Dash Dash Dot Dot

The Drive

Willow woke and looked over at her new friend. Tiffany was still sleeping; Willow stood and stretched, being as quiet as she could. She looked out the window, up and down the driveway. There was one zombie that she could see down towards the back of the apartment. She nodded to herself, one zombie she could handle, but there was always a chance that there were more just out of view or around the corner. If they didn't leave the apartment today then they would need to gather more wood for the fire pit, the fence palings around the property perimeter were dwindling which meant that they would have to go further to find wood to burn. Her mind worked overtime as she played through different scenarios, half of leaving and the other half of staying in her apartment.

"Ugh, what I wouldn't give for some coffee right now." Willow jumped; she had been so focused on running her scenarios and not expecting to hear a voice. She turned from the window and looked at Tiffany; her long brown hair was all over the place.

"Well, I don't drink it but I do have maybe half a jar still in the cupboard for my visitors who do drink it." She walked over and opened the cupboard, pushed to the back of the shelf she found the jar; she held it out for her.

Tiffany's face lit up. "Oh, my god! Thank you so much!" She took the jar and hugged it to her chest; she opened the lid and took a deep breath.

"It's probably not the best, but-"

"Oh god, don't be silly. With life how it is, anything is better than nothing. I haven't had coffee in about a week so this is perfect."

"Alright, let's get the fire started, we can boil you some water and heat up our breakfast. I was thinking, if we can't get out of here today, we're going to have to go gather some wood for the fire pit at the very least." Tiffany nodded, still clutching the jar of coffee to her chest and Willow smiled. "Well I'm glad to have made your day with that coffee. If we're on foot then we might be able to check some houses on the way for supplies, including coffee." Tiffany nodded again and lifted the lid, taking another deep breath, a smile appearing on her face. "So I had a look out the window and there is one zombie at the far end of the complex, but more could be out there, so we'll have to be super vigilant and quiet."

She turned on the radio, to listen for any updates on anything in the area but heard nothing new while the food and water heated. The weird faction advertisements played in between the music and the radio hosts, who chatted together about the world, how it was before and how it was now. They tried to keep the conversation light by injecting humor into their back and forth with each other. These two called themselves Crystal and Brown. There were four others, Joshy and Ben, and Wombo and Gabby. Willow liked Wombo and Gabby the best who were the late night to early morning announcers.

"Alright, your water is boiling." Tiffany could barely contain her excitement as she stirred the coffee into the water. Willow served their breakfast while Tiffany sipped her coffee.

"So good." Was Tiffany's only response. They ate and listened to the radio, the music was wide and varied, no longer were they bound by the contracts of the modern world, this was the new world where you used whatever you had on hand. Tiffany lowered her mug of coffee. "Have you given any more thought to going by foot or risking a vehicle?"

"I think, considering where the faction is, compared to where we are it may be best to try the car, but we need to be ready to ditch it and run. Either choice will be risky, the car will be noisy, but we have the security of the vehicle and being on foot will be slow trying to avoid any groups of zombies we come across but we'll be a lot sneakier." Willow informed her and Tiffany agreed.

Willow finished her food and then went through her cupboards one last time, looking for anything they may need that she might have missed. She found the hammer in the top of the linen closet. She shook her head to herself, how could she have forgotten about that? Well, that was another weapon added to their collection, but still it was a close combat weapon like everything else they had. She didn't like the fact that all they had was the close combat stuff, but there was nothing she could do about it now. Maybe the faction would have distance weapons that she could learn to use.

"Well, are we ready to move?" Tiffany asked as Willow handed her the hammer to attach to her bag. Willow nodded and pulled the couch away from the door. She carefully peeked out, straining her ears for any noise. She couldn't hear or see anything so she stepped out the door; Tiffany followed her, closing the door quietly behind them. They made their way slowly down the stairwell, stopping at the entrance and looked up and down the driveway. The zombie that had been at the end of the building has disappeared, Willow hesitated and hit the door unlock button on her keys. She listened to the click of the locks, she was glad she didn't have a loud beep like some cars had. She looked around the wall of the stairwell, trying to see if the clicking had caught the attention of any zombies. There was no shuffling of feet that she could hear.

She breathed a sigh of relief and jogged to the car, she opened the door and tossed her backpack into the backseat, Tiffany did the same. They gently closed their doors and looked around, so far so good. The next test, starting the car, it would be the noisiest part. She looked over at her new friend who gave her a nod. Willow turned the key in the ignition and listened to the engine turn over, for a moment she didn't think the engine would start but then it roared to life. They pulled on their seat belts and out of habit Willow hit the door lock. She looked up and down the driveway one last time. The zombie who had been at the end of the building had wandered back around the corner at the sound of the engine.

Willow put her foot down and left the driveway, with no other vehicles on the road she didn't stop at corners, only slowing down enough not to lose control of the vehicle. Looking in the rear view mirror made her feel ill. She could see the number of zombies growing. She pointed them out to Tiffany.

"We're good, just so long as we stay far enough ahead of them so we can jump out and run if necessary." Tiffany said confidently, the confidence in her voice calmed Willow. The gates of the school came into view, but so did something that caused willow to slam on the breaks and turn quickly down a side street. It was the zombies that were milling around the school fence; they turned towards the sound of willow’s car and started to move towards it.

"You ready? When I pull up we need to run." Tiffany retrieved their bags, holding them in her lap. She jumped the curb and stopped the car in front on one of the houses, slamming the car into park. She grabbed her bag from Tiffany and jumped out the door, not bothering to close it. They made a bee line for the neighboring house, rounding the fence they made their way to the back door and bounced off of it. "Damnit!" They stepped back and slammed into it together, the door frame gave way and they bolted inside. Willow put her back up against the door and Tiffany pushed a chest of drawers to the door. They spent the next ten minutes pushing other furniture to the door then collapsed onto the couches in the lounge room.