You're Hoping For A Taste

We have to stop just outside town to let me regurgitate what little food I have in my stomach. The adrenaline wore off pretty quickly and the shock of the whole thing took over, my gut roiling almost instantly. I got back in the car and drove on a little way before I remembered the fuel. In frustration I slapped my hands on the dashboard. We're dead without a car. We can't walk across America. For starters, that would take ages, and in addition, we'd probably be torn to shreds within the first few miles. On foot isn't an option.

“Shout if you see a car,” I told Kellin. “We really need some fuel.”

“Okay,” he said, and the journey descended into silence again.

We've gone half an hour now with no talking. Kellin just stares out the window, his mind seemingly elsewhere, caught up in some past event. The trees and fields go by in a blur of green. I keep looking to the fuel gauge, trying to measure how quickly it's going down. With every minute I'm becoming more and more jittery, my composure slowly unravelling like a loose thread.

I point to the glove compartment and suggest, “You can put some music on if you want.”

Kellin doesn't reply. He opens the compartment, placing my CD collection on his lap. He starts sifting through them, studying each case with a furrowed brow. “Kings of Leon alright?” he clarifies, holding up their fourth album. Because of the Times is my favourite, and I wish he'd chosen that one. I've played their other four albums during these past two months, but not once have I played that one. It was a birthday present from my brother and it reminds me too much of home, but I feel like I can't deny Kellin.

“Yeah sure,” I answer. “Biffy Clyro is in there at the moment.”

Kellin swaps the CDs before putting all the others back in the glove compartment. The music starts playing and he turns it up a fraction. I get a bit twitchy about that, itching to turn it down. The noise of the car itself is enough to attract Walkers, and cars aren't exactly soundproof; loud music would definitely not go unnoticed. But then I reason it's not too loud, and I'd feel like a killjoy turning it down, so I let Kellin go back to staring out the window, nodding along to the music.

It's when the third track comes on that I finally register Kellin is singing along. Quietly, mind, but nonetheless he's singing, and I strain to hear him without actually turning to look. His voice is high and clear, unusually high for a boy, but he's good, even I can tell that.

I don't realise I'm smiling until Kellin says, “What?”

I glance at him and meet his eyes. “Hmm?”

“Why are you smiling?” His expression is unreadable. He could be angry or amused for all I know. But once again his gaze is intense. In the light of day, I can see his eyes are a brown tinged with green.

I feel blood rush to my cheeks. “You were singing,” I say. “You sounded good.”

A smile creeps onto Kellin's face, slow but genuine. “I was in a-”

The car jerks, coughing and spluttering like it's ill. And that's because it is. It rapidly decelerates, and even when I floor the accelerator it doesn't respond.

“Shit.” I stab at the accelerator, even whack the dashboard again as though that will get it running.

The car rolls to a stop in the middle of the road, the life gone from it. I sit there, staring at the wheel, hoping that it will miraculously roar back to life. This is even worse than just running out of fuel.

Kellin undoes his seatbelt and gets out the car. He opens the bonnet and disappears from view. I follow him to find steam is drifting up from the engine, white tendrils extending into the sky. Kellin stands there, not doing anything but just staring.

“What's wrong with it?” I ask. I try to keep my voice as calm as possible but it sounds a little shrill.

Kellin shrugs. “Try starting the car again.”

I do as he says. Nothing except for a horrible grinding and gurgling sound. I wrack my brains for something, anything, but I'm no mechanic, and it's not like we can call the AA.

I may as well have not bothered to try and survive for this long.

“Maybe I put the wrong kind of fuel in it,” I say, my words muffled as I chew on the side of my thumb.

“Maybe that's it,” Kellin echoes. He sighs, starts aimlessly scuffing a stone on the road with his shoe. And then he's picking it up and angrily launching it as far as he can. He watches it land soundlessly in the field by the road.

“We can find another car,” I say. I realise I'm going to have to be the optimistic one here as Kellin clearly isn't up to it.

He runs a hand across his face. “We can get walking tomorrow,” he says. “It's getting dark, we should probably find a place to rest.”

“I have a tent. We could camp in the woods, it's more concealed.” Both of us sound half-hearted, resigned to our fate. If we don't stumble across a working car in at least adequate condition tomorrow then we're screwed. I would just lie on the road right now and wait for a Walker to find me, but however hopeless I feel there's still that little spark, that human part of me that wants to live no matter what. So live is what I'll do.

We retrieve our belongings from the car and drag them a little way into the woods. As soon as we step beneath the trees the light dims a bit, the branches overhead partially blocking the light from the setting sun. I feel goosebumps rise on my arms and despite myself my heart starts to beat faster. If I don't find a building to spend the night in I usually sleep in the car, the doors securely locked. But then I always drive the car off the road, conceal it between trees, bushes. The road is too exposed, and if we're caught in the car we can't drive off, we'd be trapped there, just waiting for the windows to shatter. Yet even then I don't like the thought of sleeping in the tent, no cover except for waterproof fabric.

We manage to get the tent up just before the sun slips beneath the horizon. We don't risk a fire, so instead we sit inside the tent, wrapped in all our clothes and eating tinned food.

“You know when we were talking earlier,” I begin, unable to stand the silence any more, “you were gonna say something before the car gave up.”

He stares into his tin, his shaggy, dark hair concealing his face. “I was gonna say that I was in a band, before all this.”

“What were you called?”

He looks up at me and smiles. “Sleeping With Sirens.”

I smile back. “Is that who you're trying to find? Your band-mates, I mean.”

His smile fades. “Yeah. I'm meant to be meeting them.”

“Where?”

“A friend's house.”

He doesn't elaborate, and that's the end of that. I want to kick myself. I asked the wrong question and he's clammed up all over again. If we're going to stay together he has to start to trust me sometime.

When we've finished eating we lie with our backs touching in the close, cramped tent. Exhaustion overcomes me quickly. I awake sometime in the night, shivering. I know Kellin's gone before I even sit up and look. All his belongings are still here, so he hasn't left for good. I presume he's just gone to relieve himself or something, but either way I stay awake for a while, waiting. He doesn't come back and I start to worry.

I sit up again and listen. No sound. My heart starts hammering away as I think of all the things that could have happened to him, and another part of me starts to wonder why I care; I barely know him. But then I guess he's the first real human contact I've had in a few weeks.

I unzip the tent door and climb outside into the cold night air. A breeze is threading through the trees, biting at any exposed skin it can find. I stand there in our little clearing, scanning the undergrowth, my arms hugging my body in an attempt to keep warm.

“Kellin?” I half whisper, half shout.

Nothing.

“Kellin?” I repeat, and as I get a bit more desperate my voice becomes louder.

I cry out when a hand clamps over my mouth and an arm wraps itself round my waist. I start to struggle, my mind conjuring up images of that Walker. Any second now I will feel teeth sink into my flesh, warm blood gushing.

“Ssh! It's me,” Kellin hisses into my ear. “Keep quiet, we're not alone.”

He leads me to a nearby patch of undergrowth and we duck behind it. Between the foliage I can just make out our tent.

“What's going on?” I whisper, but Kellin holds a finger to his lips.

The crunching of twigs and leaves underfoot. I know almost immediately that whoever is out there is alive; their footsteps aren't clumsy and shuffling but precise and careful. They're trying to keep quiet.

I can just make out a figure approaching our tent, then another one, then another. A voice says, “Find them.”