The large truck was riding on the highway road with the others inside. It was easier for them to travel along the roads than they thought. Some believed that the streets would be blocked and filled with stagnant cars trying to enter the city.
However, that wasn't the case at all. The vehicles were far and few between. Some had crashed, pulled over, or driven into the ditches and side rail, but there wasn't significant traffic, at least not yet. Perhaps it was because they weren't in the city.
"You're going to the city?" Buke asked. "Zain said that most likely they have the most Zombies there." When speaking, it was in a disheartened voice, as if he had no energy to say those words.
"I mean, at the same time, that's where most people will be right. Maybe all of the military force is concentrated there. We should be able to find someone, and where else can we go?" Kelly replied. "What's surprised me is how clear the roads are...for something like this to happen, it's almost as if the whole event happened at once. When those meteor strikes hit the planet."
Buke would have guessed the same thing, and many would have come to the same conclusion, but there was one problem with that. Buke knew because of Skittle that there had been reports of Zombie attacks already on the dark web.
He had refused to listen to Skittle at the time, even though he was right like always; he was right about most things.
"Stop!" Buke suddenly said.
"Huh, what do you mean stop?" Kelly asked.
"I said stop, stop the car!" Buke repeated.
Seeing the look in the student's eyes, Kelly thought that she was going to get hit if she didn't listen to the order. Cody felt this as well, but there wasn't a lot of space for him to manoeuvre or use his agility to his advantage. He had seen how strong Buke was.
In the end, the truck had come to a halt on the highway, and Buke had jumped down, walking away.
"Wait, what are you planning on doing?" Kelly asked.
"I'm going back for the other two. I can't just leave them like that. I'm not asking you guys to come with me, you're just strangers, but it's different for me." Buke said. "Don't worry, I'll make my own way there."
Cody and Kelly looked at each other and started to remember the scene that they had seen before leaving. They had narrowly escaped death, and to head back into the same place, their bodies just wouldn't let them do it. They were already shaking, thinking about the thought. All they could do in their heads was wish him good luck.
It was because of them after all, that they had managed to survive.
'Maybe we will end up running into each other in the future.' Kelly thought.
———
Finding an abandoned car that worked, driving all the way back, and avoiding as many zombies as he could while he parked away from the Supermarket, Buke had done all of that to come back to the two of them, and he finally had done.
When he arrived though, seeing Skittle, his mouth open and dribbling, his incredibly pale skin, it was clear he was too late. He had already been turned.
'If only I had come sooner. If only I hadn't left, maybe Skittle would have been okay?' Buke thought.
That was when something wasn't processing in his head, though, why was Zain, who looked to be fine, standing right next to him, and how did Zain manage to get out of the whole mess rather than Skittle?
"Buke listen, I can explain!" Zain said as he moved closer, slowly, and Skittle followed behind him. "Me and Skittle were not like the other Zombies."
Zain pulled down his scarf and showed the bite mark on his neck.
"You were right, I was bit back then, but I have been fine. I'm not like the others. I can speak and think for myself…we were in trouble back there, so I thought that I could make Skittle like me. I thought if I bit him, he would turn into a type of Zombie like me." Zain was speaking with passion and pain in his voice as he released the mistake he had made at the time.
After hearing what Zain had to say, Buke's whole body was shaking.
"So you're the one that did this Zain, that you were a freaking Zombie this whole time while travelling with us!" Buke shouted back. "You said you tried saving Skittle. Look what the F*ck you did. You turned him into one of those damned monsters.
"Those damned monsters, you didn't even let him live in peace and instead turned him into this!"
"You don't understand!" Zain shouted back. "We had no choice, and maybe there is a way to bring him back. He can understand me; he isn't like the others!"
Memories of the fun times Buke and Skittle had together were flashing through his head. When he was on the brink of helplessness, wanting to leave the university and during his darkest times, how Skittle was there for him.
Skittle had practically saved Buke's life more than once, and he didn't appreciate it or ever get the chance to say thank you. The reason for that was because of the Zombies, because of the undead that were crawling through the country and turning people.
"You say you're not the same as Zain, you and Skittle, but your bite still turned Skittle into a Zombie, so answer me this…do you need to eat humans to live? I remember what the Clark guy said, about what he saw on the video.
"Do you and Skittle need to eat people to live?" Buke asked.
Zain was nervous. He didn't speak immediately because he didn't know how to answer, to answer it in a way so it didn't look bad on him.
"The fact that you didn't give me an answer, is an answer in itself," Buke said, lifting his head. "I vow that I will get rid of every freaking zombie in existence and get rid of this plague that is running the world, and I'm going to start with you two."
*****
1200 Stones for 2 chapters for the WSA 2022 please!