When The World Ends

New Faces & New Places

We pull off at the Mauzy exit and made our way into...

"Braway?" Alexx asks and we slow down so we can see the sign better.

"No, I think someof the letters were etched off. Ummm, that's a 'd'..."

"and the other one's an 'o'."

"Broadway...not Braway," I laugh, "could you imagine living in a town called 'Braway'?"

"That's a rediculous name!"

We laugh and turn onto the main road. There were a lot of little stores, both of our heads swivel trying to find a restaraunt.

"what the--? WATCH OUT!!!" Alexx yells.

I slam on the brakes and we stop an inch from a little old lady bending over.

"Are you alright?!" I ask the strange little woman.

She stands up holding a pebble in her hand and says..."Aya la pequeenes eh"

"wha-? I'm sorry, ma'am, I don't understand."

"Ays la pequeenes eh" she says again with a nod and puts the pebble in my hand.

"What'd she say?" Alexx yells out of the window.

Rolling my eyes I turn and shrug at her. She gets out of the car saying, "What did she say?"

"I already told you, I do-"

"It means 'All the little things'."

We twirl aruond and see tow men walking towards us. Alexx elbows me and...I elbow her back. What was I supposed to do?!

"Sorry for startling you," the taller one says. "I'm Blake, my borther is Aleckzander, and my grandmother is Iya. We were just gathering supplied. Would you like to join?" he laughs, "after all, we didn't know there was anyone left alive."

I look over to Alexx and she shrugs but kept on glancing towards the quieter one (Aleckzander?).

I look back to Blake and nod "why not?"

We get back in the car and watch as the pick up their bags full of supplies near the door.

"Aya" Aleckzander says, gesturing to the other car parked on the side of the road and Iya nods. They put their bags in the turnk and Blake walks to my side of the car.

"here," he says, plopping a walkie-talkie in my hand. "In case you get lost. Press this button to talk. Oh! It's already on the right channel." He smiles and then walks and climbs into the drivers side of his car.

Alexx elbows me, "Oooooh! You're blushing!"

"Are not..."

"Are too!"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever."

We travel up and up...I had a weird sensation in my ears I'd never felt before. I think the term is "popping" although I don't know why they would say that; if our ears popped we wouldn't be able to hear (duh!)

Alexx sighs and hangs her head out the window letting her hair blow behind her; however, it didn't look graceful. It just blows in dirty clumps. I look into the rear view mirrow and see a dirt encrusted forehead with tired eyes and some left over icing on my cheek. Well, THAT'S embarrasing, I think to myself.

"Hey you guys..." crackles through the walkie-talkie. I look back to the road and realize they weren't ahead of us anymore. "You drove past the turn."

I click the button and answer, "Sorry, I was...distracted." I put the car in reverse and see an opening in the trees.

Driving up the "driveway" takes about 10 minutes and when we got there, the guys were waiting outside their car. We didn't pay much attention to them though because we were both marvalling at their house.