You're Hoping For A Taste

“Do you think it's empty?”

“I don't know. I can't see anyone, but it's too dark in there to tell.”

Kellin and Jesse are on the roof of the car. They shield their eyes from the afternoon sun as they survey the petrol station just down the road. From here, it looks pretty much intact, but there's a side of the building we can't see.

I lean against the boot, stood in the car's shadow. Today is unnaturally hot. I would kill for an air-conditioned building right now, or even a hand-held fan. We finally left the forest behind a day ago, and it seems we left the cooler weather with it.

The only food we've had has been the chocolate I'd stashed in a rip in the leather of one of the back seats. It seems the commune never got to search our vehicle that thoroughly, and that's saved us a whole lot of hunger. But even now, standing here, my legs feel weak. I can feel irritability coming on, rearing its head like a wave. I need something to eat, and soon.

As if to prove my point, Justin's stomach growls long and loud. He grimaces, and I throw him a sympathetic smile. “Jesus, I just need some food,” he says, lazily kicking a stone across the road.

Jesse clambers down onto the car bonnet and off the car. “Well,” he says, “that gas station is probably our best shot at finding food. It doesn't look like too much of a death trap, so I say we check it out.”

Jack cocks his rifle dramatically, earning him eye rolls and laughs from everyone. ”Are we going or what?” he says.

“When you pass me my gun we can,” I tell him, and obediently he grabs my handgun from the backseat where he sits. “Thank you, eager beaver.”

He glares at me like a child, and even though Jack's stares are always a joke, they're still pretty intimidating in their own right. Too bad Walkers don't feel the same as me.

There's not enough foliage out here to hide the car behind, and so we leave it on the edge of the road, the sun slicing its light off the windscreen. We walk in a loose line, approaching the petrol station slowly. My heart is beginning to race, picking up speed. No matter how many times I scout places for food, for weapons, for shelter, I will never get used to it.

“So who wants to check for a back door?” Justin asks. We stay silent, but Justin knows the looks he's getting can only mean one thing. He sighs. “I guess I am then.”

“I'll come with you, man,” Jack says, and the two of them start veering off towards the back of the building.

Kellin, Jesse and I enter the shadow of the awning. The temperature seems to plunge suddenly, and the hairs on my arms slowly stand to attention. There's a smattering of rust on the petrol pumps. We have containers of fuel in the car boot, kindly put there by our lovely friends from the commune, but none of us know how long that's going to last us.

I open my mouth to voice my thoughts when there's a sudden bang. I jump, and the three of us freeze.

“Gunshot?” I ask.

Kellin shakes his head. “Don't think so. Do you think they found the door?”

Jesse shrugs. “Maybe. It might have rusted shut a bit. They might have had to force it open. Let's keep going.”

We edge towards the entrance of the building. Peering through the windows, the inside is dark, but we can't see much further than a metre or so thanks to the glare of the sun. It makes me twitchy. Our murky reflections in the glass try and trick me into thinking there's something on the other side. And maybe there is. But there's only one way to find out.

Kellin looks to Jesse. “Break the glass, or...?”

Jesse shrugs, and he's just drawing back the butt of his gun when I hold up a hand. “Hang on a second.”

I step past the two of them and, with a simple push of my hand, open one of the doors. It swings inwards with a creak, and I take a step back, gun raised. The silence ticks by. Nothing moves. I lower my gun and look back at the two boys, throwing them a smug smile. “It's a good thing one of us has their wits about them.”

Jesse rolls his eyes and strides past me, ruffling my hair as he goes. “Okay, don't rub it in.”

Kellin pulls a face at me, and I pull one back before he ushers me into the building. The air inside is stuffy, and with Kellin stood right behind me, his chest pressed to my shoulder, it feels even warmer.

The place is relatively intact. There are a few boxes and packages scattered about the floor, and the smell of spoiled milk is ripe, but that's about it. No death and decay, no bodies as far as I can see.

Jesse ventures down the nearest aisle, his gun ready and raised. Kellin and I remain at the front of the little shop, listening. There's a scuffling noise coming from the back of the room, but it's muffled. And that's when I see it: a door.

“Hear that?” I ask Kellin.

I glance up at him to see his brow furrowed in concentration. “Yeah,” he says.

“Justin and Jack?”

He shrugs, wraps an arm across my collar bone and gives me a gentle squeeze. “Only one way to find out.”

He moves past me, making a bee-line to the back of the shop.

“This place is a gold mine,” Jesse calls from the next aisle over. “I'm taking all the cereal.”

“Get Cap'n Crunch,” Kellin calls back.

Kellin slows as he nears the door, raising his gun. He glances at me. In the dim light, there's a sheen of sweat on his upper lip. “Jack? Justin?” he calls out to the door.

Seconds later, there comes back an extremely muffled, “Yeah?”

Lowering his gun, Kellin reaches for the door handle, but when he tries to open the door it jams. He frowns, tries again, but something on the other side is blocking it, only allowing it to open a sliver. “Hey, what's blocking the door?” he calls to the others.

“Boxes,” Jack calls back, his voice still muffled.

Kellin's frown deepens. “Are you eating?”

Silence. “No...”

“Bullshit,” Kellin says, laughing now. “Let us in.”

I step closer to the door. “I swear to God, if there is even the slightest chance that there is boxes of good chocolate back there and you're eating it, I will harm you.”

“What do you mean by 'good chocolate'?” Justin asks.

“Anything that's not American.”

“Hey, that is extremely offensive,” Jack says. “Racist, even.”

“It's not racist,” I tell him, “it's the truth. Hershey's has the after-taste of vomit.”

Jack laughs, the sound of it echoing in the storeroom. “That, and 'there are dead people outside', might just be the weirdest things I've ever heard.”

Kellin looks at me, his lips stretching into a smile. He nods at the door, and whispers, “On three?”

I feel a smile of my own grow, and I nod.

“One... two... three!”

We slam our shoulders into the door, and whatever's behind gets crushed, allowing enough room for us to stumble inside.

And to see Justin and Jack stuffing their faces with food.

They freeze like kids caught doing something they shouldn't. But then Jack raises a bottle of beer with a cheer, and Justin does the same.

Three minutes later Jesse has found us sat on upturned boxes, beers in hand and food in our laps. When he has a box of his own, we all raise our bottles and drink to Gabe. The alcohol goes down like pleasant fire.

Together the five of us sit in the storeroom and talk like the world outside doesn't matter, like it doesn't exist. If we ignore the way our limbs ache, the way our hair is limp with dirt, the way that anything and everything is stuck beneath our fingernails, then it all seems okay. And I think that, if I was going to be stuck in this twisted world with anyone, I'd want to be stuck with these guys. I don't know what I would have down without them. I would have wandered this foreign country until I got tired, tired of running scared. I don't know how it would all have ended for me. Now I have that little spark of hope, that glow burning pale but steady.

Then my smile falters almost imperceptibly, my bottle halfway to my lips. I lower it slowly, all my attention focussed on one sense. No one notices except Kellin. He frowns from his box beside me, and as he leans a little closer he asks, his voice low, “What is it? Alexa?”

I listen for a few seconds longer. I'm not wrong. “A car engine.”

The conversation quickly dries up. Everyone listens. And there it is, that deep rumble. It grows like the drone of a wasp or mosquito coming closer. Then it stops. The engine goes cold.

“Was that outside the gas station?” Jack asks.

“Sounded like it,” Jesse says. The smile that had taken some coaxing out of him is gone.

The slam of a car door. Can I hear footsteps? I don't know; maybe I'm imagining them.

We sit in a silence so tense the air feels charged.

But I know I haven't imagined it when I hear that voice, dripping with arrogance. “Hello? You guys in here? I saw your car. I think we have some unfinished business, don't you?”

Jared.