\nMolly climbed into the passenger seat, buckled herself in, then sat in silence while he played with the CB.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe we should call out?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to tip our hand.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTip our hand? Nobody will know where we are. We\u2019re mobile.\u201d She hit the side of the door and grabbed the mic. Before Daryl could react, she opened the channel and pressed the speaker to her lips, \u201cOne-Adam-Twelve, this is hot stuff and paranoid geek, last survivors of the apocalypse, come on back now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Static. Daryl watched Molly, wide-eyed, then glared down at the CB, then guiltily out the windows. Some strange, childlike part of him expected dozens of monsters to suddenly materialize out of the shadows, the alleys, from behind shrubs and cars, the eaves of buildings, the very rain itself.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnyone out there? Hello?\u201d Molly said again, this time with a slight tremolo in her voice.<\/p>\n
\u201cJesus,\u201d Daryl took the speaker out of her hand and replaced it on its bracket, \u201cWe just listen, for now. Until we\u2019re out of the city.\u201d<\/p>\n
She kept silent while he maneuvered the van out of the gas station and around the abandoned cars. The opposite side of the road was relatively clear of rush hour traffic, so he pulled into those lanes. Driving towards headlights was unnerving, even if the cars facing him weren\u2019t moving. It went against the ingrained training of a lifetime, and took an unusual level of concentration just to keep from jumping everytime a pair of headlights became visible in the misting rain.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo your house, then?\u201d Molly asked, her hand clutching the side bar as she stared at the cars.<\/p>\n
Daryl nodded. \u201cSee if anyone made it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you really think there\u2019s a chance that your friends survived?\u201d<\/p>\n
He shrugged, \u201cGotta check. Sure you don\u2019t want to look in on your people?\u201d<\/p>\n
She looked down at her legs and shook her head.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t you want to pick anything up? Personal items?\u201d<\/p>\n
She shook her head again and he glanced over at her, the sad face that he\u2019d been staring at for so many months was back.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing\u2019s wrong. So we hit your house, then we get out of here, right? The city I mean?\u201d She looked out at the cars, her eyes focusing on corpses sprawled along the side of the road. Her head moved to follow each one as they drove past. Daryl found himself doing the same thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean,\u201d she continued, \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of cars without drivers. Do you think they\u2026that they\u2019re\u2026?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMolly, you know what I know. We\u2019ll check my house, grab some more supplies, then we\u2019ll be well into the country by nightfall.\u201d<\/p>\n
The drive to his house was a little over six miles, but it took nearly an hour to make it through the crowded streets. The rain stayed steady, a grey day for the newly dead. There wasn\u2019t a single sign of other survivors, just street after street full of the previous night\u2019s rush hour traffic. Stores were open and empty. The commuters were forever traveling, forever frozen in their last acts. Corpses behind steering wheels, clutching gas pumps, grouped together at the bus stop, in line at the fast food joints. Lines of cars sitting blindly through green lights, a fender bender and two men slumped over their insurance papers, joggers, walkers. These was the living dead. A city that stopped one night, everything held in place. Was the final memory of Mankind going to be evening rush hour?<\/p>\n
The sound of the rain on the van, and of the van itself, was oddly comforting. The dead world out there \u2013 the silence \u2013 was unnerving for a person who had spent every moment in the hustle and bustle. The death of the great machine was more unsettling than the bodies lying in the street. And now that he\u2019d seen murder and death outside of the television screen, the sight of a row of abandoned vehicles caused him more fear than the site of a bloated corpse, unblinking in the rain. Did those abandoned cars mean there were more monsters out there? Stepping out of their cars and going\u2026 Going where?<\/p>\n
Run, rabbit, run<\/em>. He stepped on the gas when he could, notched the van up to a good speed on the shoulders and whenever there was a gap on the side streets. Getting out of the city was becoming a priority.<\/p>\n On a side street he used every day to weave his way to the Metro, the road was fairly clear. He zipped past a group of cars, then bounced back into his lane. But he slowed, letting the van roll to a stop at the top of a rise, and stared into his mirrors.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat?\u201d Molly spun around, gripping the edge of the seat.<\/p>\n He shook his head, \u201cToo many abandoned cars back there.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat, here?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAll the way here. I don\u2019t think, I can\u2019t\u2026\u201d he stared down at his hands. \u201cThose people died back there.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat people? From the subway?\u201d Molly asked.<\/p>\n \u201cI just stood there.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou couldn\u2019t have done anything.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut I did do something. After it killed that boy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDaryl,\u201d Molly put her hand on his shoulder.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t fight these things. I\u2019ve never been in a fight.\u201d He laughed, a sick desperate sound. He\u2019d been in a fight now.<\/p>\n \u201cYou did okay last night.\u201d Molly\u2019s smile was warm, sincere. She tilted her head towards the back of the van, \u201cWe\u2019ve got stuff, Mad Max. We can be okay, now.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted to wake up and find everything back to normal.\u201d<\/p>\n Molly smiled a bit wider, her hand moved up to his face and caressed him gently, \u201cI wanted that when the emergency lights came on in the tunnel. Come on, boy, let\u2019s go to your house, then get out of here.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere are an awful lot of abandoned cars, Molly.\u201d He was still looking in his mirrors, fixed on headlights in the mist behind him.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe some people ran off. They could just as easily be like us, Daryl. Come on.\u201d Her hand left his face, crossed over her breasts. She was serious now when he looked at her, nodding her head towards the road ahead. \u201cWhat did you tell me last night? We\u2019ll have time to freak out later, right? When we\u2019re safe.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere has to be someone in authority left.\u201d He said, slowly. \u201cThere\u2019s always someone in authority. Bunkers under the White House. Things like that.\u201d<\/p>\n She shrugged, \u201cThen they\u2019ll find us. But, until then, we have to get ourselves to safety.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know how to use them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe guns.\u201d What was wrong with him? It was all settling in. He gripped the wheel. A lifetime passing him by, piling up, whispering in his ear. His 20\u2019s thrown away to a machine that had been destroyed in a minute, blood on his hands. He had to hold on. Had to keep moving. But he was a few minutes from his house, and he didn\u2019t want to find out anything bad. He didn\u2019t want to know what had to be the truth. He didn\u2019t want to see bodies of people he knew.<\/p>\n \u201cPoint and shoot, you said. Like in the movies.\u201d Molly rapped her hand on the dashboard, \u201cLet\u2019s check out your place, get what we need and then get out of here. We can both have a breakdown tonight in a farmhouse somewhere, okay? I\u2019ll be glad to join you in a total, raving freakout.\u201d Her voice was on a thin edge, sharper than she intended, and she bit her lower lip and looked away. \u201cWe\u2019ve both lost people today, Daryl. We\u2019ll make it.\u201d She was staring at a dead family on a nearby lawn. \u201cFuck,\u201d she hissed, ducking down and playing with the radio and the CB. Except for the EBS tone on the AM channel, there was nothing. She turned the radio back to the EBS tone and sat there for a moment. \u201cStill automatic, right?\u201d she asked softly.<\/p>\n \u201cIf they were there they\u2019d be talking to us. Maybe somebody will come on later.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRight, I\u2019ll keep this fucking ear piercing tone on, just in case we weren\u2019t both about to lose our minds.\u201d She flicked the radio off as Daryl started down the road, straddling the center line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[404],"class_list":["post-502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nachos-lousy-novel","tag-nachos-lousy-novel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=502"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":802,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502\/revisions\/802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}