7.1
10/04/2009
"Uhh… what are you hoping to do once you get the car?" Sasha turned to Yumi and asked.
"You mean we?" she replied. "We're gonna drive fast!"
After stuffing the gun into Sasha's backpack as well as they could, covering the top part that stuck out with one of Yumi's shirts, they successfully snuck through the farmlands of Gambrel.
In Gambrel, the gate was left open all day. Someone was always watching over it, but, like in Greenfield, the citizens didn't really need to worry about rogue invasions.
The city was tiny–it would have been more aptly named a village–and it took Sasha and Yumi no more than a few minutes to cross it entirely. The buildings looked like brown barns, and the entire "city" was no more a tight clump of these homey structures.
Coincidentally, as Yumi first laid eyes on the open gate, a boxy white van was rumbling towards it, clearly intent on leaving the city.
Yumi yelled, "Let's get them!!" and took off sprinting.
After a failed attempt to say something to stop her, Sasha, terrified of getting left behind, reluctantly chased after her swaying violet ponytails.
When the driver, a fifty-something man with short gray hair, wearing a thin weathered jacket and pair of jeans, saw the girl chasing after him, he slowed his truck and rolled down the window.
He was about to rudely greet her in his usual disgruntled voice, but when he suddenly found himself face to face with the beautiful girl, he froze, forgetting everything he knew about himself.
"Hi!" Yumi said with a cheerful smile. "Can you get out of your truck for a minute?"
He immediately obliged.
Sasha finally arrived on the scene, but he stayed a little ways back. He didn't want to be involved in such a criminal act.
The man stood as tall as he could in front of Yumi, swallowed and said, "U-uh," but he was cut off short when Yumi drove her fist deep into his gut.
He sputtered up saliva and collapsed to his knees.
"Get in, Sasha!" Yumi called, leaping into the driver's seat.
After only a moment of gazing at the doubled-over old man in pity, Sasha did as he was told, and Yumi hit the gas.
The engine growled and, just like that, they flew out of the opening in the wall, kicking up clouds of dust from the dirt road behind them.
"WHOOOOO!!" Yumi cried, sticking her right arm straight out in a celebration of victory.
"Do you think we're going too fast?" Sasha asked through gritted teeth as they flew between trees. His whole body was tense, and he could hardly bear to keep his eyes open.
"We're not going fast enough," she replied, still grinning giddily. "Just wait until we get on the real road."
By "real road," she meant the asphalt highway that was a key connector between several cities. It was a highway that had existed even before the apocalypse, so it just required some maintenance and upkeep for it to stay in decent shape.
Within seconds, the surface of the road beneath them changed from dirt to asphalt, and with a long, perfectly straight segment of road ahead, Yumi jammed her foot hard into the gas pedal and the van rocketed forward much faster than it was supposed to go.
Sasha hastily reached for a seatbelt, only to find that there was none and clench his hands around the edges of his worn fabric seat. He glanced at the speedometer. The dial crept over 100, and that was all he needed to see.
"Yumi!" he said, trying to sound as assertive as he could. "The car might break down if you keep going this fast!"
He figured that this appeal might work on her, as she obviously wasn't concerned about the dangers of speed.
Yumi side-eyed him and slowed down slightly.
"Ah! Look at the road!" he exclaimed, wishing he could grab the wheel and prevent their imminent life-ending crash.
"The road's straight," Yumi replied, slowly turning her eyes forward again.
She grinned. "I don't even need to look."
"A-an animal could run across," Sasha, who was still gripping tightly to his seat, argued.
"Who cares? We're living it up right now. In the thick of it."
Sasha took a long exhale and told himself to calm down. However, no matter how much he tried to ignore it, he was constantly aware of the trees whizzing past them on either side and just how disastrous it would be to crash at this speed.
"You need to relax," Yumi advised him, this time keeping her eyes straight ahead. "You might not have been starving before if you weren't so uptight."
"M-maybe," Sasha murmured, his voice barely audible over the sound of the big van rumbling down the highway.
Minutes later, now going at a slightly safer speed, they reached their first obstacle.
After whipping around a bend in the road, they found themselves surrounded by battered houses. Some had their windows smashed in, some appeared to be half-burnt, and others were simply flattened.
Yumi decelerated, and the two became lost in the sight.
Within the tiny, sheltered bubbles around society, this was an image one would never see, even though demolished towns like these could surely be found anywhere.
"I think there's a turn right here," Sasha hastily pointed out, almost jabbing his finger through the windshield when he realized.
Yumi hit the brakes, and the van barely careened around the 90-degree right turn without tipping. They continued through what must have been a somewhat densely settled residential area in awe, not wanting to miss a thing.
However, after another sharp turn, their sightseeing came to an abrupt end.
"Are those rogues?" Yumi asked, pointing at a massive group of angry-looking squirrels that were barreling towards them.
Sasha, whose eyes had been wandering, saw the horde of squirrels ahead and gasped, "Ah! Watch out!"
Yumi, taking that answer to mean the squirrels were indeed rogues, hit the gas, tires turned straight towards the animals.
The sudden acceleration slammed Sasha's head back into the headrest, and he urgently wheezed, "St-stop! Yumi!"
Just before what would have been the moment of impact, the squirrels exploded off the ground like kernels of popcorn, clawing at the van's white metal with their tiny paws.
But Yumi was going too fast for any of them to get a grip, and the vehicle passed through safely,
The houses had gotten even more densely packed, and Yumi pressed her foot down hard, urging the vehicle forward down the straight stretch of road.
Sasha was now on maximum alert, and he surveyed the area all around them in search for any other rogues.
"Go faster," he muttered, eyes widening.
Yumi laughed. "Did you see something scary?"
When Sasha didn't reply, she looked over at him and asked, "What was it?"
"Just keep going," he begged. "And try to duck."
He pulled Yumi's shirt off of his gun, which was still in the backpack at his feet. When rolling the window down didn't work, he smashed the heel of the firearm into the glass and shattered it.
"Ohhh!!" Yumi cheered. "You're getting excited!! Your aim's not good though… are you sure you can hit it?"
She stared through the shattered opening in the glass, trying to see what he was aiming at.
But she couldn't make out anything, so she reluctantly turned her gaze forward again.
The next turn was left, and hairpin would be an understatement.
Yumi yanked the wheel and slammed her foot down instinctively. Having never driven a car before, let alone drift it, there was no reason for her to do what she did.
Nevertheless, her foot went into the gas pedal, the tires lost traction, and the van howled around the corner, rubber and asphalt screeching beneath it.
The oversized vehicle threatened to roll over through the entire turn, but Yumi kept it up.
Eyes gleaming, she gripped the wheel a little tighter.
This is fun, she thought, her smile spreading wide across her face.
In the end, Sasha's bad aim hadn't been put to the test. Instead, he'd nearly been thrown out of the hole in the window he'd created himself.
The poor man leaned back in seat, gasping for air as his heart rattled hard inside his ribcage.
"Hold on tight," Yumi said ominously.
Sasha looked over at her with fearful eyes.
He had nothing to say.
SHREEEEEEE
They were no longer on a dirt road, but smoke still rose from the tires as the van screeched around another tight corner.
Sasha felt like his stomach was getting torn out of his body, and his hands couldn't find a safe place to grab on to.
His body shook from terror, but he gasped a wavering sigh of relief when the van crept onto a bridge that crossed over a river and left the danger zone.
They drove on, unaware of what awaited them in the south.