PetrA

Chapter thirty-three: Gemma

Gemma stared out of the window at the street. It was quiet, except for the lone Walker. However, she had learned that, if there's one, there's always more in the surrounding area. "How are we supposed to get out of here?" She asked keeping an eye on it. "We look in the garage for a way to not walk." Cody said stuffing some dried turkey into his mouth. "Let's just hope that there's a car." Kim muttered. He looked like he hadn't slept at all, which Gemma suspected was true.

Cody opened the door into the garage and sighed in relief. "There's a car." He said. Gemma peered through the door, it appeared that somebody had been planning to use the car, but a dried up trail of blood leading out of the garage made her shudder. Obviously, they'd been turned into the screaming happy meal special. Such joy... Both Cody and Kim searched the house and garage for the keys, but came up empty handed. "We can short wire it." Kim suggested. Gemma let the boys do that, she turned her attention onto checking what was in the car. There was almost no food, instead whoever had lived in the house had stocked up on weapons. She found several homemade clubs with spikes, guns, knives and gasoline for the car. At least they had the decency to pack fuel for the car. Gemma thought sarcastically. "Found anything interesting?" Cody asked just as the car roared to life. "Just a lot of weapons Daniel would love. Gasoline and bottles of water. It seems that they forgot about food." She said slamming the trunk shut. "Hop in then, we're leaving." He seemed to be a little too happy, but Gemma just sighed and got in the back seat. She couldn't drive a car, so it would be pointless for her to sit up front.

As they backed out of the garage, they hit something rather large, it made a nasty crunching sound as they drove over it. Cody just kept backing out and then onto the road. Gemma wanted to be sick when she saw what they'd driven over. On the ground just in front of the garage was a half a body with a growling head. Only it's head hadn't been crushed under the car. She decided to not look out of the window again, at least not as long as they're in the city. Getting out of the neighbourhood proved far more difficult than they'd imagined. They kept ending up in dead ends with several dead people lumbering after the car, as they could smell a lovely dinner of three living people. Gemma had no idea how many carcasses they crushed on their way, but it seemed endless with bumps and loud screeches as bodies and heads exploded under the wheels of the car.

"This is why we should keep out of cities." Cody grumbled backing up and then pressed the speeder. They shot out into the main part of the city, it seemed like most dead had retreated to their own lovely vacation homes filled with fresh bodies to munch on. Getting around was about as easy as navigating a bulldozer through a mob of busy business people. Cars and bodies was everywhere, and the car they had wasn't exactly made for stealth driving. Gemma don't think she'd ever heard Cody cuss this much. Several times Kim banged his head into the roof as they drove over something crunchy. Gemma hoped it was a huge bar of chocolate with nuts, but as usual, she wasn't that lucky. At least I can still dream. Gemma thought bitterly as they crushed another munchie.

"Try and not think about it." Cody advised. Gemma scowled at him as he drove up on the sidewalk to avoid a car. "It's a tad difficult when we're mowing down munchies just waiting to take a very good bite of our delicious skin and meat." Kim snorted, "Let's just pretend we're driving over roadkill." The thought of driving over roadkill didn't make Gemma any less squeamish. As they drove around it seemed like that military trucks and fences blocked all the exits. "Obviously, they tried to keep it all in." Cody said as they stared at a group of zombies pressing against the fence, wearing Military uniforms and helmets. Some had limps missing other had their intestines rolling out of their stomachs. "Gross." Gemma muttered.

Finally, they found an exit that wasn't blocked, at least not by cars and the oh so lovely munchies waiting to feast on them all. A group of people were waiting for them as they got close, Gemma noticed that only about three of them wore military uniforms, the rest wore civil clothes that looked like they hadn't been washed in months. Apparently they must've smelled like they were dead too, because there wasn't a single munchie Zombie friend in the area. Gemma positioned herself between the two front seats and looked at the assortment of people. "Great, Ellie was right." Cody grumbled, "How often is she wrong?" Kim managed a wry smile, took a hold of his knife, and slowly edged it up into his sleeve, he used a tiny bit of duct tape to keep it in place, but he would still be able to pull it out without problems. "This far? Not very often." Gemma admitted. "Get out of the car!" One of the people with Military uniform said loudly, training her gun at the car.

"Or what?" Cody asked through the side window. "You're going to make us live bait?" Gemma's eyebrows crept up as if they were trying to escape her forehead. Since when did he use snarky comments? "We'll see. Perhaps you'll make a delightful snack!" Another called. There went a murmur through the crowd of people and those who wore uniform had to silence them with harsh words. "I'd rather not be a delightful snack." Kim said drily. Gemma had to supress a smile upon seeing their faces. "Do you want to live or not?" A man asked. He was tall heavily built and was holding a rather large gun in his hands trained on them, his uniform was tattered and you could see wounds that defiantly needed medical help. Gemma just hoped he hadn't been a brief snack for one of their braindead, hungry and rotting best friends, who loved to dig their fingers into your skin and rip you apart.

"Alive sounds good to me, but perhaps we could just scoot around you and leave our rotting friends behind us." Gemma said sweetly. The man trained his gun on the car and pulled the trigger. They braced themselves for a shattering window, but instead a bright pink splatter hit the front window. It smelled strangely familiar. Gemma's eyes widened and she started laughing, "OH my gods! Is that Mr. Bubble fruity splash gum?" Gemma knew the smell too well, mostly because Cody and Ellie was obsessed with that peculiar bubble gum. Gemma remembered how they could sniff out a package, before they even could see it. The large man howled with rage and kept shooting the Pink bubble gum at the car. Cody stuck his arm out of the window and scraped off some, but before he could stuff it in his mouth, both Gemma and Kim stopped him. "Dude, we've made roadkill of rotten people with this car, I wouldn't eat it." Cody pouted like a five-year-old and threw it out of the window.

"WHO FILLED MY GUN WITH BUBBLE GUM?" the man roared. Most of the civil people backed away from him in alarm, and started to point at each other. Nobody wanted to take the blame for that. He obviously had some anger issues. Perhaps it comes with the uniform. Gemma thought with a stupid grin on her face, it was the first time in a long time that she'd had something to actually smile at, that didn't include fangirling over how cute Ellie and Kim looked together, or Lesley's lame attempts of jokes. This was just too good to be true, a large burly man in uniform, with anger issues, cussing like a sailor and shooting fruit smelling bubble gum at them.

The woman who had spoken first raised her own gun and fired at them, this time a blue splatter joined the mix and she stared at it stunned. "Hmm smells like blueberry mango." Cody said sniffing the air like a bloodhound. Gemma could swear that only Cody could tell you the flavour of gum by the smell, maybe except for Ellie. The third soldier was on the ground dying from laughter, gun in hands. In the back of the group stood two red haired boys, Gemma wondered if they were twins. At any rate, they leaned against each other laughing too. Gemma started to suspect that they and the third soldier had something to do with the bubble gum guns. Kim smiled, it seemed like he was enjoying the show just as much as Gemma did. "Harrison!" The large burly man said, his eyes burning with lo-hating. The third soldier got to his feet with some help and smiled stupidly at the large man, it didn't seem like he was even the tiniest bit scared of him. "Yes, Michel?" Gemma burst out laughing. Michel, Michel? Who the hell give their son the name Michel? The female soldier snickered she didn't seem too fazed by the gum gun.

"What did you do to my gun?" He snarled. The poor bloke smiled innocently and shook his head as if he had no idea what Michel was talking about. "I didn't do anything. I merely gave you your gun as requested." Michel snarled at him like an animal ready to pounce, but Harrison looked relaxed as ever as he stood face to face with an angry ox named Michel. Cody backed up the car slowly as they invoked in an argument, well Michel argued, roared and tried to intimidate the much smaller soldier named Harrison. Their friends seemed to pre occupied with watching them, to notice the huge clumsy car making a circle around them. They had almost made it when blue bubble gum smeared the corner of Gemma's window. "Where do you think you're going?" The female in military uniform asked marching over. Gemma smiled at her innocently "Away from your beefy ox with anger issues."