STAGE 1

9

Nathan

The Indiana sun was cooler than the other places we had been but still so intense. Caleb and I had been walking around for hours, bored out of our skulls. I hated it, the word bored. It just didn't seem like it was applicable for the situation we were in. Constant survival was not boring. Trying to live was not boring, but here I was sitting in the shade of a big oak tree trying to fight the sleep my boredom caused.

Caleb paced around in front of me, kicking up dirt and rocks. We never did find a house to spend the night in so Caleb didn't sleep for two whole days. He could never sleep in the car, moving or parked. I could see that he was tired and agitated, something was bothering him.

"Caleb?" I called and he looked at me.

"What?" He asked aggressively.

"Come on man, what are you thinking about? Kacey?" I asked wiggling my eyebrows. He had confided in me that he had developed a bit of a crush on Kacey and that's why he snapped at me in the house when Kacey pulled out the guitar. He knows how I hate them. My sister played one, she was crazy good too. It was her only passion and was the last thing she touched before she died.

"No, not Kacey," He said rubbing his sweaty forehead.

"Oh really? Then what?" I asked sitting up.

"The old guy, the one who shot himself," Caleb said and I nodded. I had nightmares about him the last two nights.

"Yeah, and?" I asked, Caleb sighed and laughed.

"Call me crazy but he said that we could take a car from the Indianapolis 500 race track! Wouldn't that just be the coolest frickin' thing?" He asked.

"Dude you're exhausted as hell, sleep," I replied closing my eyes and Caleb shook me.

"We're going to die!"

"What?" I asked pushing him off.

"Eventually we're going to die, maybe not here and now but we will. I just want to live a little. I don't have much life left as it is, I want to enjoy it," I said looking into my blue eyes with his brown ones intensely.

"You're right, but the 500 is hella far away! How are we going to get there? The city is probably crawling with Slows!" I said throwing a hand up. Caleb slumped his shoulders and sat down next to me.

"Shit," He muttered rubbing his eyes. "I mean they're just Slows right? Nothing we can't handle!"

"But what if there's 50 of them? Or even 100? We haven't dealt with more than 6 at a time and even that was a handful," I replied running a hand through my wavy hair. It was becoming too long for comfort, it hung right in my eyes and the sides were just starting to grow over my ears in an itchy way. I pushed it back, the grease holding it in place.

"Damn why are you always so practical?" Caleb said with a laugh, I thought for a moment before I spoke.

"Let's do it," I said.

"What?" He asked, taken aback.

"Let's go steal a car, if we find too many Slows along the way we'll just turn around," I sighed standing up, I shook out my sore legs and grabbed my AK-47. I checked to see if my knife was still strapped to my side, it was.

"You're serious?" Caleb asked standing up. Despite my height I still had to look up at him.

"Yeah," I said checking the ammo of my gun and clicking a bullet into place. Caleb slapped my shoulder happily and smiled.

"Ok, we need to find where it is first," He said swinging his own gun over his body.

"I'm sure there's a map or two around one of these houses," I suggested and Caleb laughed and went to his backpack.