บท 7: John
What am I doing? I don't know where else we're supposed to go. Christy didn't even want me to visit this address. She gave it to me as an "in case of emergency" for Lizzy. Although, this is kind of a crazy situation going on right now. Is she going to turn us away? I hope she can just let us stay there for a while. We need to find someplace away from this Steven guy. He was nice to us, but I still don't like him that much. He's a little creepy to me. Maybe I just don't like fat, sweaty, old guys who are taller than me. He has good taste in music however, as the radio is playing quiet country music. The sound of an acoustic playing softly will always make me happy. I look in the backseat and notice that Lizzy is fast asleep again.
The radio cuts off. Steven reaches down and starts flipping through the stations. No luck. "Great," he says. "I was just getting into that song too." How was he 'getting into' the song? He was just staring down the road. Again, weird. He looks down at the gauges. "Crap, we need gas. Soon." I look around. "Do you know where we can get some?" I ask him. "Yeah," he says, "but you might want to wake her up. We're gonna go to the gas station and hope for the best. Since this whole crapstorm just recently happened, I'm praying there's still gas left in the pumps."
What if there are people there? Alive or dead? We only have Steven's shotgun to defend ourselves at the moment. Why the hell didn't Mark bring my rifle into Steven's place? He was supposed to grab everything out of there. I wish I had unpacked the truck myself. He probably didn't lock the damn thing and just hot wired it.
We turn down a road, and I see a small little town up ahead. Not a huge town, but there could still be people there. It looks like no one's here; the town almost seems deserted. The problem is that I can't tell if this is typical for here or not. After a while, we slowly pull up in front of a convenience store. It has the small town cliche exactly, being called Jim's Gas and Go. Probably some random guy in the town who wanted to call himself an entrepreneur. Even though that's kind of on the lower end of the lame scale, I still wish I could do something like that with my life. The idea to just create something and go with it.
Steven stares at the building for a while, then looks at the gas pumps. "Let's hope this works, and that the pumps aren't shut off." He drives around the building a couple times to make sure we're good from being attacked, then pulls up beside one of the pumps. He grabs the shotgun from the backseat, and hands it to me, instructing me to open my door. "I'm going to pump the gas," he explains. "If you see anyone, tell me immediately and hand me the shotgun. I need you to be my second pair of eyes and ears."
I look back at Lizzy but decide to not wake her. Nothing's going to happen, I tell myself. Everything is going to be fine. Just getting some gas and getting the hell out of here. Steven selects unleaded and the gas pump tells him to remove the nozzle. He throws his hands up and smiles. "It works!" I let out a long breath of relief that I didn't realize I was holding. He grabs the nozzle and puts it into the tank. He starts pumping and I hear the muffled sound of the gas entering the tank. I've always found that sound soothing. The smell of gasoline also calms me, for some strange reason. People probably think I'm a lunatic.
Quickly, I realize I haven't been paying attention to what's going on around me. I look at both sides of the store on my right. We're good. I turn around and look down the road we came. We're good. I look to my left, we're good. I turn back around, and look straight down the road ahead. Someone's coming. Wait, somebody's coming!
"Um, Steven? I see somebody." He walks up to the side door, and I don't take my eyes off the figure slowly moving towards us. "Do you think he's dead?" I ask him. He squints his eyes, and looks for a long time. "Can't be sure," he replies, and grabs the shotgun out of my hand. "You're going to shoot him?" I almost yell. "What if he's not one of them? What if he needs help?" Steven looks down the barrel of the gun and I close my eyes, worried for what comes next.
I hear Steven's voice, and open my eyes. "Stop right there!" he yells, and I notice the figure is now in the intersection of the road. However the man doesn't stop, he simply continues with his pace. "Stop now, or I'll shoot!" Steven's finger moves closer to the trigger, and the figure slowly heads towards us. The closer he gets, the more details I can see. He's tall, and has blood all over his clothing. I don't think he needs our help. I look at Steven, and I can tell he's nervous. His hands are a little shaky and the gun slightly bobs. Has he ever actually shot that gun before? I assume he has, but he looks as uneasy as I feel inside. "THIS IS YOUR FINAL WARNING!" he yells. The man keeps moving.
Everything seems to happen in slow motion as I see Steven's finger pull the trigger, and shoot the unknown stranger in the leg. The man halters for a moment, then keeps moving towards us. "Holy mother of God," Steven exclaims. He looks at the gas pump. We're not even close to a full tank. He pulls the shotgun up again and fires at the man's shoulder. The man keeps moving. "No, no," Steven says, and stops pumping the gas. I hear a yell as Steven notices more people exiting the buildings down the street. They're heading right for us. "Shit!" he exclaims.
I jump when someone touches my shoulder. It's Lizzy. "What's going on?" she asks me as she rubs her eyes. I look back out. Steven's throwing the nozzle into the gas pump and running around to the other side of the vehicle. He hops into the driver seat and I grasp the shotgun tightly, bracing myself for combat. He puts the key into the ignition. My heart wrenches when the motor sputters, but fails to start up after multiple attempts.
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