“Deal,” She replied. “Sweet dreams, Daryl.”
I smiled to myself as I lowered the back of the seat and twisted on my side to become more comfortable. I could feel my conscious immediately bob in and out of short bursts of exhaustion. My mind began to wander. It did laps around all that we had learned about the contaminated. The head can kill, but is unreliable. Aim for the spine. They can bleed out. Why do they bleed out? I’m tired.
“Hey,” my arm began to shake myself awake again. I hated being woken up by means of a shaky arm. Not cool. “Hey, Daryl. We’re at our first official stop,” Chelsea’s voice coaxed me from my slumber.
My eyes opened wearily, taking their time to come into focus. We were stopped at a gas station that looked as if it had been abandoned weeks ago, which it technically had been. There were two sets of faded red pumps attached to dark pumping stations. It was at the edge of Pittsburg resulting in the surrounding area remaining the consistent cold tundra climate which we had been accustomed to. All of the trees were barren, save the evergreens as they had the uncanny ability to remain green, forever.
Zach’s car was set up next to our own one pump over. He had the gas nozzle in his hand and seemed to be cursing while providing the pump with numerous hand gestures generally frowned upon by numerous societies throughout the world.
“What’s up?” I asked drearily.
“It’s pump yourself. Thank god that Zach lived in New York. I have no idea how to use this thing,” Chelsea said.
“It would be nice if it would actually pump when I told it to!” Zach practically yelled as his hand smashed against the gas board. A soft beep came from the pumping station, and Zach inserted the nozzle into the car, “About damn time. Okay your turn.”
He came to our car and did basically the same thing. Curse, beat his fist, curse some more, and the pump would work. I wondered about calling him the gas whisperer, but thought better of it.
“I didn’t know that’s how gas pumps work,” I said with a heavy emphasis at the sarcasm as I did not want Zach more pissed off, but simply could not pass up the opportunity.
“God damn piceofshit pump. Worthless stupid fu-“ Zach’s cursing was interrupted by an extremely loud roaring coming out of the woods. We all stopped moving and looked in the direction, Zach’s shotgun at his side.
Another roar came out, it sounded like a hoarse lion yelling at the top of its lungs. Zach’s pump clicked and he pulled it out of the car, never taking his eyes off of the wooded area. Not long after, our pump clicked and he did the same.
“In the car, now,” I said as calmly as I could. Nobody argued and our engines started quickly.
The cars began to move onto the ramp to i-70. We did not breathe easy until we were in full acceleration mode, advancing down the highway. Some force pulled my eyes backwards and I glanced back at the gas station where we just filled up. The woods were stirring, as if some giant gusting wind was pushing the trees to the side. I watched a tree as it moved. A large hand like object struck it and it fell. Just as we were about to get into position for a better view of what was happening, a large highway advertisement blocked my view entirely. Once it passed, the wood rustled no more.
Just over four hours into our trip, the three of us quickly learned how boring driving over distance is. All that we could think of was how much longer we had to go. We decided to guess the distance and time. Whoever was the closest to the actual time of arrival would get the extra bag of teriyaki beef jerky. I had four thirty, Chelsea said five thirty, and Zach said three forty-five. I am pretty sure Zach was prepared to lose and had a spare bag of the special jerky hidden just so that he could gloat about it while Chelsea and I were forced to share.
Needless to say, we arrived at five o’clock, thusly inciting an argument over who won between Chelsea and me. This went on for almost ten minutes before we realized that we were losing sunlight and fast.
Zach began to start a fire with spare paper and fire starter logs that we brought from home when he looked up at me. “Are we in Central time?”
I looked down to him as I unpacked sleeping equipment from inside the car, “I think so, why?”
“Huh,” he said to himself. “Then that means that you and Chelsea lose our bet.”
“Uh, we got here at five o’clock. Please explain how that is anywhere near three forty-five,” I countered.
He looked smug, “Well, since we are in the central time zone, I win. By that standard we arrived here at four, not five.”
“Well suck my-“ I began to curse but was interrupted by a car moving slowly across the highway. I looked up to see it taking the exit ramp down to our camp. “Daryl, guns.,” I said, wanting to be prepared for whoever this was. I did not want to risk someone coming down and trying to rob us or shoot us as we slept.
He tossed a gun at me then one to Chelsea. I glared at him. “What? The safeties are on. Chill out,” he replied.
We positioned ourselves behind our respective vehicles, not drawing the weapons. I did not want to potentially drive James away with unnecessary hostility.
The car pulled around the bend. It was an old station wagon with rust emerging out of any possible edge that it could catch. The
