered by the body of the contaminated. Fortunately, we were only about a mile from home and the damage did not seem to be too bad.
“Holy hell!” I yelled, far too late for the situation. The scent of burned rubber wafting through the air and into the car. “You okay?” I asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Chelsea replied. “Maybe we should focus on the road more instead of distracting each other.”
“Agreed.”
I pressed my foot on the gas again. A light thumping noise sounded as the car drove through the streets, probably from a bent axle or something damaged. Oh well, so much for this car. At least we had a few to choose from. When the town was being evacuated, the military picked up most of the residents who simply left their cars parked in the driveway, probably unlocked. Though I did not want to, if I ever did need it, I could definitely just break into a house and take the keys to any car that I wished.
We were in the part of town with working street lights so I took advantage of that and turned off the working headlight to cause as little attention as possible. There was still engine noise, but that was necessary when driving a car. We were not interrupted on the rest of the drive back home as I clunked into the driveway, finally pulling to a stop with a squeak and screech.
Chelsea opened the door to get out as I popped the trunk to retrieve my pack and the cat food that I had stored there from the superstore. The clouds were parted almost fully now, providing a decent amount of moonlight to the world. The cold November breeze nipped at my nose turning it a bright red by the time that I was able to make my way inside.
“Your cheeks are rosy,” Chelsea giggled as I shut the door. She had already closed the curtains and blinds to prevent as little light as possible from escaping the living room. “C’mon, let’s make some soup to warm up.”
I put my things down on the dining room table as Coal jumped me. She was calling as she jumped onto my shoulder. “I guess someone’s hungry too,” I said. I opened the bag of cat food and poured some into her bowl. She leapt right to it, her tail flipping back and forth in her ecstasy.
Chelsea already had a pot on the burner and was opening two cans of New England clam chowder. Now that was something that I never imagined ever having again. You always think of what food you would love to have if a crisis happened to the world or if you were stuck on an abandoned island, and I guarantee that nobody ever picks clam chowder, yet clam chowder is wonderful. It has all of the nutrients that a body would need: protein, starch, other things. Believe me, I was more than happy to have some clam chowder with the greatest crisis the world has ever seen unfolding in front of my eyes, but could not help myself to crave some good freshly made pizza.
It heated quickly, bubbles indicating a boil blowing through the surface of the soup. Chelsea evenly poured the contents of the pot into two bowls. I placed the forks on the table along with a napkin and we ate in silence for a bit. Once my bowl was half way gone, I remembered some of the bread that was still frozen.
“Toast?” I asked. Chelsea nodded as I pulled apart two frozen pieces of bread and threw then into the toaster. It was kind of amazing. There was death and destruction running wild through the world and my girlfriend and I were sitting in my kitchen eating soup and toast. It was nice to know that we had a quiet haven all to ourselves.
We finished the soup
