Another night of silence was spent in the cabin with woodland creatures crying, howling and hooting. Penny spent most of it trying to get a signal on her dying phone. After many hours, her phone finally died and with it; her hope of finding her parents.
The next morning Adam finally gave in and said, “Fine, we can go to the city, but we’re just going to the edge. No entering the city, got it?” All heads nodded vigorously.
“We’ll also need to find a vehicle,” murmured Willow.
They opened the bag of knives and guns. Willow grabbed a few of the small ones, tucking them into her boots. Adam, Charles and Carl each took a gun while Penny grabbed a hunting knife. Tim was left with a pocket knife, but he didn’t complain.
They spent most of the morning hiking through the woods, heading towards the gas station.
When they reached the station, everyone stayed outside while Adam went in to get the car keys. There was one lone car standing next to the building, they guessed it was the owner of the gas station’s car.
Adam came out, empty-handed, the keys weren’t there.
“Does anybody know how to hotwire a car?” Adam gave Willow a brief glance, hoping that she knew how.
“I’ve only seen it in the movies…” she shrugged.
“Damn. I guess we’ll have to walk to the city. Which I hate, because it’s not as safe as being in a car.” Everyone nodded, knowing that there was nothing they could do.
They turned around and was about to start walking when Tim noticed that Carl wasn’t with them.
“Guys, where’s Carl?” They allfrantically looked around. He was nowhere in sight.
“Oh my gosh, the serial killer,” squeaked Penny.
“Maybe he’s in the shop?” Tim ran ahead, hoping with every fibre in his being that Carl was there.
He found Carl in the back office, against a wall while cradling a decanter of whiskey.
The rest caught up to Tim and peered over his shoulder at the sight before them.
A very drunk Carl leaned against the wall, he gave them a sluggish smile, “Hey, guysh! Join the party. It’sh the end of the world, whoop! I’ve decsided, seeing as it’sh the end and all, to elect myshelf as king of the world.”
Charles glanced at the decanter and saw that it was almost empty. He groaned, “Aww, come on! I want some too!”
Penny shoved him and whispered loudly, “You’re not helping.”
Tim grabbed Carl by the shirt and hoisted him to his feet, “Come on, buddy. Let’s take a walk and get some fresh air.”
“I don’t want to. I want to finish thish,” he swung the decanter around as if it was a stick. A few drops of whiskey fell to the ground and some landed on Tim’s feet.
“No, no. This is going to stay here,” Adam took the decanter and placed it on the desk, and out of Carl’s reach.
“But… but…” Like a child that’s favourite toy has been taken away, he protested and tried to get to the whiskey.
It took Tim, Adam and Charles to keep Carl on his feet. Together they forced him out of the shop and into the sunlight.
While they dragged Carl away from the gas station, Willow kept a vigilant eye on the horizon, not wanting a feral to appear out of nowhere.
“I can’t believe he’s drunk. What are we going to do now?”
“For your informationsh; I’m not drunk!” yelled Carl while they dragged him.
“Then what are you, Carl?” furious Penny yelled back.
“A recovering alcoholic!” Adam, Tim and Charles deposited him under a tree and stared down at him.
Baffled Penny asked, “What?”
“Oh and to tell you the truth, I alsho find you very pretty.” He blushed like a schoolgirl.
“Thanks,” she said while taking a seat next to him.
“So are we going to wait for him to get sober?” Tim questioned.
“What else?” Adam nodded.
“I’m not drunk,” argued Carl.
“Okay, if you’re sober spell out the alphabet.” Penny challenged him, knowing he would fail.
Carl took the challenge with pride. He straightened himself, as much as he could, and spoke, “A, B, Csh, Dee, uh… uhm. Oh bollocks!” He threw himself backward, until he was firmly lying on his back and staring at the sky.
Penny supressed her laughter.
“I guess we’re going to wait a while…” Adam got comfortable and so did the rest of the group. At some point Carl had fallen asleep. Nobody spoke, enjoying the warmth of the sun that was glinting through the trees.
When Carl finally awoke, they deemed him sober enough and crossed the highway, because the city was on the other side. But before they could cross the field and head towards the city, they had to cross or walk around a gigantic dam.
Standing on a hill, they surveyed the dam from a distance. All around the dam those creatures, ferals, were wandering. When they saw the large numbers of people, Penny almost gasped aloud, but Willow quickly covered her mouth. Those feralswere dragging their feet while moaning and groaning. They all had pale, grey skin which was slowly peeling off, showing a hint of black flesh underneath. It looked like they were rotting.
Tim groaned, while Carl shuddered. Adam survey the scene with a quiet calmness. In his head he was working on a solution, mind spinning and eyes darting from side to side, but he couldn’t find a solution. There were too manyferals.
“Maybe we should go back?” Tim wasn’t ready to run into a hoard of those things.
Carl said, “We can’t. Our families are on the other side.”
“Say the guy who got drunk and made us wait three hours for him to sober!” Penny exclaimed. Carl looked ashamed as she spoke.
“We should just go back,” Tim said.
“Everybody just shut up and let me think!” Adam turned his back on the group and assessed the situation again. Again he came up with nothing, except maybe running around the dam and through those ferals.
“I say we should make a run for it.” Adam’s idea wasn’t ideal, but he had nothing else. “We should wait until there’s a gap between all of them and then run.”
Tim whispered, “I don’t know.”
“Is there nothing else we can do?” Penny asked.
Softly Willow spoke, “Do you have a better idea?”
The entire group grumbled,“No”.
“Good, so this is what we do.”
They spent about fifteen minutes watching and waiting until Adam found a big enough gap. “Run!”
As one, they ran for their lives, but what they didn’t expect was for all of the ferals to notice, turn their way and also start running. The bigger the feral group got, the more they got riled up. They became faster and even more determined. Adam swung his head around and looked at the group that was following them. His eyes grew: they weren’t going to make it. He swung back around and his eyes fervently searched for an escape.
He spotted a small boat in the water. Hopefully, the ferals couldn’t swim.
“We’re not going to make it!” Penny was frantic as she tried to run faster, but her legs held her back.
“The boat! Get in now!” Adam commanded. Everyone ran into the water and jumped into the boat. The ferals followed, but sank like rocks. Adam pushed the boat further out and quickly jumped in with the rest. They watched in horror as the ferals tried to swim, but kept sinking. They climbed over each other as if their life depended on it, not caring about the one beneath them. Some ferals stopped at the edge of the water. As a group, they snarled and groaned. The sound attracted others that were in the woods and soon an entire army stood at the water’s edge.
“Make a run for it? Really smart, Adam!” Penny spoke sarcastically as she took a seat in the boat.
“At least he had an idea,” defended Carl. “You wanted to go back!”
“Well if we had gone back, we wouldn’t be in this mess!” Interjected Tim.
“Oh, shut up, Tim. I’m getting really tired of you, especially those jokes of yours. I mean it’s the damn apocalypse and you’re still cracking on.” Tim looked at Carl with hurt eyes.
“At least he has a sense of humour and makes us laugh. What do you do, Carl? Nothing!” Penny glared at Carl.
“You’re forgetting:Carl and Adam went to get the weapons and food. Not you, but us!” Charles spat the words at Penny.
“Do you want me to kick your behind, because I can easily do so, skinny boy!” Penny sprang to her feet. Charles took threatening steps towards her and Carl quickly jumped between them, trying to prevent a fight from starting. The entire boat rocked, but they failed to notice.
“Bring it on, Barbie.”
“Enough!” It was the first time Willow had ever raised her voice. “Fighting won’t help and if you keep going on like this, the entire boat will tip and we’ll all be swimming towards the bank and towards those things!” She pointed her finger to the bank, reminding everyone why they were even in the boat.
Emotions that were running high, cooled off instantly. Instead of anger, fear overwhelmed them.
“Maybe we could row to the other side?” Carl suggested, while he ran his fingers through his hair.
“We don’t have any oars,” sighed Adam.
“Damn.”
ns 15.158.61.8da2
