Life After the Undead (Completed)

PART 8: Road Trip .5

Melissa's P.O.V.

We reached the University later that day. We parked the car in front of what used to be the Admin building, the one that used to be where the students would go for more information and to talk to the registrar. Evelyn was figuring that was where Brandon would meet us. You know, if he was smart.

We hadn't heard from him yet, he hadn't answered the radio and Evelyn was taking that as a bad sign. She told me we'd wait until morning, camp out in the car if we had to, before leaving, even if he hadn't shown up.

Brandon was resourceful, she had told me, that even if he lost the car he'd find a way to meet them. She'd give him a few extra hours and then we were leaving first thing in the morning.

Steve hadn't caught up to us either, nor had he radioed us. I asked Evelyn if she thought he wasn't coming after all but she had merely shrugged.

"He said he would," she said after I asked the millionth time. "Usually he's pretty punctual, he might just have been held up by something or got distracted. It's hard to tell."

"Well how do you tell?" I shot back and Evelyn rolled her eyes at me.

"By whether or not he shows up."

It was a pretty snarky response and after that I didn't ask about Steve.

I began plotting, trying to decide when the best time to act. I ended up sitting around with Evelyn for hours, putting off what I was supposed to do. I knew what I had to do, I knew that I was procrastinating, putting off my job because really, deep down, I didn't want to hurt Evelyn. I had fun with Evelyn, she had funny stories and while she was completely unpredictable she had gotten better at giving me a heads up when she was going to do something ballsy or just letting me in on her plans before going through with them.

I had to keep reminding myself how unreliable she was. How often she forgot about me and drove off before remembering me and coming back. She was constantly leaving my companions in the dark, literally, with a house that turned off on its own. I mean, who programs a house to do that? How does one even go about programming that in the first place?

I glanced back to Evelyn who was sitting beside me on the hood of that stupid Jurassic Jeep. She was staring up at the passing clouds. I looked around again, and another zombie shuffled by. I didn't flinch like the first few times I saw one, I knew already that they wouldn't come anywhere near the jeep. I nudged Evelyn and pointed to the zombie that had stopped a few feet away from us.

"It won't come near us," she reminded me and went back to looking at the sky.

"Yeah, but why?" I asked her again. She had given me a vague answer before and I don't know what I was expecting this time.

"Steve," she answered quickly, repeating her answer from before.

"Yes, but how did Steve get them to avoid your car?" I asked. Evelyn turned to look at me a look of confusion on her face, as if she didn't understand why I was asking this question. "I'm not dropping it, so you better start explaining."

Evelyn continued to stare at me her eyes blinking as she took in my question. After a while she put a hand into her jacket. "Fine," she told me. "You wanna see my secret?"

I nodded and was surprised when she fished out a small clear vial of what looked to be green slime in a perfume bottle. I took the vial from her and shook it back and forth watching the viscous green liquid go up and down relatively slowly.

"What the hell is this?"

Evelyn took it back from me and then took my hand. She sprayed a bit of the liquid on my sleeve, I felt the dampness seep through and it made me shiver. She let my arm go and said: "When it dries, sniff it. Just... don't inhale too deeply."