I seated myself, feeling awkward because I rarely drove anything in my life, and the last time I did was like two years ago, before the world went chaotic.

The car started smoothly despite being out here for like months and months, but inside, the first thing I noticed was the smell. It smelled like a haunted museum’s basement plus rotting orange fragrance.

“There’re so many pillows back there,” Chase commented.

The drive was really smooth and the car really did a great job of being silent the entire time. 

Describing to you the condition of the city while we passed it would be like describing a stack of rainbow hays sprinkled over each other in a really messed up way. Everything was just grains of upturned cars, obliterated asphalt roads, crashing buses, dead bodies and limbs, and maybe some predators walking around, paying no attention to us unless we got really close to them. Some did try to chase us, but we smoked them in mere seconds.

I saw the glimmer of light showing how much gas we had, and we had almost empty, so going to the gas station would be the perfect logic for our first destination.

“You know, my brother died because we were heading for the gas station.”

And a minute after he said that, we arrived at the location where the gas station was. High fences with barbed wires on top of them surrounded the station. A big man with an Assault Rifle was guarding the semi-gate.

“It must be a safe shelter,” said Chase with a low voice. “It’s probably the military.”

From the side of the road, I saw towards the faraway person. 

“He doesn’t look like one.”

“We can just go there and ask.”

“Chase,” I put my hand on his shoulder. “This is not the old world where everybody acts normally, okay? This is a dangerous world. We can’t trust people. Remember last time we almost got ourselves killed by two living humans?”

“We’re also heading to a place where a radio said humans dwell. You trust that but not this? Ti, this looks way more convincing than that radio shelter shit. Why don’t you trust me on this one?”

To be honest, my gut told me that the gas station place was pretty sketchy. Also, I was proud that Chase finally swore.

Chase was about to open his mouth again.

“Ti−”

CLANG

I didn’t realize when it happened, but suddenly, my rearview mirror shattered. A bullet penetrated it, making a sudden sound of clang that surprised both me and Chase. I quickly backed the car. It swerved on the asphalt, smoking the road. 

A second bullet was shot, hitting the car’s roof and into the backseat. Chase screamed when I stirred the car like crazy, but we exited the area and headed north.

“They were shooting at us!”

“I told you! That place isn’t safe.”

So I drove away while our hearts still beat like crazy. After a minute of cooling down, we were back at our sane minds.

“How do we find gas now?”

I kept looking forward, ignoring his words.

After driving for a few minutes, we stopped at a small motel north of Nashville. It looked pretty deserted, and all around it were trees and trees only.

“We’re looking for a hose,” I said.

There was only one pickup truck on the whole big parking lot and it meant well. We ate our small lunches for the day and proceeded on working.

Firstly, I headed for the pickup and forced the gas tank open. Chase wondered somewhere to the back.

“God, I wish there’s gas.”

“Found it!” Chase shouted from somewhere, so I headed to him. By him, a blue hose was plugged to a tab right behind the motel. I turned it on and magically, water came springing out speedily. 

Next, I carried the hose and started busying myself with two gas tanks, one hose, and two vehicles.

“This is called siphoning and it’s illegal. Well, it was.”

Gas streamed from the GMC to our Honda and I almost shouted after realizing that I finally succeeded in stealing gas although I’d never done it before. The wild feeling of pride stroke me. I felt like I just achieved a goal of life.

“I’ve seen too many movies. Sometimes, they’re bad examples. Pretty useful for the apocalypse lemme tell you. Let’s just hope that this pickup isn’t a diesel.”

But Chase didn’t look so happy. He looked a bit miserable, out of mood.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothin’. It’s just that… if we knew this, then my brother wouldn’t die.”

I saw his point. I tried to muster out a word, but it never did come out.

He sighed and moved on.

The sky turned almost orange when we finished sucking the gas to our car. We slept in one of the motel rooms after also stealing the key from the front desk.

The night was cold and it showered heavily again. We used some more candles to lit the entire room and though it was just seven P.M., the sky was as dark as midnight.

We ate a bag of chips and slept well until the sky rose to the horizon again.

−

I woke up before Chase after having a terrible nightmare. My sister reached me at night, calling my name and shouting that she was scared and that she needed company. I felt the urge to come to her so huge that time, but I knew Chase relied on me. She also wished for me to stay alive before she died, so that dream was just definitely coming from my head.

I walked out, seeing the sky still dark. The wind rushed by the trees, blowing their leaves south as birds flew west. Our car lied still in the dark, chatting with the old pickup truck that we just stole its gas from.

“What a lovely morning to have coffee.”

But obviously that would be impossible.

I let Chase slept for one more hour as it was still very dark, so I had the idea to explore the whole motel by myself (which is a very stupid thing to do whilst predators are roaming everywhere in the world).

My metal baseball bat sat on the backseat of the Honda. After grabbing it and a flashlight, I walked toward the main ‘lobby’ where the main desk was located. Nothing was there but useless notes and a notebook.

I hadn’t checked the southern part of the motel yet, as the place was bigger than I originally thought, so I headed there in spite of all the danger I could encounter. At this point you could already conclude that was a careless, reckless human being who was so lucky to have survived this long. I was that fool in a dystopian movie who dangers the group and later on gets everyone killed.

Anyway, I moved along each room and saw that every room was closed. I wondered if there were people in one of these closed rooms, but I wasn’t about to find that out.

I did find one room with the door opened, and when I entered it in curiosity, a dead body welcomed me.

There were so many nasty ways to die, and so many disturbing ways to suicide. The dead body was a fat gentleman with a cool, fading beard. His death was unique because his head was wrapped by a transparent plastic bag and it was strapped to his neck with duct-tape. 

“Hard way to die. Why did you choose that?”

But the room interested me more than the fading corpse. I thought he must’ve died not long ago, maybe a month or so, but the room gave that all away.

There were notes and pictures, newspapers and magazines’ articles, photographs and strings. I felt like I was in a conspiracy room filled with mysteries. 

I read some interesting notes and articles.

‘Mine’s Explosion in Northern Nairobi Shocked locals.’

‘USA Denied Involvements in the Mining Catastrophe in Africa.’

‘China and India’s Ongoing Conflict Has Its Climax Last Night.’

‘Mysterious Chemical Reactions Happened in the Area of the Kenyan Mines.’

‘Canadian Scientist Suspected an Incoming Chemical War between Big Countries. USA Might Be the First to Start it.’

‘UN Negotiation in Zurich Went Bad, said Australian Prime Minister, Derek Wahlooya.’

‘World War Three? When?’

‘A New Deadly Virus Was Found in Somalia. Scientists Are Racing to Get the First Samples.’

‘Economic Failure in Japanese Trade Market Shocked Asia.’

‘Indonesian Government Accused Chinese Fishermen for Marauding Their Resources. Two Countries Blamed Each Other in Seoul’s Court.’

‘Underground Tunnels Were Found in Eastern Germany. Harry Joox, Director of Yoki Inc. Refused to Comment.’

‘An Australian Scientist Was Infected by the Somalian TALVID-20.’

‘Baron Portish, A Young Australian Biologist Found Dead After Reportedly Being Infected by the Deadly African Virus in His Apartment in Melbourne.’

‘A New Flu Was Found in Sweden. Three Confirmed Dead.’

‘Malaysia and Thailand Sent Help for the Incoming Virus Pandemic in Somalia.’

‘TALVID-20 Broke off in Australia. Twenty-five Deads and Twelve Infected.’

‘A New Case of TALVID-20 Was Detected in New Zealand.’

‘The Mysterious Flu Found in Sweden Was Confirmed to be an Evolved TALVID-20.’

‘A Man Found Dead in His Own House in Copenhagen. The Body Was Found Stuck to a Wall and Transparent Slime Was Blanketing the Dead Corpse. Hot News.’

‘Zombies in Fiji?’

‘Cannibals in Sydney?’

‘TALVID-20 Reached American Coast.’

‘WHO Suggested Every Country to Take Precautions for TALVID-20.’

‘0 Cases of Talvid-20 in North Korea.’

‘Crazy Rats in Mexico?’

‘Worldwide Pandemic.’

And there were still so many pieces of articles and notes. That man must’ve been collecting information about TALVID-20 as hard as he could, but decided to end it in the end. I pitied him but also honored him to be doing this.

The only thing I knew about the pandemic was that it originated from Somalia, it broke off in Australia, and it fucked up America and the rest of the world. I knew that deadly virus was the cause, but where it came from still confused me to this day. 

“Mining accident? USA being involved? World War 3?”

I didn’t know how to connect those dots, but my head spun thinking about them already. The one thing that was missing from the room was ‘cure’. I found no mentioning about the cure or maybe even a vaccine, so either the government fucked up, or the man purposefully didn’t care about it.

Maybe he knew that a vaccine or a cure would be too good to be true. But why would he do all this with no hope?

I decided not to overthink anything and went back for my room. Chase was brushing his teeth when I arrived.

“Where’ve you been?”

“Wanderin’. Found this room full of articles and notes. Seems like the man wanted to figure out why the pandemic happened.”

“What happened to em’?”

“He choked himself with a tight plastic bag.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, well. I don’t really care about the cause of the pandemic. I’m more into surviving it than figuring it out.”

“That’s true.”

After breakfast, we got ourselves ready and hurtled inside the car with full tank. Then, we were ready to go.

Everything we passed for the last fifteen miles had been nothing but trees and small houses with big lanes.

The entrance to the highway was right by our eyes, but of course, something blocked it for us to pass.

“How did I know this is going to happen?”

The bridge, which connected the main road with the highway, was blown up, now just rubbles and debris. Stacks of dead cars turned the place to a chaotic junkyard, and I bet many people were below that debris also. 

“This must be the government’s doing to control the pandemic,” I said.

“Messed up.”

So we decided to just use the normal road, but it would definitely be more dangerous and long. I didn’t know what would happen in our journey, but I never expected it to be pretty.

As long as my eyes could see, there were only destructions and chaos. Just like downtown, everything here was a mess. 

We passed a roadblock post guarded by nothing but two dead cops rotting on the side of the street with more less ten predators posing around. The roadblock must’ve been used for quarantine purposes. They blocked the street with signs and gates, but I rammed them and no damage was done to my car.

We were outside the city but it felt no different like in the middle of Nashville. Everything disgusted us to death. The good thing would be that there was almost no predator at all since the roadblock for some reason.

We passed barns and houses, churches and restaurants, but they felt really familiar and alien at the same time. 

Driving pass an open space outside Nashville must’ve attracted some unwanted attentions, and we were noobs for surviving the apocalypse, so whatever stupid decisions we were making should be considered normal. 

The next thing that happened to us was one of the hardest experiences of my life.

Two GMC pickup trucks appeared from nowhere into the lane that we were on. They surrounded us from left and right, and they shouted crazy things to us to stop and surrender.

“Who are these guys?” Chase’s face turned panic. Those people didn’t look good. They looked like punks.

“I don’t know.”

I punched the gas pedal and the speedometer rose to some dozens of miles per hour ahead. The two pickups decapitated our Honda even further.

BANG

I saw in my left, the guy on the passenger seat was shooting at our car with a shotgun. I swerved left and right, trying to dodge them.

“Ti, we have to get away from here!”

“I’m trying!”

But it didn’t sound as easy as that. The next thing the shooter hit was the Honda’s front tire, so it screeched out of balance. I lost control of the car as it flanked left uncontrollably.

“Shit!”

“Ti!”

I tried to stir the other way around, but the right truck banged us and dodged us even further. Finally, the Honda crashed a pine tree next to the road. 

The last thing I saw was the tree trunk. 

The last thing I heard was Chase’s shouting. The last thing I felt was darkness and pain.

And then blackness.

−

I couldn’t feel my body.

I couldn’t open my eyes. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t react.

I heard only distant mumbles and ruffles, humans talking not too far away. 

Besides all of that, my ears rang. They pinched my brain like in a jar full of whistles. 

Then, I felt the coldness of the world.

I tried opening my eyes, and it succeeded after a few efforts.

My vision was blurry. All I saw was that the Honda bumped a pine tree, and it shattered the windshield. Everything in the front part of the car was deformed.

I tried to move, but my feet and arms were stuck onto something. I turned my head right to see Chase. His body was to the side. I thought Chase’s head got the side glass. I saw blood coming out from his head.

His airbag plunged out, but his head must’ve bashed the glass hardly.

On the other hand, my airbag was nowhere to be seen. Nothing stopped me from crashing my head onto the steer. 

I tried to move, but pain filtered every system, every limb.

Then, a man with bald head and scary tattoos all over his face approached me. I only saw a glimpse of him as my vision still blurred. He was smiling to see me alive, or to see me squinting like a weak ass.

“She’s awake. The queen is awake!”

Three or four more people joined behind him and gazed to me like I was an alien or something. They saw my broken nose and bleeding head.

“Hello, Missy. Thank you for your kind donation.”

At that moment I realized that they were carrying our supplies, our bags and every food inside it, plenty of them.

I tried to do something, but of course I couldn’t even move.

“Uhhm… Dddoo−”

“What’s that?”

“Hhhhhhhiii− Pleaassss−”

“Please? Please what?”

Everybody laughed seeing my expression.

“Wait,” said one of the men with blond hair. “I know her.”

“You do? She your neighbor or somethin’?”

“No. Fuck, who’s she?” The man seemed to think so hard, but his face looked like he didn’t even have a brain to think.

I helplessly just saw them talk about me for several minutes while blood poured from my head.

“Fuck,” said the blonde, snapping his fingers. “She’s Tiany Valley.”

“Tiany Valley? The Tiany Valley?”

“Yes. I’m sure this is her. Fuck me, she’s banged up.”

“Well, she’s dead anyway. Let’s go guys. We got what we came for.”

“No, wait, we should help them.”

“Why? You have a crush on her?”

“No, I−”

“You what? Let’s just don’t fucking waste our time here.”

“Dude, she’s like my sister’s favorite artist. She was crazy over her.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? Let’s just get the hell away from here or else we will leave you behind!”

I saw the guilt and regret on his eyes when he decided to leave us. My visions were getting better, but nothing was left and they got away with everything we had, including my favorite metal baseball bat.

I remembered nothing after that. I just woke up when the sky turned dark and rain drops drenched my clothes. The wind froze my body, chilling every cell. I looked toward Chase and saw him still in the same position as before.

“Ccchhass…”

I tried to focus my vision, to see if he was breathing or not. I couldn’t tell.

The thunder shocked my heart, but it gave me enough adrenaline to energize me. The sudden fear came to me for the hundredth times as Chase was in danger.

My hand tried to open the door. When it swung, my body dove to the asphalt below. The pain didn’t even register in my brain. I just felt motionless and weak, but I wasn’t at all hurt. I did feel the coldness.

Wiggling and crawling, I reached Chase’s side and opened the door. His limp body fell down right to me, so I caught it. I frantically checked his pulse, but when it throbbed, I breathed.

The rain got harder and more unbearable every second. Our clothes were nothing but dry, so I tried to think and see as clear as I could, though hard as it might seem.

I hauled Chase up, carrying him with both my hands. I trembled as he was heavier than I thought, but I was also injured.

I walked with my freezing and weak body, and I even staggered my legs for some steps. 

We were saved by the sight of a small motel called Budget Motel. It was deserted (by the look of it), so I brought Chase there.

The rain got harder and harder. It turned into bliss, and it was at the point where every raindrop felt like a bullet. 

I kicked into one of the rooms in the motel and magically, it opened. I just docked Chase’s body to the bed, and I went for the door to lock it.

And before I had the chance to do anything else....

Everything turned black once again.

---------

Art : Centurion on Pinterest