Survival

Part 16: Jeordie

Pancake was surprisingly good company.

You know, for a zombie dog.

As long as I fed her a good amount of dead stuff - and, let me tell you, there was more than enough of that - she was pretty much tame towards me, her full stomach making it physically impossible for her to want to eat me. Sure, she still growled a lot, but I could walk her around off the ute using the steel rod to distance her from me, and she would pretty much forget I was there. I could even pat her; but I wore gloves incase her blood infected me.

She gave me something else to think about, I guess.

It had been almost a week. I was running out of food and water, and the fuel in the truck had been slowly dwindling. I was on a quarter of a tank. Which presented me with my next issue. How would I get petrol? I could always change cars, swap with something more efficient, but what about Pancake? I wasn't willing to just leave her.

I pulled over at the next service station, a Shell on the side of the highway. There were cars banked up around the entrance, all empty. I carefully got out of the ute. This didn't look so good. I took Pancake's pole and urged her off the truck bed. I had found that she was a deterrent to other Changed; much like Michonne's two buddies in The Walking Dead. Pancake pulled me towards the station, sniffing around and sneezing blood on the concrete. She descended like a vulture on a half eaten cat. I let her finish it off through the muzzle while I looked around. There were shapes moving inside the station. I pulled Pancake along; she attempted to eat me before trotting ahead, tail swishing. I stood at the doors of the station. They were the ones that opened automatically. Of course, they weren't working, and stayed stubbornly shut in front of me. Half a dozen or so Changed were walking around inside.

I needed to get in; but if I smashed the doors, I would attract any and all the Changed in the area. I walked around the back. There was a metre box on the wall. I hooked Pancake's chain onto a pole and tested how high the box was. I jumped and grabbed the top. My arms screamed in protest, but in the end I hauled myself up onto the top of the box.

My muscles were still exhausted from fighting the Changed in the attic and I found myself shaking. Once I regained composure I stood. From there I jumped again, hands
finding purchase on the roof of the station. With a grunt of effort and a lot of swearing, I was finally on the roof. It took me too long to catch my breath. I cursed the Changed that had caused me to be so weak.

There was a skylight in the middle of the flat concrete roof. I walked to it and kneeled next to the glass. From there I could see that many of the shelves in the station were still full of food. A jackpot. I reminded myself that these were still early days; food would be harder to find in a matter of weeks.

As I watched, a person ran through the embankment of cars to the station, a short boy with a backwards cap and pants that looked like they needed a good belt around them. He was wearing headphones around his neck, Beats by Dre, and had some shitty pop blaring from them. I stood and walked to the edge of the roof, about to call out and offer help. He banged on the doors before stepping back and pelting a rock at them. The glass smashed loudly. I winced. Idiot. The boy then ran inside and began shooting the Changed. I watched through the skylight.

Thankfully, we were on a highway, so there were no huge amounts of Changed about to spring. As it was, I saw a steady stream of the things coming down the road curiously. I counted about twenty two.

The boy inside was still shooting. I debated whether to go and help him; but he was such an idiot that he would probably get me killed too. The hipster boy fought valiantly, almost defeating the Changed inside before the group made it to the station.  God, he was a bad shot. I took my bow out and shot a few before they reached him. He was an idiot, but I didn't particularly want to watch him die.

Below me, Pancake growled at the commotion. I slipped off the roof and took her chain and pole and walked her around to the front of the service station, carefully stepping over the glass that was the remainder of the doors. The boy was nearly overrun. I stabbed and hacked at the Changed near me. Pancake gnawed at a few legs. Curiously enough, Changed didn't try and eat each other, but Pancake loved eating the things. At least, the ones that used to be human. I took out six Changed, but there were too many.

The hipster died screaming.

Feeling curiously devoid of emotion, I finished the rest of the Changed, leaving Pancake to clean up the corpses.

The station was very well stocked. It took me six loads to take all the non-perishables to the ute, and another two to take around a week's worth of fresh produce. There were empty petrol cans under the counter. I took ten of them and a hollow tube. Outside, I siphoned as much as I could from the cars into the cans and put them in the ute bed.

Childishly, I also grabbed a can of green spray paint from the servo. I tagged 'Toot Toot Meshuggah Meshuggah' on the outside brick wall, feeling a surge of satisfaction. 'Toot toot Meshuggah Meshuggah' had been a parody of 'Toot toot chugga chugga big red car' (by The Wiggles), one of the inside jokes of Valerie and I's group; we were big Meshuggah fans. Honestly I didn't know why I did it, but I had always loved spray paint.

Anyway, who was there to care now?

--

Once everything was crammed into the passenger seat and the ute was full of fuel I donned my (stolen) leather gloves on and piled the truck bed with whatever carcasses would fit (around ten). Pancake leaped up to them and happily lay on the bodies, blood trickling from her eyes and nose as usual.

The old ute's engine grumbled to a start and we left the service station behind.