Victoria's Journal

May 19th 2020

It was hard to sleep past sun rise, as the sun rose right into my face. It was nice to know that the day had come. Even better to look around the truck, I was glad that I had stopped where I did. That would have been a nightmare to go into the pit that sat near the front of the truck, but it had a view. The city was smoking in places, there seemed to be a good amount of fire tearing thru this next city, that made me not want to go down into it. Which meant that soon we would be walking. We needed fuel for the truck, seeing as we had the supplies for the time being. Starting the truck I backed it up, and started looking for a road that we could actually use to make it down to the city below.

With everything that had happened over the past few days I knew that I had to keep my wits about me. I had to be there for the kid in the passenger's seat, Robin. She was sound asleep next to me, I could see that it wasn’t a nightmare she was having as she was smiling. Even with everything that was going on she seemed to wear a smile. It was uplifting, and gave me hope. With hope you are able to fight more, you are able to rule what happens more so than without it. Watching Robin sleep a few moments before I actually started the long drive to the city. I figured that it would be an easy day.

It was only a twenty minute drive down to the nearest gas station, which was clear on the outside. Which made me thrilled, it kept my hopes up. Starting to fill the gas tank of the truck, it was easy to trick the gas pump. So I thought, this is something that I have to go inside and look behind the counter. So I locked up the truck leaving little Robin in the front seat asleep, “Shush, Vicky...Remember that you have to keep quiet.” I knew that I was talking to myself. That no one around me would hear it, but still I felt I had to hear the words. Hearing them made it feel more real. Made this whole thing feel more real, everything was starting to slip into a dream like haze. Pushing the door open, the door binged, “Oh s**t…” It was enough to make me jump two feet in the air with fright.

The fright kept with me as I crept into the store, my eyes looking this way to that way. My breathing was nearly not even there, I was trying to listen. I knew that the noise would draw out the biter freaks. When nothing came I sighed, “Good.” My voice was softer as I walked around to the counter. I was so glad that I had worked at the gas station, I knew how the pumps worked. Hitting the buttons needed I heard the trigger for the gas pumps. This sound gave me hope, this sound was grand. Walking back to the door I wore a softer smile.

There was a good amount of hope in my heart at this point, reaching the truck I looked in at Robin still sleeping, still resting on the passenger's seat of the truck. This gave me more hope, gave me more reason to keep fighting. Walking around to the pump, I started to fill the tank. It was simple, a bit too simple. This didn’t cause me to question it, instead it made me sigh. This was too much, everything was too much. Emotions were starting to flood up, when the gas pump clicked I jumped again. It was another sound that was a relief to hear. Pulling the pump away I climbed back into the truck, “Robin?” My voice was sweet still looking at the child.

Robin looked up at me with a smile, “Vicky?!?”

“Yes, How are you feeling today little brat?” Robin smiled then leaned over hugging me. Then she reached into the floorboards to grab a chewy granola bar.

“I’m good, Vicky, I liked the sleepy times,” there was a smile on her face as she opened the bar and took a bite. For a six year old child she was good, good about everything that she did. I was happy to have found her, to have gotten her out of there when I did. Who knows when those biters would have made it into that room with her. I knew that my heart was clear, she wasn’t with that family of biters anymore. Instead she was here in the truck with me, living the way she was meant to live, well what you could do to live nowadays.

I knew that I wouldn’t be able to take her out to a skating rink, that she wouldn’t ever have a first date, that she would grow up in this world. Having to fight for everything, having to survive with the times of the old and new both gone. Now it was this time, the time of the dead. It worried me most that she would lose me one day, that one day I would fall in a fight for her. Then she would die, and it would be worth nothing. Everything would have been for nothing, she was my lasting hope. The candle that burned in the front window in the olden days. The lighthouse in the night that shone its light to guide the ships past the rocks. That is what Robin was for me, a reason to be safe. With a heavier sigh I reached over and grabbed my own chewy bar. We would need to find more than just chewy bars, I was even thinking about setting traps and hunting for small game. Rabbits and squirrels, protein that both our bodies needed.

There was a silence around us, a silence that I should have known wasn’t any good, when things are this quiet you can’t think that things are going to go well. There weren't even the soft moans of the dead in the distance. It was nothing, not a single sound anywhere. That eerie silence they place in a bad horror movie. I couldn’t help it, now it was actually getting to me, something wasn’t right. I needed to know what it was, so I opened the window of the truck looking behind the truck. I couldn’t believe that I had walked past that and hadn’t noticed. It was a monster of a biter. Its limbs looked like that of a bodybuilder, the freaky looking Mister Muscles kind of Body Builder.

The one thing that crossed my mind at this moment was what in the hell was wrong with that picture, everything was wrong. Then it started to move, pushing itself to its feet and the silence stopped. There was a horrible roaring noise from the thing, then it started to toss the cars there around it. I didn’t know what else to do, so I started the truck and floored the gas. I wanted to put as much space between me and that thing as I could. If it wanted to, it could flip this truck then smash it to bits.

I wasn’t in the mood to be bits, that really wasn’t what I wanted. Nor what was needed, the truck rumbling to life was enough to get that thing's attention. When I floored it, that monster started for the truck, only to get tangled up in the gas pumps. I could see the monster pick up the gas pumps starting to smash them against the ground. Which was now covered in gas, I was glad that I was far enough away that I couldn’t see the spark that lit the gas causing the place to explode.

The noise was louder than most anything that I had heard, and the way the fire bulged out and over the building following a grand plume of smoke. I was in awe of the explosion. It was a wonderful sight, but the shock wave from it shook the truck, shook everything down the street. I could see pieces of the thing falling from the sky, it had literally killed itself in raged anger. I could help but think that would be important later, I felt that we needed to find a place for me to write this down.

We drove to a block where I found an abandoned car shop, pulled into the shop where I parked the truck, then shut the big garage door. Walking over I helped Robin out of the truck then we started to deeper into the store, “Robin keep your eyes open.”

Robin nodded to me with a small smile, she was looking around. I looked around myself, finding a few tools that I could use as weapons to kill any biters that came along. Walking towards the main store of the shop I stopped pulling Robin back towards me, there was a biter in that room, the metal door was shut and it didn’t know we were there, Good. And by the looks of it, tire iron used to brace the door knob wedging it shut.

I pulled Robin back to the truck, “We have to stay near the truck, Okay?”

Robin nodded with a softer smile, “Okay, I can stay near the truck!” There was a softer innocence about her. I knew she was going to listen, what kid wouldn’t in this mess, she was too scared to go more than two feet from me.Sitting down leaning against the front right tire of the truck furthest from the biter’s location. I started to write, Robin sitting here watching over my shoulder, “I know how to write, Why are you writing everything?” Her words are so out of place, yet so right.

“Well Little Robin, we might need to remember something, we may need to know what ways we have gone, what cities we have been through, and about that monster that blew up the gas pumps. We need to know about those, and if others find us we can share with them what we know...Or.. In case something happens to us, the next group will know why.”

Robin looked at me with a nod, “Did you write down my name?” Her voice was softer as she looked at me, a soft sparkle in her eyes, “I want to write my Name!”

I couldn’t say no, so I handed her the pen and the notebook and let her write this,

Hello! I am Robin Michaels. I wuvs my mommy and daddy and my sisters. I wuvs my friend Vicky!

I read what she wrote and how she wrote it and couldn’t help but let a tear fall from my eyes as I pulled her into a light hug, “Thank you Robin. I love you too Kiddo.”

She smiled, wrapping her arms around me with a smile, “I love you too, Vicky!”

We were close neighbors, I knew this. It didn’t help that I had been the one the Michaels had gotten to watch her while they went out to dinner. I was the coolest baby sister, in the words of the three kids. Now the only one left was Robin, sitting next to me, this was a sad thing. She was safe, she was out of there and I knew that is what her parents would have wanted. To see her safe, to see her live, to survive.

We stayed in the car shop for the night, it was a good place, only that one biter and if needed it would be easy enough to handle. Then it was just finding a place to let us both stretch out. I cleared a spot in the back seat for Robin. I felt it would be the safest place for her, behind a closed truck door. Then I climbed up into the bed of the truck, I figured it was the next best place. Finishing off today's entry with a smiley face and a moment of thought. That muscled monster was gone, destroyed itself, but were there more like that?