Chapter 8: a bridge too short.

"Ha ha ha, ha ha ah ha ha ha," the valley girl laugh came from Heather. At this point I knew that my girlfriend was getting irritated. She had a low tolerance for Bull crap, my patients was much greater, but Heather's amusement was starting to get on even my nerves now.

"When can we stop for a bathroom break, we've been driving for hours now." my brother asked.

"Damnit! I thought I told you to go before we left!" I spoke with a hint of frustration.

"I did, but now I have to go again." he was pleading now, so I knew it was serious.

"Heather, get the other car on the radio, and tell them we are taking a gas stop at the next exit." I spoke a little calmer now, We hadn't seen a car for miles, in motion, or otherwise. I knew that we were far enough out of the city to stop a gas station just off the highway.

We had several hours more of sun light, even it we didn't get any gas, maybe we could find food. as I took the exit, the station looked deserted, maybe even normal...at least free of any "Walkers", the offical name the group wanted to

call them. better than the Z word.

Before we stopped, I gave everyone a job to do, Rick would man the pumps to get the cars to a full tank, The fat one, who I learned was Jeff, was to get the food (go figure), Heather was to help jeff, I was to look for weapons, parts and supplies, and my brother and girlfriend were to find water, phones, news, and batteries and nonvitals like entertainment, and beauty products.

The Gas Station was called the Fill and Star. If I really cared enough I would have made some joke about how gay it sounded, but at this point I didn't. Hell I'm sure no one would have laughed at this point anyway. Maybe Heather. The Fat guy, Rick and that James guy wouldn't. My brother, like the others, has almost totally lost his nerve, he is slow moving, barely speaking as loud as he was before this mess hit. My girlfriend seemed like she was holding up, surprisingly well. In fact, she seemed to take it the best out of all of us. That is what worried me most. she was too calm. No signs of her cracking under all this pressure. No lucidity of thought. She scared me more than loopy Heather, at least I knew that I couldn't trust her.

The gas station was nice and quiet. It looked like any typical gas station, full of cheap beer that is over priced, cigerettes, extremely sugary drinks and salty snacks. everything looked untouched. I looked over the the cashier counter, while everyone was busy looting the joint. hoping to see what I wanted. Oh SHIT!

Under the counter I found what was a bloody mark spelling out: TRAP.

I was calm, I slowly looked out the windows, trying to look for movement, my eyes were not wrong. ten guys moving maybe 12, all converging with machine guns.

BACK TOO THE CARS NOW!!! I rallied the group to hull it back fast, the men moving in were about 300 feet away and about to open fire.

My brother was in the car first, followed by my girlfriend, and heather, I motioned to the others to go. I had already pulled out by the time it happened.

Rick was too sloppy, he got gas on himself. the gas got all over the car. when the gunner hit they lit the station up. The force the sound and the heat burned into our minds the last screams of Rick, Jeff, and James.

I drove and I drove fast. Who ever set up that station as a trap most likely had reached the military base, and had access to cars as well.

We were not followed, but I had a bad feeling. I didn't want to stop. I didn't want to die. I wanted to live. I wanted my group to live. Even though I hated those guys back there, I felt for the police officers. they were just like me, just trying not to die.

My thoughts shifted from the fallen officers to their muderers.I was trying to analyze them, the enemy that claimed lives of the living as though they were nothing.

I kept driving toward the military base, I knew that people that attacked us got their weapons from there, but from what I could tell they were not prepared to take on more than one car at a time. They must have been desprate to do something so careless as to shoot at a gas station.

This meant, that they had some trouble, but it was not food, because the place was full of it. No it was something worse, some thing dark.

We approached a bridge. As I sped on by, I looked over the water. It was dark. The bridge was too short to make out what was in the water, but I knew what it was already. I was just lying to my self.