We Won't Be Coming Home

So this was it. Charlie looked through the dark house seeing if he’d left anything that they would actually need. The truck was already well stocked with the little provisions that were left over and enough ammunition and other weapons to last a very small, short battle. Enough for a few of the beasts that roamed the roughly 2080 mile trek that Alaska had charted out. They planned to drive as far as possible, and hopefully they’d be able to get most of the way before the truck was demolished by the slew of teeth and claws that would surely bombard them as soon as they pulled out of the electrified gate.

Charlie still wasn’t totally sold on having to leave the relatively safe confines of the house that he and Alaska had grown up in. His parents, well more like his grandfather, had been thorough in ensuring that the family home would survive an apocalypse. This included an electric fence and a metal fortress of a house. The electric fence only worked a few hours every day now. The wiring he’d done a few years ago when the initial back up generator failed had now started to exhaust the second generator. The house still stood, though much worse for ware now than it had been even just a year ago. He was unsure whether this was due to the failing fence or the growing boldness of the various creatures that now occupied the area. Judging from a few of the books in the library, the creatures seemed to be mainly prehistoric in appearance. In fact, they had their own piece of proof that some of them were in a rather large buddle of fur that had a somewhat similar resemblance to a drawing of a saber tooth cat that was in one of the books. Alaska had found it wondering in the woods as a cub and, with a little training and a lot of fresh meat, they had managed to tame it to where it wouldn’t harm either of them. That had been three years ago, and the cub had grown into a massive striped cat that they called Loki.

He heard Alaska coming down the hall and was surprised to see a quite a few books and a box in her hands. “I thought you’d grabbed everything.” He said, eying the box suspiciously. “I had, but then I figured you want might this and then I thought I’d better grab the letters, just in case.” She replied, nodding to the top book, Advanced Mechanics. “Right. Thanks.” He said as she passed him and headed out to the car, Loki followed her out.

He pulled a list from his back pocket, mentally crossing off things as his eyes scanned the page. They seemed to have everything, yet something was missing. Charlie couldn’t quite put his finger on it, so he chalked it off to the general unpleasant feeling he always had when they left the house and walked out. He paused for a moment at the doorway, unsure if he should lock the door or not. They probably would never come back, and anything they hadn’t loaded into the car was deemed no longer of use, in his eyes, at least. With a sigh he locked the door. Alaska would ream him out if they ever had the chance to return and found out that he’d left the door unlocked.

Alaska was still surprised that she’d managed to convince Charlie to even leave the house, especially for something that didn’t involve hunting or scouting out the area. And yet, he was sitting beside her in the drivers seat, a faded Mariner’s cap on his head. She had the letters, he had the cap, and she was ninety five percent sure that somewhere, amidst the boxes of canned goods and weapons that there was at least one glove and a bat to go along with it. This, of course was not including the steel bat that he used when he didn’t have his sword with him. Charlie always gave off the impression that sentiment was a luxury that he would never be able to afford, but today was loaded with sentiment, and even Charlie couldn’t escape it.

She’d first approached him on the subject months ago. While charted it out on the most recent maps they had. He’d made sure the truck was in prime condition, and even made some adjustments that would make it both quieter and have better gas mileage. “Are you sure its eighty miles per gallon?” She asked. “Yes. The chip helped a bunch and the engine is running better than it did when dad bought it.” His tone was clipped, she knew he was tired of her asking the same question over and over again, but she still couldn’t wrap her mind around the fact that he’d managed to get an extra twenty miles per gallon from a little “chip” as he called it. “Well, I calculated it out with 70 just to be sure.”
“That’s fine. We’ll have leeway.”
“It’s 2084 miles.”
“The tanks hold 40 gallons between the two of them.”
“So we should have an extra 10 gallons in the tank, but I packed an extra 10 gallons in the bed just to be safe.”
“There are going to be old gas stations on the way.”
“Yeah, but do you know how to work them? They had to swipe credit cars before the gasoline started flowing.”
“I’ll figure it out.”
“Should we drive straight through?”
“I don’t know, maybe we could only drive at night?” [/color]
“Either way it’s dangerous.”
“Then we probably should just drive straight though. The faster the better, too.”
“How fast are we planning to go? Hundred, ninety? They shouldn’t be able to catch us if we’re going that fast.”
“They are still pretty small. Ten years of evolution hasn’t made them very big.”
“Big enough to kill and to take us out.”
“So we stop as little as possible.”

The planning hadn’t been too hard, and Alaska hoped that the trip would be just as easy, even though they both knew that it would not. And yet they were still here, the truck bed full and locked, Loki spread out in the back seat, her large head resting on her paws, they could easily unpack everything and go back to how things had been, but that wasn’t going to happen and they both knew it. Charlie started the engine and Alaska had to agree that it was a lot quieter than it had been last time she’d rode in it. She hoped out to get the gate, and, once she was back in the car and they were driving away she opened her mouth. “Mile one.” She said bluntly. Charlie cracked a smile. “2083 to go.” He responded.

SIX HOURS LATER

“Alaska, wake up.” Charlie said calmly.
“Alaska! Wake up.” These words however, were met with a hard shove.
“What.” She snapped, clearly unhappy to be awake and to have been woken up by force.
“Mile 645.” He responded coolly.
“Oh, my turn then. How are we on gas?”
“Down by a little less than a fourth of the tank.”
“Have we stopped at all?”
“Yes. Loki was getting antsy.”
“I’m assuming there wasn’t any trouble, considering I wasn’t woken up.”
“Not much. Loki found what seemed to be a mutated rabbit, nothing special.”

Charlie stopped the truck and they switched quickly. They said nothing for a long while. Finally Charlie leaned his chair back and shut his eyes. Bored, Alaska grabbed one of the CD’s from the console and loaded it into the CD drive. “Trying to sleep here.” Charlie said, his eyes closed still. “Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts the hell up.” She responded, her eyes on the road. “Well at least turn it down.” “Sorry. Not gonna happen. It’s not even that loud.” Charlie shut up after that, and soon there was a quiet snoring coming from the passenger seat.

The drive had been completely uneventful, up till this point of course. The roads were decayed, and the big cities they’d been through looked like warzones. Creatures ran from the giant mechanical beast that drove on for hours. Of course now, in the middle of the night, they’d have trouble. Charlie glanced out the window to see a creature running at them from the side. He slammed on the brakes, but the laws of physics were unbeatable, and the creature, whatever it was, collided with the front side of the truck. The world suddenly went white as the airbag released centimeters from his face and a loud shredding noise filled cab. When the truck came to a stop, Charlie pushed the airbag out of his face and immediately hopped out of the car. The creature, which he now saw to be a bear like creature that was only a little bigger than Loki, was still alive. He wondered how something could have survived being his by a moving vehicle going at least 80 miles per hours, but he had little time to ponder this as it lunged at him.

It didn’t get very far, but it surprised him enough for him to lose his balance as he jumped back. He reached for the pistol that he usually had on him, only to remember that he’d set it on the center console while he was driving. Charlie knew better than to simply attack the beast empty handed, its claws were sharp enough to spilt him in two. Fortunately for him, Alaska had grabbed his gun from the console and was now shooting repetitively.

Charlie counted four bullets before the bear stopped moving. He pushed himself up, knowing that he had to assess the damage. The Truck was still running, so that was a start, but there was a large dent above the tires. As he lifted the hood he saw that there was gore all over that side of the grill guard and assumed that it had taken most of the force. Charlie breathed a sigh of relief. The engine seemed to be fine.

He closed the hood and nodded at Alaska. “The truck’s fine, for now. Once we get where were going I want to find somewhere to fix the dent and anything that might be wrong with the engine, it looks okay now, but it might not be in another 500 or so miles.” “390, actually. But yeah, I think that’s a good plan. We might need it after we get there too.” She responded, climbing into the drivers seat, it was almost her turn to drive again anyway. Silently, Charlie handed her his knife so she could cut away the airbag, and then they were off again.

The tires skidded as they pulled out of the dirt and Charlie shivered. It had been a lot colder outside than he’d expected, also that could have been very bad. With a glance out the window he saw a few pairs of eyes that he hadn’t seen earlier. He decided not to mention this to Alaska, knowing full well that if the truck had been compromised then they’d be staring into all those eyes right now and having to fight whatever they were in the dark.

“It took four bullets in the head for the damn thing to finally go down, even after it had been hit by a truck.”
“I know. If those things mutate any more, then nothing we have is going to stop them.”
“Guess we’ll have to find something to stop them, then.”
“You alright?”
“I think so. Just a few bruises. You’re bleeding though.” Charlie said as he notice the dark spots on the console.
“I hit my head on the window pretty hard. It’s just blood.”
“A lot of blood.”
“It will dry. I’m fine.”

Charlie knew better than to argue at this point. His sister was as stubborn as he, and, if he’d been in the same situation, he would have said the same. Although, he was sure that her motive was different. Alaska probably said that so they could get to Geneva faster, he would have said it so she’d stop worrying over him.

“Don’t drive as fast as we’ve been going, I don’t want to risk it.”
“Is eighty good, or should I stick with seventy?”
“I’d say seventy five.”
“That leaves us in Boerne in a little over five hours.”
“That’s fine by me. Do we need to go over anything before we get there?”
“Not that I know of, aside from be nice.” She teased.
“Hey. I’ll try. No promises though.”
“There’s Emminey, Alyosha, Rosie, Phineas, Ashling, and then another guy I can’t remember.”
“That’s the one who’s our age.”
“Well they’re all around our age...”
“I think his name starts with a J, but I don’t really remember. It has been over ten years, you know.”
“Their names were in the letters, along with a few pictures.”
“Oh, I guess I didn’t care to remember.”
“Charlie, these kids were family 10 years ago. They’re important.”
“How do you even know that they might be there?”
“Would it hurt to find out, or try to find them?”
“Yeah, there’s this thing called getting killed in the process.”
“This is what mom and dad would want us to do, were already ¾ of the way there, so we’re doing this whether you like it or not.”

They’d had this argument several times since Alaska had first brought up the subject, and as usual, Alaska won. It wasn’t that her arguments were solid, though they didn’t lack solidity, it was simply that she knew that Charlie knew she would go whether he agreed or not and that Charlie would go because he wasn’t going to have her go off on her own. Of course, in the weeks before they officially decided to go, they’d been at a stalemate. Alaska wouldn’t leave without Charlie either, this particular argument had ended in a shouting match that had left the both of them bristling and silent. It wasn’t until one morning in which Alaska told Charlie that she was leaving whether he was coming or not, and though he argued through the whole process, he did leave.