Zombies Vs Aliens: Respawn

Chapter 9.2

That didn't even begin to cover it. From my position on the ground I was staring up at a clear blue sky, not a cloud in sight, or a ceiling for that matter. I hauled myself up, taking in the destruction. The city of Rochester was annihilated. We sat in the bottom of a crater, every building, every structure in the city, broken down to fist sized bits of rubble. The destructive force had seeped through the ground, tearing away the first layer, before leveling off, creating a sheared line along the sewer walls where it stopped. Our little pit of a room was relatively intact for having no ceiling and chunks of the wall knocked out. I was certain the wall shielded us from the worst of the flying bits, though who knew where Fred hid during the melee.

            "Ha, there's my beauties!" J.D. snagged the dust covered duffel, peeking inside to check on his depleted stash of firearms. "Even the smoke bombs are still good."

            Ignoring J.D. cooing over his guns, I got to my feet, using the cast off wall as a ramp up topside. Above ground the situation looked worse. Through the clearing dust cloud I could see where the destruction ended, at the city's edge, and the crumbling road beyond. Hell, I could see our abandoned wagon from here. The wagon!

            "How much gas was in the wagon Fred?" I perched at the edge of the hole, finding him digging through his backpack. He didn't look at me as he pulled out another ace bandage, kneeling next to Wolf Girl. How many of those things did he snag, a whole shelf?

            "Maybe a quarter of a tank, it won't get us very far." He said, attempting to dress the girl's bite mark. Wolf Girl stared at him, clutching her arms tight to her chest, until he sat back with a sigh. "Li, maybe she'll let you do it."

            I frowned at the remark, sliding back into the hole. Sure enough, when I plunked down next to her and made a grab for her arm, she let me. I accepted Fred's bandage without a word, wondering why she would trust me in the first place. It was my fault she was dying via zombie bite. Except Wolf Girl didn't bat an eyelash in my direction, she kept her gaze fixed on Fred. Her feral eyes were almost thoughtful.

            "Why is she staring at me like that?" Fred muttered from the corner of his mouth.

            "Oh, like I am privy to the inner workings of her mind?" I tied the bandage off, wishing I had a bucket of Neosporin or something to slather on the wound, not that it would help anything. "Look, we need the get out of here, far away from the city as we can manage and if the wagon isn't an option-"

            "Hey, I didn't say it wasn't an option." Said Fred, pawing through the contents of his pack.

            "Think our maybe quarter tank is going to last us until the next town? It's upstate New York; objects on the map are further away than they appear." I eyed the sky, wondering if our vindictive alien friends left anyone behind to pick off stragglers. Doubtful since their solution was pouring a barrel of napalm on an ant hill. "Think they'll start blasting every city they come across?"

            "Independence Day style? No, I think this was personal. They didn't blast it until they got their asses handed to them. Ah ha!" Fred tugged a length of clear plastic tubing free and a sealed bottle of soda, the brown liquid long since flat, sloshing gently in the silent pause of his reveal.

            "I'm almost afraid to ask," J.D. rumbled behind me, earning a scowl from Fred.

            "This is the solution to our problem, or have none of you nancies ever siphoned gas before?" He looked at us expectantly, waiting for the light bulb to come on.

            "Just you, delinquent."

            "Oh, shove it, Gomer Pyle. Look, we saw abandoned cars all over the place on our way in.  The burbs is full of them. We'll skirt round the crater and see if we can find a tank with some gas still in it."