by Silvia Rojas
“Please, as if I want to do that with someone whom I haven’t even known for more than one day,” Borton snorted. “That’s just stupid, it is desperation.”
“So what about 2 days?” June asked suddenly, disorienting his questioning. “If you say that you won’t have sex with someone whom you’ve not known for 1 day, then what about 2?”
“I’m fine with that.” Borton agreed without hesitation. “I only need 24 hours to make a nice and clear image of the person. I’ve dated before and things didn’t end up well.”
“Same here. I did lose my virginity though.” Borton blushed and was glad that his face was in between her mounds of flesh. “And I know that you’re not someone that’s all innocent as well. So let’s forget about all this and just go back to sleep, we’ve got a long day tomorrow and we don’t want to waste it, do we?”
Borton couldn’t reply because he was already off to sleep. The next morning, he woke up alone and crossed it off as a good dream because there was no way June would come and sleep in his bed, right? Looking at her currently, June avoided his gaze and instead only talked when she needed to make him wonder if he was truly dreaming or did it actually happen. So he did the best thing he could, he ignored it and looked away, instead focusing his thoughts on making June pack her bags.
“We need to leave,” Borton said quietly. June was sitting in front of her albums, looking at the times she had shared with her parents. “And leave, quickly. We need to get to Ashton.”
“Ashton is on the other side of the city.” June had already packed her bags apparently. She was just looking at some pictures of her parents, yearningly looking at them and barely managing to control her tears. “How will we get there? It’s too far away.”
“I know, it is very far away,” Borton agreed. He was leaning on the doorframe of her room and didn’t enter. “Around 20 miles far away, but it is on the outskirts. I know for one that almost every single person in my street won’t even be at home when the Zombie uprising started so there’s a chance that we’ll be able to slip in, unannounced.”
“But do you even have enough fuel?” June asked, looking at him. “We did do a lot of traveling yesterday. Do you have enough fuel to get us there?”
“Well, if there’s a gas station that’s open right now, I’ll stop by and finish refueling,” Borton said, turning around. “Hey, June.”
Her eyes had never left his back, so she only looked at him inquisitively, wondering what he wanted with her.
“Try not to be late,” Borton said, smirking slightly. “I sort of have started to enjoy your company and won’t be happy to leave you behind.”
Winking once at her, Borton left leaving her alone. June only glared at his retreating back with a slightly pink face.
“Idiot,” she mumbled, not wanting to admit she wouldn’t have liked to leave him behind either. “Why the hell did he have to say such things.”
Gulping down anything else that was coming up from her throat, especially regarding her opinion of the man, she just left the mysteries of the world as they were, mysteries, and simply shook her head. That man was going to make her go nutters.
Sighing deeply, she picked up the albums and put it inside of a packed bag that she had prepared for the journey with her most prized belongings and essentials. She wanted to at least take a copy of her parents with her so she could remember them, always. She suddenly remembers Borton’s words and gasped. He’d lost his own parents as well, hadn’t he? Getting up quickly, she headed downstairs to confront him as to why he wasn’t going to go and find his parents.
“... We’ll be going to my home,” Borton said to Mrs. Johnson. “I would have found my parents but their office buildings had collapsed completely.”
“Are you sure about that?” June asked quietly, walking down with her bags. “Are you sure your parents are dead? We thought the same about mine and they weren’t dead were they?”
“No, I am quite sure. Even if by chance they didn’t turn, their offices are on the 24th floor and the 28th floor. Unless they weren’t in the office and outside, I don’t think they would have survived.” Borton said, quite sure of himself. “But, that is the reason I want to get home. If they would have gone outside, then they would have left a note for me.”
“Can’t you just phone them?” Melinda asked kindly. “They do have mobile phones, don’t they?”
“They do, but I don’t.” Borton sighed sadly. “I forgot my phone at home, and just my luck this happened today, and I doubt the phones are working. It’s a miracle the lights are still on or the power should have been wiped out long ago.”
“Let’s keep the little fortunes we have and not jinx them,” June said. She then glared at him. “But promise me before we leave the city you’ll at least look for your parents, even if they didn’t leave a note. What if they made it out?”
“I promise I’ll try my best.” Borton nodded, touched that the girl cared so much about his parents. He smiled at her and winked. “But I’m more worried about you. What will the people think if I let you come into harm’s way.”
“Please.” Retorting with a teasing smirk, her eyes lit up with sadistic glee. “As if you’re anything special. It’s going to be me who’s going to have to save you from problems.”
“We shall see,” Borton said, huffing haughtily as he grabbed his own bag and put it in his bag. He still was in his same dress, but June had changed. She had changed from a tank-top and skin-tight jeans to a much more comfortable skirt, leggings and an athletic tank-top that still highlighted her athletic figure well. “Come on. Are you sure you don’t want to follow us, Melinda?”
“No dear, you should go.” The woman smiled at them. “You both belong together, I’m just a dying candle that soon enough will be blown off.”
“I’ll miss you, Melinda,” June said, giving the woman a hug. “And if everything turns back to normal, I’ll come for you.”
“I’ll be waiting.” Melinda seemed touched by the gesture and hugged the girl back. June parted and smiled brightly moving outside the house and into the garage with Borton. Melinda sighed when she heard the garage door opened and the main door also opening. She looked sad as she heard the automatic doors close themselves as they left the house. “I hope this mistake that was made can be cured by the two of you, June, Borton, for this old woman can no longer take the responsibilities for her actions. You are destined for great, great things. Very great things.”
Melinda shook her head and made sure the house was on lockdown before she walked back to the couches, grabbing a journal that read ‘Project Z’ on it.
***
Borton had set a nice and fast pace towards their destination, his home in Ashton. Ashton was on the other side of the city, the exact distance that they came from Cleopatra college to Woodholm. And the problem was, much of the city had deteriorated and the Zombies had even increased in number. Some areas were completely filled and the only weapon that the two had was June’s stuff and Borton’s gun. Borton had revealed he only had 8 bullets, and if he used even 1 bullet every single Zombie in the hearing range of the bullet would be upon them, which left Borton at a bad disadvantage.
“Aren’t you in the Archery club?” June suddenly asked while they were sneaking around in the alleyways. Borton was sure to keep his bike slow to keep the noise of the bike down. “I remember, you were in the Archery club, the boy that had a great aim. People couldn’t stop talking and boasting about you, where’s your bow and arrow?”
“I don’t get them every time I come to college, our club only meets on Thursdays and Saturdays,” Borton replied, looking on the turn ahead and looking around to see if there were any Zombies in the area. There were, but he would be easily able to avoid them, the roads were big enough for him to drive. “And today’s neither of the days so I didn’t bring in my weapons. I only keep the gun because it was a gift from my father, I’m as good with a pistol as with a bow and arrow.”
“You should keep weapons ot
her than a gun with you.” June frowned. She was going to turn this lazy-bum into an athletic hunk if she had any say in it. “And move out more often. Why didn’t you chose something else? Like an outdoors club? It would make you much more efficient in situations like this. I saw your dodging.”
“Oh, that’s the most I could do. I might have looked ‘graceful’, but I’m not,” Borton snorted. “I just don’t like going out much, I like maths a lot and usually only stay in my room solving mathematical problems.”
“But you have a nice sense of survival and navigation.” June continued to press on. “I am pretty sure I won’t have been able to reach home without you, your bike, and the ways you choose. The road you took to get to Woodholm was a completely new road, I usually only come via the metro, so I don’t know much about the roads.”
“I like to roam around, as I said, and I’ve gone to Woodholm a lot of times. There’s a road that leads directly from my home, in Ashton, to Winston Avenue in the north,” Borton said. “And from there, Cleopatra is close enough. Right on the edge of the road, which is called Starlight Road for some reason, is the Winston Gas Pump, there we can refill up fuel and hopefully get some more weapons.”
“Weapons? What for?” June asked. She yelped when he suddenly increased the speed and spotted a large crevice up front, along with a ‘ramp’, set right up for them. “Borton, what are you doing? Borton?”
“We need to get on the other side of the 20 ft crevice in front of us,” Borton said, flooring the gas as much as he could and increasing the speed of his bike over and over till it was the fastest it could be just as it touched the ramp. June screamed and grabbed on tight to Borton as they jumped off the ramp and into the air, over the crevice.
Borton looked into the crevice and was glad they didn’t fall down. He didn’t know what was inside of that crevice, and he didn’t want to be the one to find out. He looked around and nodded in satisfaction as the next crossing safe enough seemed to be over 10 miles away. Lucky enough, they not only crossed the crevice but landed far away from it, much safer than they could ever be. Borton didn’t stop, he just kept on speeding up, avoiding the cars in front of them. There was no one inside of the car either way, and the roads were also cracked. It got a bit difficult to drive over the said cracks in the area, but his bike’s suspension was great enough for them to be able to go over the cracks and small fissures without any problems. Sooner than they had thought, they were in Starlight Avenue.
“That’s it, right there.” Borton pointed to the gas station in the distance. “That’s where we’re supposed to go.”
“Great,” June said dryly. “Let’s have a party there with the Zombies. Don’t you see the amount of them around the area?”
She was whispering in his ear, pressed tight against his back as she said that. They didn’t want to catch the attention of the Zombies in the area. They wanted to simply get the gas filled and then get going with. Silently speeding up, Borton made sure he didn’t come in the area of the Zombies and extremely silently pulled up inside of the gas pump. Borton looked around and found no one else in the pump, so he instead grabbed the nozzle of the petrol and started to fill up the gasoline on his bike.
“You should see inside,” June whispered. “I’ll check on the gasoline. Come quick.”
Borton nodded, looking around. In a bold move, he unclasped his gun and handed it to her.
“Keep it. Just in case.” Borton whispered back and left to go inside of the petrol pump shop that was with the pump. He looked around, hoping to see if there was anyone, but found no one. The cash register was broken, and there was no money anywhere. All the glass was broken and the entire shop was in disarray. He found himself surprised that nothing in June’s house was broken, he at least thought something or the other would have been broken but her house seemed to be completely undamaged. The shockwave should have been much weaker than expected. But if it was, then what caused the giant fissures that had destroyed the city? And if the Nuclear Bomb hit the capital, as he thought it did, then why was there so much damage in their city which was supposedly almost 100 miles away? And what about the Zombies? How did they come into being?
He ignored such thoughts and instead started to fill up on everything. He looked around for some girl’s products, some men's products, medicine, and food and so on. He really hoped none of this was contaminated but couldn’t care. He just needed to get out of here.
“Well, well, well,” a sinister voice broke his thoughts. He turned around to see 2 men, heavy set and big, towering over him. “What do we have here?”
“A whippersnapper?” the second man said. He had a lot of tattoos on his face and looked like a textbook thug. He had a knife in his hands. “What would a thief be doing in an already claimed spot?”
“You don’t seem to be the cashiers, so why do you want to stop me?” Borton asked, careful not to spark anything he couldn’t handle. He gulped and looked at the door, and at June who seemed to be finishing filling up the gas. He looked at them firmly, not wanting to reveal who she was. “And as for claiming the spot, I didn’t see any mark.”
“Cheeky aren’t you?” The first thug asked, pushing him onto the side of one of the stalls. “Give me all you have, right now!”
“Get lost.” Borton snarled. He cursed as he realized he didn’t have his gun, and that was his biggest mistake in this situation as the thug with the knife grabbed him by the neck and held him up in the air, the knife poised to strike his neck. “Guh, let me go!”
“Shut up, brat!” the thug grunted, the knife slowly digging into his neck. “You’re in our area now and are our bitch. Shut the fuck up and we won’t be too hard on you, and give us all your clothes and money. Perhaps we’ll take the bike that you were refilling with us as well.”
“Oh yes, we definitely will.” The other thug had a hungry look on his face. “Didn’t you see the girl along with it? She was such a bombshell.”
“Don’t touch her,” Borton growled out, his leg suddenly slamming into the thug who was holding his thigh. The grunt yelped and let him go, but the other thug grabbed him, this time his fist rising to punch him the face. Just as he was about to do so, he slumped down as a staff came crashing on top of his head, knocking him unconscious instantly.
“Hmph, pathetic fools.” June snarled, turning her staff around to block a knife strike and slammed it right on the man’s shoulder. With a sickening crunch, the shoulder broke, and the thug cried out in pain and agony. A slam of the staff on top of his head later he was out as a light too. “Who was a bombshell again? I only allow people whom I am interested in to comment on my body.”
June snorted, spitting on the downed bodies of the two thugs. She looked around, trying to spot if anything seemed to be amiss, meaning if there were any more of the people, and found none, so she simply looked at him and smirked smugly, handing him his gun.
“Told you I would be the one protecting you.” The smugness was literally rolling out of her tone. Borton rolled his eyes and accepted the gun, but the relief in her eyes didn’t escape him. “Don’t try and go anywhere without your weapons again, we don’t know where there could be a danger now.”
“Got it, my lady.” Teasing her a bit, Borton tilted his head, putting the gun back in its holster. He looked at a certain part of the store and his eyes widened. There were air-rifles there, and silencers as well. “Whelp, I just found gold.”
Borton didn’t even waste a second to get 8 boxes filled with Ammo for his pistol, along with some other ammunition he knew that he would need. When June seemed to be confused as to why he was taking only the Ammo and not the gun, Borton started his tale.
“Well, I have 3 rifles back at home, my bow and over 200 arrows,” Borton said. “I just need some ammo, magazines and so on so we can be fully armed. Dad should have a lot more guns as well.”
“Is your father also a nut for shooting?” June asked, amused. Borton only smirked, equipping the silencer. He put 3 boxes of pistol ammo in
his front pocket and the rest in his bag along with the other supplies that could go inside. The bigger things would go in a plastic bag that they had. “Hmph, come on, let’s get some more stuff.”
None of them, in their trance of shopping, noticed a figure rushing at them from behind June. Both of them were so into gathering supplies. The figure had heard the sound of a staff bashing into the head of a thug and instantly had started to run towards it, hell-bent on killing them.
June turned around when she felt something behind her, and came face to face with a Zombie, ready to grab her and sink its disgusting fangs into her neck, and body. Right in front of her, she saw her life flash in her eyes as the hands and the grey frothed mouth came closer and closer. And right in front of her eyes, she saw a bullet, as if in slow motion, come blasting from the side and right through the head of the Zombie coming for her. She jumped back enough to avoid the Zombie from killing her and with wide eyes looked at the side, where Borton had his gun, silenced, pointing at the dead Zombie. His gun instantly changed aim and was at the 4 to 5 other Zombie’s right behind it, jumping towards her, and she realized what sort of a man was Borton.
His eyes were emotionless and fixated on the head of the Zombies, uncaring if they were formerly humans. His aura had completely changed from lazy and nerdy to a warrior as once again, in 4 simple shots, he had taken down the 5 Zombies. One particular bullet took down 2 Zombies at once as it went through the head of one of the undead and right into the other. Then the look was on her as an eerie silence settled over the room.
