I wondered for a moment whether my mom was even alive. I doubted that the Z virus had reached all the way to the tiny town of Constance, but how did I know? How did I know that Awakened hadn’t escaped from the larger cities into the flatlands of the Midwest? Everything was so uncertain. The phones didn’t work, and we had already tried the radio. Either we were too far from a signal, or they just didn’t work at all. I didn’t want to think about the fact that there was probably no one there to broadcast.
I looked back again and smiled slightly at Ash. His mouth was still hanging open, and drool was pooling down the side of his mouth and onto the thick, black upholstery. He looked so different in sleep, softer and more vulnerable.
I wasn’t happy that he was along for the ride, that was my dad was now responsible for his safety too, not with the way he had treated me my entire life. But I was also happy that he was alive. He had been spared over millions of people in the city. He had no one left; his parents had been in the city when it had been bombed and torn to pieces. He hadn’t even had time to accept it before being thrown in the back of an SUV and taken away from the life he had always known.
His eyelids fluttered a little and then flew open. He smiled when he saw me looking. I felt a small smile creep across my own face.
“Hey,” he said softly. “What’s going on? Why are you staring at me?”
“I wasn’t staring at you,” I whispered back. “I’m on watch. I was looking around.”
His smile grew a little wider. “Okay, Z.” He shifted upward, wincing a little. “Not the most comfortable bed. Is your dad asleep?”
I nodded. “Yeah, he drove for a while. He needs to sleep.”
Ash looked around, his eyes scanning our surroundings. The darkness was beginning to fade and there was a distinct pale shade to the sky as the sun began to rise. “Where are we?”
“I think Ohio,” I said softly. “But I’m not sure. We’re far from New York.”
He nodded, looking around some more. “You can go to sleep, if you’re tired. I’ll keep watch now.” He pulled his gun out from underneath his seat and put it in his lap.
“I don’t know if I can sleep,” I admitted. I felt more exposed with the rising sun, light pouring into the car. I was afraid. I was afraid that every moment that I was asleep, I would be vulnerable.
“You don’t have to sleep,” Ash said, stretching out his legs across the seats. He was too tall to completely stretch out, so there was a slight bend to his knees. “We could talk.”
“About what?” I scoffed. “You and I have nothing in common.”
He looked nervous for a second, his knees bouncing again. I was starting to notice little tics about him. “We might have something in common. That we could maybe talk about.”
“I don’t really feel like talking, Ash,” I said, quickly, turning back in the seat to face forward.
“Okay,” he said, softly, his voice drifting up to me. “We can stay quiet.”
“Okay,” I said, closing my eyes and falling into silence.
“RAISE YOUR ARM, ZOEY. WE’VE been over this.”
I sighed. My arms were heavy, but I raised them anyway. The bottle that my dad had set on the fence was several feet away. I had shot it at least five or six times already and hadn’t come close. There were a couple bullets lodged into the wood fence. I shot again and just caught the tip, and it went toppling over.
After my dad had woken up, the sun had risen high enough that he could no longer ignore it. I had thought he would start the car up again and head out. After about twenty minutes of driving, however, he pulled into a field and had started impromptu gun lessons.
“Great. Good job, champ. We still gotta work on that aim, but it’s getting better,” my dad said, his hands on his lips, gun holstered around his waist and to his ankle. He looked just like a cop, even without the blue uniform. “Come on, Ash.”
Ash stepped forward, looking nervous. He raised his arms, his eyes intent on the bottle, yards away. He shot and hit the fence underneath the bottle, wood splintering onto the ground. He shook his head, slightly.
“You’re fine. Try it again.”
Ash’s eyes met mine, and I nodded quickly in reassurance. He took his stance again, breathed in and out and then fired another shot. This time he hit the bottle squarely, and it went flying.
“Fantastic,” my dad said, a smile lighting up his face. He came over to stand next to Ash, clapping him on the shoulder. Ash allowed a small triumphant smile on his face as he looked up at him. They looked so much like father and son for a moment, their dark hair so similar, that I wanted to throw my gun at them.
I turned back to the fence, where one last bottle was standing. I aimed at it and raised my arm, just like I had been told a million times. A moment later, a tiny crack told me the bullet had made contact and the bottle landed a few feet away.
Dad and Ash looked up in surprise, from the fence to me. I walked past them, heading back to the car. “Yeah, I can hit the stupid bottle too,” I muttered as I passed them.
“Oh, come on, Zoey, seriously?” Dad said, his tone full of exasperation.