Chapter 4

Desi’s Point of View

It seemed that I was doomed to repeat events like this for the rest of my life. Why, Lord? Why is my face getting smashed into the pavement yet again? I swore I would have road rash on my face for the rest of my miserable life. Why hadn’t I taken the explosives from Taehyung yet? Even worse-- why had I let him take them in the first place? I am going to kill that boy once I get ahold of him.

I lifted myself off the pavement with a groan. My face burned and I knew I would have bruises and scratches tattooed across the rest of my body. A feeling of deja-vu washed over me as I realized I’ve been in this position too many times before. If we ever do get to that sanctuary, I’ll be lucky to make it in one piece.   

I turned around to look at the burning remnants of the fast food joint we had stopped at. I wasn’t sure how it had ended up like this. It was an innocent stop-- a chance to stretch our legs and see what food we could find. The placed had looked safe enough, so we pulled in and started going about our business. Then all of a sudden the place was flooded with zombies.

Naturally, Taehyung’s first instinct was to blow everything up. So he did.Even though he had almost killed me again, at least he managed to kill all of the zombies in one go.

I heard giggling behind me and I turned toward the sound with a scowl. Taehyung was staring proudly at the destruction he caused, covered in ash and holding an unlit stick of dynamite.

“Good thing I got them in one go. I only had one left.” He laughed, waving the dynamite in the air.

I stared at the overly-happy Taehyung in disbelief. I was sure of it now-- he was insane. Completely, certifiably insane. Behind me, I heard footsteps moving toward us. I whipped my head around to find the source, afraid it might be a zombie that had escaped the blast. Instead, I found a furious Hoseok, raising a fist in the air with his murderous eyes locked on Taehyung.

Before he could do anything he could regret, I slammed into him. I lock my arms around his, and capturing them so he couldn’t move.

“Hoseok, wait! Calm down. Think about this for a second. He killed all the zombies! That’s all that matters! Granted, he almost killed us again, but still!” I said. He fought my grip and I struggled to hold him back.

Hoseok looked at me over his shoulder and snarled, “No! Not only did he blow up the whole damn building and almost kill us, but he wrecked our truck! Part of the building collapsed on the front of it! We can’t drive anywhere now! The only thing I could save were our backpacks with the food, guns, and knives in them. Now we don’t have a car, so that means we have to walk on foot again.”

After hearing that, I was almost tempted to let Hoseok take a couple of swings at Taehyung. I wanted to take a few myself, to be honest. But my better judgement decided against it. I wouldn’t let us fight with each other. We’re all we have left.

After calming down Hoseok a bit, I released him and turned to Taehyung. I shot him a scolding look, and he looked at his feet sheepishly. He kicked at a pile of debris, not daring to look me in the eye.

“Tae, what do you say?” I asked, putting my hands on my hips. I tried to look as intimidating as possible, but Taehyung was still several inches taller than me, so the effect was lost. He let out a heavy sigh.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wreck our car, and I didn’t mean to almost blow you guys up...again.” He pouted with his head hung low. Hoseok and I made eye contact and he rolled his eyes. He looked frustrated, but at least he wasn’t trying to kill Taehyung anymore.

“Whatever,”Hoseok sighed, turning to look back at the destruction behind us. “I’m confiscating your explosives, and we’ll just have to walk until we find a new car. Odds are that will take a while, since most of the cars are either out of gas, or the keys are gone. I mean, look at how long it took for us to find the truck.” He shook his head, eyeing the wreck of the truck with an expression of longing. I reached up to pat his shoulder sympathetically.

Taehyung perked up after listening to Hoseok. He was probably relieved that that was the worst scolding he would get today. I was surprised he wasn’t more upset at the loss of his explosives, but I didn’t question it. I’d be keeping a careful watch on that boy.

“We can only go up from here!” He shouted, grinning from ear to ear. I sighed, but Taehyung was right. It couldn’t get much worse than this, could it? At least now all of our bad karma got cashed in. Maybe this was a good thing. I don’t know. I didn’t want to think about it.

We walked over to the wreckage of our truck and grabbed our backpacks. As we started to walk away, I turned slightly to look back. Light winked off of one of the tail lights, as if flashing in farewell. Goodbye, my old friend, I think, you will be missed.

*******

 My feet were killing me. Why is it we never realize how much we take something for granted until it’s gone? I miss the truck. Sure, the thing hiccuped sometimes, and it had smelled like sweat and old pizza, but it was our home for the short period we had it. The other downside of not having the truck is the lack of protection that we have from the zombies. Walking on the road like this is asking for trouble. But what other choice do we have?

I looked at our surroundings carefully. The three of us were in the middle of God-knows-what town. The buildings on either side of us were quiet and seemingly empty, their broken doors and windows gaping out as us like yawning mouths. The sun was starting to set, casting everything in shadow, and an eerie layer of mist had settled all around us. I hated the place instantly.

“Guys, let’s stop somewhere for the night. It’s not a good idea to stay out in the open like this at night.” I said. I rubbed my arms slightly to fight off a sudden chill. A cool air blew in from the north, and the street was looking more like a scene from a horror story with every passing minute.

Hoseok looked around us. There weren’t many options, actually. The only building that wasn’t destroyed, burned, or just plain creepy, was the old McDonald’s up ahead. It looked like its windows were still intact, at least, and that was good enough for now.

“Let’s go there. It’s better than nothing, I guess.” Hoseok said, pointing at the old building. Even though it was our best option, I still eyed it warily. I didn’t know about about Tae and Hoseok, but I was not loving it. (HAHA puns).

We entered the desolate building, keeping a sharp ear out for anything that sounded vaguely zombie-like. Taehyung found a set of light switches along the wall behind the service counter, and flipped them on. I jumped slightly when the sound of a generator coughed to life somewhere in the back. The ceiling buzzed, and then approximately eight light bulbs . The old lights flickered eerily, bathing the room in a dim, fluorescent glow. The plastic and vinyl booths and tables sprang into view. A fine layer of dust covered every surface. No one had been here for a while.

“Taehyung, can you go check if there’s any food in the back please? Hoseok, you look around the other seating areas to see if it’s clear. I’ll go check the giant play-place,” I said.  

We split up in our three different directions. I opened the door to go to the play place, and immediately felt exposed. Sure, the play place was surrounded by walls, but the walls were made entirely out of glass. Anybody or anything could see into the building from outside. And with the lights turned back on, we weren’t exactly inconspicuous. In fact, we probably looked like a damn beacon. Even so, I didn’t want to tell Tae to turn them back off.

The play-place itself was elaborate. There were so many twists, turns and hiding places that it the colorful plastic tubes nearly touched the 30-foot ceiling. I haven’t seen anything like it before. This McDonald’s sure went all out to make everyone is happy. Too bad it was being wasted like this.

I looked out the glass walls into the darkness outside. It was really starting to freak me out. It was so quiet. If something was out there, wouldn’t it have seen the lights by now? The thought made me nervous. Even if something was coming, we probably wouldn’t see it until it was right up against the