Surviving, Not Living/Issue 3

This is Issue 3 of Surviving, Not Living, titled 100.

Issue 3:
“It’s sad.” Amelia spoke up as she and Bobby drove down a nearly deserted highway.

“What is?” Bobby asked as he swirved out of the way of a stray infected.

“You’ve only seen about one-hundred diferent people in your whole life, Bobby.” She told him. “I probably saw more than that by the time I was one year old.”

“How old was you? When it... began?” He asked.

“I was nearly fourteen.” Amelia told him. “I remember crying as Sarah helped your mother give birth to you. My father, I mean, our father had climbed through the sunroof and was fending off the infected but there were too many. The next...”

“How old are you now?” Bobby interrupted as he saw that Amelia was distraught as she remembered what happened. “If you don’t mind me asking...”

“Thirty-three, I think.” She answered. “Maybe thirty-two, three, four?”

“That makes me what? Nineteen? Twenty?” He asked. “And Sarah is thirty-eight?”

“Woah, she was so young when she delivered you - only eighteen.” Amelia came to a realisation.

“Damn.” Bobby said as he slowled the car to a stop outside a gas station. It looked like it was haunted - the sign was hanging off and the red paint was corroded so much you could only just realise what colour it once had been. Amelia reached over and grabbed one of the two shotguns on the back seat of the car. Bobby checked that he had his pistol.

Looks like it would be the set of a crappy Ne-Yo music video, Amelia smirked at her thoughts. But then, her thoughts turned to the previously ‘famous’ people and where they could be now. ''What if Taylor Swift is hiding in a secret government base with Beyoncé and Justin Bieber? What if we’ll come across the infected version of her in the next few days but I won’t even recognise her?''

“Let’s stop here quickly to get some gas. Then we’ll go onto the Walmart.” Bobby told Amelia. She snapped out of her endless thoughts and nodded.

“I’ll check inside the gas station.” Amelia said as she withdrew her gun. Bobby squeezed the nozzle on the gas pump, hoping there was some petrol left... But there was nothing so he decided to siphon the petrol that they needed from the abandoned cars that were dotted about car park.

Amelia raised her pistol, holding it with two hands as she kicked the door open. All of a sudden, an infected grabbed out at her leg from the left. Amelia recognised that it could have possibly been a female due to the few long strands of blonde hair that still lived on it’s scalp. Although, she didn’t have much time to admire its features as she sent a bullet cracking through its skull.

“You okay?” Bobby casually called, more worried about siphoning enough petrol than her. He knew that Amelia could handle herself.

“I’m fine!” She called back. “Just a stray infected!”

Amelia ran her fingers along the shelf full of mostly untouched CDs, a few had a blood splatter from the recent disaster. She sang small bits of each and every song before walking over to the counter. After checking that there were no infected behind the counter that were ready to surprise her, Amelia hopped over it. She pulled her bag off her back and began to pull all of the medecines off the shelf and into her green rucksack. Amelia had no idea what any of this stuff was but it looked like it could be useful one day.

Before leaving, Amelia quickly looked at the food shelves. Most of them were empty and the little food left wasn’t recogniseable. After all, it had been left to rot for twenty years. Amelia left the building to see Bobby kicking a car in frustration.

“Shut up!” She called to him. “You’ll attract the infected!”

“Sorry...” He snapped. “There’s no petrol here and we don’t have enough in the tank to take us all the way to Walmart. We’ll be lucky if we make it back to the house.”

“For fucks sake, Bobby.” Amelia sighed. “Let’s go, get in and don’t forget to turn the engine off when we’ve stopped. I’m driving.”

“No way are you driving my car.” Bobby insisted. A groan from a walker came from their left and he lifted his gun with one hand and shot it square in the forehead, all while keeping eye contact with Amelia.

“You don’t know how to drive to conserve petrol.” She told him.

“Whatever.” He threw her the key. “As long as you don’t drive that slow.”

Not long later, the two pulled up outside their house. Sarah sat on top of the house with a shotgun in hand, picking off the surrounding infected.

"I told you my driving would get us home." Amelia said, proud of herself.

Bobby smirked, "What's for lunch, doll?"

"Get inside quickly and it might just be pumpkin soup." Amelia giggled.

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