by Crist, J. D.
Emily turned and climbed into the back seat. She had to turn to stop Marley from following her. She needed some space to organize all of her loot in the back. If she had to live in the SUV, it might as well be comfortable. She took a few minutes and finally figured out how to lay the back seat down. Now she would have a bed, and the trunk area could be like a small organized apartment. She began moving around the things and organizing them by what they were. She put the clothes on the floorboard, stacked according to what they were, and her self-cleaning supplies on the other floorboard.
She organized all of the other items on one side of the trunk, made the folded seat into a bed with the blankets and pillows she had gathered. On the other side of the trunk, she set up bowls for Marley. She filled one with bottled water and the other with the dog food she had found. Marley was dancing in the front seat with excitement as the food clanged into the bowl. Looking around at her handy work, she was proud of what she accomplished. She made a mental note that the next time she stopped for supplies to try to find something that would work for curtains. She felt exposed just sitting here, and curtains would help.
Emily patted the back seat, calling Marley, who jumped through the seats and began eating and drinking his food and water. Emily reached back to the front for her cell phone and was glad to have plugged it in while she drove. The battery was fully charged, and a glance showed that there were no new messages. Emily unlocked the phone and set herself an alarm for six in the morning. She did not want to sit here long once the sun was up. She slid the phone inside the back of the seat after making sure that the ringer was turned up. Emily then reached back to the food stack and chose a self-heating soup. She pressed the button on the bottom and heard the "pop," signaling that she had activated the self-heating chemical in the cup. According to the instructions, it would take ten minutes for the soup to be ready.
She set the soup down on the makeshift bed just as Marley finished his food and lay down towards the bottom of her bed. He was full, but Emily knew he would only be able to get a few minutes of rest before he would need to get up. The poor puppy would need to go to the bathroom before they went to sleep for the night. Emily sat watching the pup for quite a while before checking her soup. She was sure it had been at least ten minutes. She turned the lid of the soup so that she could sip it out of the can. To her surprise, the soup was very delicious and filling.
Once Emily was finished with her hot meal, she grabbed one of the bags she had taken from the visitor center and put her trash inside it. She would have to make sure to empty this as often as possible. She then slid down the bed towards Marley and reached to open the door behind him. As soon as the door opened behind him, Marley jumped out and began looking for his perfect spot. Emily sat on the bed in the open door, watching him to ensure that he did not wander too far from her. Once he had finished, he walked back over to her, and Emily moved to allow him to jump back inside. Emily closed the door behind him and ensured that it was locked. She then moved back up towards her pillow and slid under the blanket. Once she was lying down, she felt Marley snuggle up next to her legs. This was much more comfortable than the couch they had been sleeping on before.
Emily spent the early sleeping hours thinking about her plan to find her family and how she would explain to them that a bite from a zombie does not make you one. She tried to think of places that her dad would think may be safe. As she thought, she heard the light snoring coming from Marley. Soon, she joined him in dreams, where she happened across her family the next day, and everything was perfect.
Emily was awakened the following day by her cell phone alarm going off. Emily reached into the back of the seat and grabbed the phone to turn it off. Once the phone was silent, she slid it back into the seat pocket and sat up. The sun was just starting to creep across the world as Emily pulled herself up into a sitting position. As she moved, so did Marley. He stretched into the space where her legs once were and let out a giant yawn. Emily reached into the back and put some more kibble into the bowl and some freshwater into the other. She then grabbed a box of dry cereal for herself. Soon, she and Marley had finished breakfast, and Emily opened the door to allow Marley to go to the bathroom. While Marley was outside, Emily took the opportunity to change her shirt and freshen up. Once she was changed, she joined Marley outside with a roll of toilet paper. There was no way to make this more comfortable, but at this point, she and Marley had to share the same "bathroom." When she had finished, she found Marley waiting for her by the SUV. He seemed to understand that they would need to get back on the road.
They both climbed back inside the truck. Emily cleaned up the dog bowls, made her "bed," and climbed back into the front with a bottle of water and her cell phone. Marley was already in his spot in the passenger seat, looking ready to be her navigator for the day. Emily plugged her cell phone into the car charger and started up the SUV. She started down the road, continuing east. She had decided that she would pick a different route when she reached the state line and turn around and drive west. This way, she could cover more ground. She could only hope that they would not cross the state line before she found them.
Emily remembered, after a glance, that she would need to stop for gas soon. She felt like she was in the middle of nowhere and hoped that a gas station would be somewhere along the way. She drove for a few hours, watching the gas gauge slowly drop as she went. She had not seen anything all morning and feared that she never would. She thought it could be a mirage when she spotted what looked like a gas station ahead. As she pulled closer, she felt relieved to see that it was indeed real. She pulled up to the pumps and sat for a few minutes with the engine off, watching for any dead that may wander out. She then opened the door and walked towards the gas pump, Marley following behind her on alert. It seemed that he could sense that they needed to be careful and quick.
Emily opened the gas tank and put the gas nozzle in. The pump had power and was flashing instead of displaying the regular price and gallons pumped. She crossed her fingers and pulled the gas handle. If nothing came out, she had no idea how to make it work. She breathed a heavy sigh of relief as the sound of gas filling the tank filled her ears. She set the pump to keep filling until the tank was full. Emily walked back to the front door and reached in to grab her crowbar. She felt unsafe out here without it. As she turned to walk back to the gas pump, that's when she saw him. An older man probably in his late sixties. He probably ran the gas station, that is, when he was alive. Marley began growling very low and positioned himself between Emily and the old man.
This was not the first zombie that Emily had seen, but it was the first she would need to take care of herself. She stepped forward next to Marley, who planted himself next to her. Once the old man was close enough, Emily swung her crowbar as hard as she could at his head. She hears the crack as it breaks through his skull and the body fell lifeless to the ground. Emily planted her feet and pulled the crowbar out of the man's skull. The gas pump clicked to the off position, and Emily turned, blood dripping from her crowbar as she returned the gas handle to the pump. She closed the gas tank and looked back at the body on the ground. She could not help but feel sorrow for the poor man. He did not ask for this. He did nothing wrong. He was doing his job when everything was taken away from him. Emily's attention was drawn back down to the crowbar, still dripping with the ruby red blood. She turned and grabbed some paper towels from the windshield cleaning station and wiped it clean.
"This is just something I have to get used to," Emily said to herself. She then turned and followed Marley back into the SUV. She turned over the engine and began driving east once more.
This is how her life went for months—stopping every night to rest, looking for gas stations with fuel, and scavenging any supplies she could find. Things got scarcer and harder to find as time passed. She had picked up a couple of gas cans to keep in the SUV, just in case she needed to buy more time to find a gas station. The smell had caused her to constantly keep the back windows
cracked, or the fumes made her a little loopy. Soon she had forgotten the man at the gas station, her first zombie kill. As time went on, they all started to blur together. She had seen almost everything at this point, except for any living people. Her map was covered with marks on routes she had already tried and had not found her family. No more mysterious voicemails had come through. She feared that those were long since over. She kept the phone charged, though, just in case.
Four months of living in an SUV and living off of what little food she could find had become her life. She had tried so many roads that some of them were beginning to look the same. Every day, the SUV needed gas; she thought about finding a smaller car but that would cause more problems. She didn't want to change to another vehicle to have the engine go out in the middle of nowhere. Gas was just as important as food or water at this point. That was what had led her here, another gas station on an old country road. Emily pulled up to the pump and shut off the engine. She had this down to a science at this point. She laid on the horn three times and waited. Sure enough, three zombies wandered into view. The cooler temperature of the November days did not seem to be slowing these things down any. Emily hoped for a good snowfall this year as the snow would undoubtedly have to slow them down at least a little.
Emily opened the door and took her position in front of the SUV. She swung, hitting them each in the head as they approached. As the last one fell to the ground, she heard Marley let out a guttering growl. She looked down to see that his attention was focused on something behind her. She turned to see another zombie working its way up the side of the SUV. She walked towards and struck the zombie with a crunch to the skull. She then walked around and opened the gas tank. Upon trying to turn on the pump, she discovered that it was off. Not the first time she had this happen to her. She found her way to the building and located the pump switch. Soon it was on, and the gas tank was filling.
Emily was sure that the gas would start to go bad eventually if it already wasn't. But for now, it made the engine run, and she planned to keep using it as long as it did that. The food supplies in the SUV were growing low, especially the water. Emily patted her leg, signaling for Marley to follow, and headed inside. As she opened the glass door, she heard the bell ring through the building. She entered, and she and Marley waited by the front door. Everything was quiet, and nothing dead or alive was moving in here. She reached behind the register and grabbed the plastic bags. She began filling them with all the food she could find and was thrilled to find four cases of water. Once she had everything she could find, she began to head towards the front door, stopping for only a moment to look at the t-shirts on a rack near the register. Looking down at her own, she saw that it was starting to get a little tight. She had to be the first person to gain weight while practically starving.
She looked through until she found a couple in the next size up and decided to go ahead and change her shirt now. There was no point in hauling around one that didn't fit anymore. As she slid on the new, more comfortable shirt, her hand knocked something off the shelf behind her. Once her shirt was on, she looked to see what she had knocked over. She picked up the small pink box off the floor to see it was a pregnancy test. She laughed to herself, who would want to be pregnant with the world like this. She then looked at the supplies she had gathered. She knew that she had grabbed some tampons before she left home, but she had never used them, not in four months. She looked back at the box and remembered the couple of nights that she and Chad were intimate when she thought he wanted to save their marriage.
"You have got to be kidding me!" she exclaimed. Marley looked up at her with a face of confusion. "Let me know if you see someone." She hoped he understood as she ducked into the bathroom with the test. She went into the stall and did the very technical procedure of peeing on a stick. As she walked out, she set the test on the counter and waited. As she watched, she counted. "One pink line... Shit! Two pink lines." Emily stared at the test, unable to believe what she was seeing. Her last pregnancy had gone wrong, and she had not even made it this far along. How could she have not lost the baby without all the medications her doctor had said she would need if she ever got pregnant again? It's not like she had been on a good diet or stress-free. Emily just could not understand, and that's when she heard the bark. She slid the test into her pocket and ran back to Marley. He was staring out the door, but Emily did not see anything. She waited a few minutes, and though Marley did not relax, Emily felt confident that whatever he had seen was gone. She reached down grabbing two cases of water, and pushed the door open. She made three trips to bring everything to the SUV and put it away. She returned the gas handle to the pump and was soon back in the SUV.
There were only a few hours of daylight left, and Emily was soon parked off the side of the road and snuggled into her bed. She had pulled the test out of her pocket and stared at it for quite some time, but it had not changed. Soon there would be a baby joining them in this SUV. Where would she put a crib? How would they ever be able to stop with a baby crying? Who was going to help her deliver the baby? Marley would be of no help in that area, though the thought of him in a doctor's coat did make her smile. Emily knew that she would not be able to have the baby and raise it in the SUV. She would have to find somewhere stationary and safe to do this, even if it meant she had to stop looking for her family. This second pink line changed her mission. Instead of trying to find her family, she had to protect the one she was creating.
She couldn't think of anywhere she had driven through that seemed safe enough for a stationary home, but she had a little bit of time left. She had been driving for four months, which meant she was about five months pregnant. The baby would be due around March sometime if it didn't come early. She could only assume that her limited food is what had contributed to her tiny bump. She decided she would give herself a month, and then she had to pick somewhere. She would need time to make it safe and suitable for a baby to be born, and she did not want to cut it too close if the baby came early. She felt the thoughts drift away as she drifted away to sleep. Usually, she would do this to the sound of Marley's soft snores but not tonight. Tonight, Marley was still sitting up and staring out the windshield. Emily assumed that it had to be all of the excitement of the day. She was sure he could tell that something was on her mind. He would fall asleep and get his rest as soon as she did, so off to sleep she went.
Chapter 10
Emily was awoken in the morning by the sound of Marley growling. She sat up slowly in her bed and began looking out the windows. She didn't see anything moving outside and relaxed her shoulders a bit. Marley had been acting strange since the gas station yesterday. She hoped that he was not getting sick or something. She was not ready to lose him and go through this whole thing alone. She reached down and ran her hand down his back, trying to get him to calm down. While he acknowledged her attention, he stayed alert and kept staring out the window. Emily reached past him and opened the passenger door. Maybe it was that he was tired of being cooped up. It took some coaching, but Marley finally jumped out of the SUV and cautiously began doing his morning routine. Emily watched him for a few minutes and then stepped outside herself. She reached back, grabbed her bathroom supplies, walked just a few feet away, and took care of her business.
She was headed back to the SUV, where Marley was already waiting just inside the door. He looked to be on high alert, his head turning in every direction quickly. Emily would have to keep a close eye on him until he started to feel better. She was nearing the door, watching Marley, when suddenly the door on the SUV slammed shut, locking Marley inside. Marley instantly began barking and slamming into the window. A man stood looking in the window, laughing at the dog who wanted nothing more than to rip the man apart.
"Was beginning to think that damn mutt would never leave your side." the man said while slowly turning back towards Emily. "We've been following you since last night, but none of us were in a hurry to get bit by a dog. It's a good thing we are patient men. Other
wise, we may have wasted a bullet and shot it to get it over with."
Emily started looking around and saw several other men stepping out from behind trees. She looked down at the roll of toilet paper she carried. Her crowbar was back in the SUV with Marley. She knew that they had planned it this way on purpose.
"No need to shoot him, but there are easier ways to say hello." Emily smiled and said to the man. "It's amazing to see living people. There was no need to hide from little old me."
The man let out a low laugh as she finished talking," We have been watching you for a while. If you want to play the cute, innocent little woman, that's fine with us. It would probably make this go smoother, but we know that you are more than capable of defending yourself. You've killed more of the dead by yourself than some of my men combined."
"True, I can fight off the dead ones just fine. However, you all appear to be living. I have no reason to attack you." Emily felt her stomach drop as she tried to keep the smile on her face. The men were moving in closer, and she started to feel like they just didn't want to say hello.
