"Where is Nicolas?" That was the first question Baptiste asked the group.
"I don't know, he was following me just a second ago" answered Emmanuelle breathing heavily.
Looking back, she saw Nicolas coming out of the mall with some boxes in hand, smiling like a kid before a Christmas tree.
Just before going out of the mall, Nicolas did not forget to loot a few smartphones, tablets and two laptops from a very expensive and famous brand at the iDesk shop that was just at the corner before the exit. This loot was a great opportunity for him as now it did not care anymore about the integrity of his own devices in his backpack.
"Let's go to River City condo!" said Nicolas while putting his loot at the back of one of the cars like everything was normal.
"What…" at first Emmanuelle wanted to ask why he took some electronic devices but then dropped the idea. "Whatever..."
"You really bought all of this in this situation?" Delphine could not help but ask through the window of the van.
Nicolas turned around and answered in a good mood, "Hi Delphine! Heuu, technically they are not bought, but… borrowed!" and muttered, "indefinitely".
Delphine was left speechless her mouth opening and closing like a golden fish. "Never mind" and she sat back on her sit properly looking at Nicolas in disapproval.
Geoffrey at her side was trying to hide his smile not wanting to infuriate her more. She was already mad at Nicolas as he did not warn them about the zombies, and now he was adding oil to the fire. The fury of Delphine would not be easy to handle! He did not know if he needed to pity or mock Nicolas anymore.
Contrary to Delphine, Geoffrey was more carefree. He did not blame Nicolas, as he understood that added zombies on top of meteorites falling on them could have been more problematic than helping.
In three minutes, everybody was ready, sitting in the cars.
Nicolas, Baptiste, Jiajin, Lexie and Rika were in the front one.
Emmanuelle, Fred, Alice, Geoffrey, and Delphine in the van following.
In the front car, while they were moving to their destination and after a few short greetings Nicolas addressed the elephant in the room, "Where are Roger and Shiny?"
An awkward silence followed a grim look in the eyes of the trio.
Nicolas turned to the back looking at Jiajin; but before he could ask again Baptiste answered, "They got unlucky and died."
Nicolas knew Baptiste and he felt something wrong, he was dying to know more, but the awkward mood and Baptiste not sharing the details meant he should not ask.
The two cars went through the Little India neighbourhood.
Everyone, believer or not, was silently praying to not be crushed by a meteorite.
Except for Nicolas, the meteorite was not the big problem for him; being crushed by it, they would not feel a damn thing, but remembering the persons being savagely beaten by zombies or whatever possessed people, that was making him feel way more insecure. The face of the lady without an eye came back to his mind and he started to feel sick. Pulling down the window he vomited outside, and after a few seconds, he went back inside picking a bottle of water and behaved as nothing happened.
"Nicolas, are you okay?" asked worriedly Lexie.
"Mhmm, no problem," he answered shortly.
If everybody were honest right now, they would agree that they were scared to death but going through all this madness together gave them enough courage to keep their mind sane, barely.
"Actually, change of plan, we have to go to Bugis, we need to gather a bit more equipment and food." Said Nicolas after washing his mouth, "and we can use this time to regroup with Georgie's group".
"What do you want to pick in Bugis? It will be quite busy there and we might end up in trouble," answered Baptiste. He did not want to face those people that have turned. Thinking about his dead friends, he had enough.
"Well, I have a plan, I want to go to France, and for this, I want some specific supplies and tools like a map, for example."
Hearing this, Baptiste unconsciously pulled the break, Nicolas saying this so straightforwardly made it a bit hard to handle, especially with meteorite falling and turned people all around.
"heyyy!" "Hoooo!" the passengers were not happy about the sudden stop.
"I have a plan," said Nicolas looking at Baptiste in the eyes. "Tuas, there is a marina at Tuas. I want to steal a boat from there and sail to France. I believe this is our best and only shot to leave Singapore. The earlier the better."
"Why do you want to leave the island so suddenly? I understand why you choose the boat, but still, this sounds quite suicidal to leave Singapore." Baptiste retorted.
"Yes, why do you want to leave?" Jiajin added.
Lexie and Rika were speechless, not knowing what to say they were nodding in approval.
"You know Singapore is a small island with a lot of people?" They all nodded.
"You also know that all the food is imported?" They all nodded again.
Baptiste cut him short "Nothing is new here, tell me why you want to leave the island?"
"I believe this is some kind of apocalypse and our best chance of survival is to leave this place and go to my grandparents' village and regroup with our family and friends to face the crisis there. I believe the world is changing and the governments will fall. I believe that only the bold and lucky will survive. I am ready to be bold and expect to be lucky. That's it."
That's it? this last part was echoing in the mind of Nicolas's companions, becoming quite loud in their ears.
Thinking their silence was like asking for more he continued, "People coming back from the dead and killing whatever they come across, that sounds like some serious apocalypse to me, you did not cross a few people with red eyes while coming here?" Nicolas pulled the rabbit out of the hat.
The car fell silent again.
"Yes" answered Baptiste, "why you did not tell us before?"
Nicolas felt uncomfortable but answered, "I am not sure you would have accepted to come and regroup with us. Don't you think that a meteorite shower is enough to manage?"
Baptiste was still a bit mad, but he was also not stupid and understood Nicolas's point of view of keeping them in the dark.
"I am in," Baptiste flatly said.
In his mind, he totally agreed with the crazy plan of Nicolas. For him, it was easy to do the math, 5 million people stuck in a small island with zombies roaming around and no supply coming. They just needed to choose what would kill them, hunger, monsters or local people going crazy.
"What the F…!" "No way!" "You're crazy!" many bad words started to come from the back of the car. The three girls were cursing in English and Chinese questioning the sanity of the two men.
Does not this kind of things need to be discussed before being decided? Of course, it has to be discussed! But here were the two friends deciding about sailing across the globe like they were deciding between eating Japanese of Vietnamese for lunch.
The horn of the car behind was questioning why the sudden stop, and it made the group continued their journey.
"Time to hit the road, we can have a longer conversation on it later," Nicolas said while looking at Lexie.
The girls needed to vent their frustration and were discussing in Chinese among themselves.
A minute later Nicolas shouted, "pull over!" pointing to his right "did you hear the shots?"
Indeed a few gunshots could be heard in the direction he was pointing to.
"No no no no no no!" Jiajin was shaking her head very fast. "No way, first you want to cross half of the word by boat and now you want to go near gunshots? No way! No! No way! Pipou! don't stop the car!" Jiajin was really not happy by how things were going, her safety was her only priority right now and whatever was coming out of Nicolas's mouth since he came inside the car did not sound safe at all.
"I think she is right; we should keep going, what if we get into the crossfire," added Lexie.
"yes! yes!" contributed Rika.
"What do you have in mind?" Baptiste was ignoring the girls, not because he did not care about them, but he had the same belief as Nicolas, right now Singapore was not safe, and they needed all the help they could get.
"I am not sure; I am thinking about being opportunistic. If we get lucky and get a few weapons, the next steps would be much easier, what do you think?" His question was only rhetorical as he was already opening his door.
"I am going to scout a bit and we can decide what to do after that Ok?" Nicolas closed the door and went to address the car behind. He told them to wait a minute for him and disappeared behind the next building corner.