89.4 Zombie Radio

Roxy and I reverted back to the old wild west days. The days where the term "shotgun" was a more literal term. Every time a zombie was within 10 yards she'd take a shot at it. No use risking an incident,but I also think she got some sort of strange enjoyment out of it. Every time she hit one she'd celebrate at the top of her lungs. Usually the sentence included at least two fucks and one bitch, minimum. I just laughed. In the down time, we talked about our theories on what exactly was going. Neither one of us knew, but it was fun to speculate. We knew it was the epidemic from the news, but how we survived and what exactly the specifications were we didn't have a clue.

After that, we talked music a little bit. She knew way more bands than I did. I did my best to keep up, but it wasn't easy around someone as well versed as she was. One of the most interesting discussions I'd ever had, especially because it was frequently interrupted by random shotgun blasts. After that we sort of ran out of things to talk about, which was a frequent problem with me. There was an awkward silence between us for a few blocks and then she said it.

"You know Bob, I feel like I know you from somewhere," She said.

"Yea, I got the same feeling when I saw you before," I replied. We both threw some theories out, but nothing seemed to click. There had to be some reason we both felt that way, but neither one of us could think of it right now.

I decided after that to try and turn the radio on. Maybe there was some sort of emergency broadcast or something of that nature on that could help lead us in the right direction. I began scrolling through the stations, but all I could find was static. I was just about to give up when I heard a feint signal on 89.4. I turned it up a little bit and tried to hear what he was saying through the static.

"Is there anybody left out there?" He asked. "If so who are you? And what are you going to do? The phone lines are surprisingly still open." I had Roxy commit the number to memory, when we had a chance maybe I'd call. Whether or not we'd have a chance or not was a big question.

The DJ was obviously a bit shaken. He started talking about zombies outside his door.I didn't know if he was serious or just using that broad generalization that radio DJs tend to use. Either way, it was good to hear somebody other than us was alive. Gave me that little bit of hope that perhaps there was a way to get through this, and that we weren't alone. Not that I'd exactly mind being the last man on earth with Roxy, as terrible as that makes me sound. So far nobody had called into the radio station. The DJ clearly got bored and started to play some music. At that point I decided it'd be just as good to play some of my own instead. I'd check back on the radio station later when I had the chance.

We were almost out of the city when the fuel light finally came on. All those detours had taken a toll on my gas tank. Luckily there was a gas station I knew right up ahead, we'd just stop and refuel. Maybe even pick up a few supplies while we there. I was also starving at this point, and I couldn't confirm it but I'm pretty sure Roxy was too. We pulled in the gas station. It looked like it had been busy when all hell broke loose. When all hell broke loose exactly was still a complete mystery to us both. Apparently we were both being shut-ins at the time. All the pumps were full, so I had to get out and move one myself. Luckily the keys were still in the car. It was starting to worry me that there weren't any zombies around. I started playing scenarios in my head of going in the store and having eight of them pop out of the freezer. I hated when shit popped out at me, its why I never liked horror movies.

The gas pump wouldn't work. The gas station must have had one of those prepaid locks on it or something. Now I'd have to learn how to use a cash register for once, something I'd always tried to avoid. Roxy and I got ready to do battle as we walked into the attached convenient store.

"Let's go in back to back." I said, just trying to devise some kind of strategy.

"Where the fuck did you get that idea?" She asked laughing at me.

"Action movies." I said as I returned the laugh. "But seriously, then nothing can get behind us."

She agreed with that philosophy, and we stormed into the store like two trained army rangers, kicking in bathroom stall doors and searching coolers and break rooms alike. Surprisingly there was nothing left though. There was clearly a struggle however, you could tell by the giant blood smears on the windows and the random organs found behind the counter. Roxy started working on the register, to try and get the gas to start pumping. I wasn't sure if she would be able to, but she got it working in no time.

"I worked at a gas station for three years, they're all basically the same," She said.

Glad I had her with me, or I would have been hiking it out of the city. Knowing myself all too well, I would have gotten frustrated and just shot the damn thing. Roxy loaded our pump up with a thousand dollars worth of gas. We wouldn't need that much obviously, but we wanted to be generous in case some other survivors came along in need of a refueling. Ones who were like me and didn't have a fucking clue how to operate new fangled cash register technology.

Roxy and I raided the coolers, taking as many drinks as we could carry. We made a few trips back and forth to the car. Taking enough junk food to give a small elementary school a sugar buzz for a week straight. Maybe we should have been more considerate to those other survivors, but I believe everything in this scenario was on a first come, first serve basis. Roxy had the idea to fill a few gas cans the store had up, just in case we were on some random road with no gas station in sight. Damn I love this girl, I would have never thought of that. I told her I loved her and she told me to shut the fuck up. We both laughed, it was great to maintain a sense of humor during this whole thing. Especially since I didn't seem to have much of one before this whole mess.

We got back in the car and started to organize our loot. We started claiming certain snacks as ours and separated them accordingly. It was fun, like coming home from trick or treating, getting the snicker's for yourself, and then giving those nasty peanut butter candies to your mom. Who the hell liked those things anyway? For a moment we had reverted back to a simpler time. That's when we heard the scream. It wasn't a zombie scream, this was clearly human. Not even a full day in the apocalypse and I could already tell the difference. We looked up and saw a girl running in our direction. She was chased by about five to eight zombies, I couldn't tell their numbers from the distance she was at. Roxy and I both knew that morally we couldn't just stand by and do nothing. The girl kept running. The screams stayed constant, and they kept getting louder. What were we gonna do when they got here? That was the question.

I noticed the girl had a little distance on them. She looked like she was running an olympic hundred meter sprint. Being chased by things that want to eat you tends to have that effect though. I remembered the gas cans we filled up. In video games and action movies they always used the throw the gas can at the bad guys and shoot it trick. Time to see how well that trick worked. I grabbed the gas can next to me. Roxy looked at me and saw it, she immediately knew what I was gonna try. She nodded in approval, and we both knew it was the best chance we had.

When the girl got close enough to hear me I yelled, "Run past us, and don't stop, we'll cut em off." She just kept screaming, I could only hope she heard me and understood what I was gonna try and do. I threw the gas can in front of her as she ran past. She hurdled over it like a five star athlete, again running for your life can make you Jesse Owens quicker than you'd imagine. The zombies were almost right on top of it. I told Roxy to shoot too, one of us was bound to hit it, at least that's what I was praying for.

I yelled "Fire!" louder than a pissed off drill sergeant. We both shot, God only knows who hit it, but it went up like a bonfire at Woodstock. You could feel the impact of it from where we were, it almost knocked us both down, but we were both doing our best Slyvester Stallone impression right now, and wouldn't drop for anything. The zombies that were still standing looked like indians doing a rain dance on fire. I thought it was beautiful myself. I edged closer and decided to douse the flames with more bullets. I wasn't taking any chances at that point. I knew we didn't have much time, that blast was loud and we were gonna have to get the hell out of there if my noise theory was correct. I turned around and was greeted by two arms nearly squeezing the life out of me.

"Thank you!" She said crying her eyes out. "Thank you so much! You saved my life!"

I looked over at Roxy who looked back at me. She rolled her eyes, and I tried hard not to laugh. I looked down and saw the girl didn't have much more than a bra on. I guess I didn't notice in the middle of the chaos. I tried to act reluctant in returning the hug and saying "You're welcome." This girl was drop dead gorgeous too, dark hair, dark eyes and a body like a Maxim model. Somebody upstairs was smiling on me today. I definitely wasn't complaining. I hated to rush the introductions, luckily I didn't have to, Roxy was already on top of it.

"We need to get the fuck out of here," She said. "They'll be on their way to this spot after that fuckin' blast." She was right and we all knew it. We hopped into the Lincoln and high tailed it out of there.

"My name's Layla," she said.

What's with these girl's names and their being from song titles? Now I was going to have Eric Clapton in my head. Roxy and I both introduced ourselves. Layla thanked us again for helping her out. I wanted to ask why she didn't have a shirt on, again Roxy beat me to it. She told us the story of how she was caught off guard and one got her by the shirt. That zombie was officially my favorite. I hoped he wasn't one of the ones we blew up back there. I almost made the comment, but I decided not to. No sense getting two women mad at me over something stupid. I didn't know much about women, but I knew not to piss them off. It took us about ten minutes and we were outside of the city. Hopefully soon we could find a decent place to rest for the night, the sun was going down, and fighting things you can't see is probably not well advised. Roxy offered Layla a Slim Jim.

"No thanks, I'm a vegetarian." she replied. I guess I had been for a month too. I silently noted this to myself and kept driving, Roxy riding shotgun. I could read her thoughts, "When was this bitch gonna put a shirt on?" It was written all over her face. I laughed in my head, this was gonna be interesting.