Joe was given a random storage unit that happened to have a bed in it. He sat by the light of a small gas lantern and stared at an old wind-up clock in the corner, counting the minutes.
After a few hours of trying not to fall asleep, Joe gathered up his backpack, clipped on his lunchbox and Colonel Crunchies, and opened the door as quietly as he could. He snuck across the compound by the light of the moon, constantly checking over his shoulder for zombies (or worse).
Joe reached the truck and pulled on the door. It was unlocked. He climbed into the driver's seat, where he sat for a few seconds before he realized something.
"...I don't know how to hotwire a car," Joe whispered.
He climbed back out of the truck. He crossed his arms and put his hand under his chin.
"I'll have to get the key...who has the key?" Joe thought for a moment, racking his memory for where he saw them last, then came to a dreadful conclusion.
Gatorman had the keys.
Joe frowned, then set his backpack by the cab of the truck. He took his flashlight out and set off across the compound, towards Grayson's "lab."
Joe shone his flashlight around the clusters of boxes in the lab, the light catching in jars and bags set on top of them. He finally found what he was looking for, and slid it out from between two boxes. It was just a firework. Totally harmless, he told himself; he was just using it for a distraction.
Joe turned around and his flashlight caught the eyes of the caged zombie. It hissed and shrunk back, covering its eyes.
"Sorry," Joe whispered. He turned to leave again, but something stopped him. He went back and gently opened the gate, then took ten steps back. The zombie crept forward, keeping one eye on Joe the entire time. As it left the cage, it nodded to Joe, then took off into the darkness.
Joe shook his shoulders out and went back to work with the fireworks, putting them close to the unit where Gatorman slept. Hopefully he would hear them first. Joe lit the fuse.
The spark travelled along the string, went inside the rockets, and did nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Joe gritted his teeth and tilted his head back towards the starry sky. He bit his tongue to keep from screaming, and instead just mouthed "Why me?" over and over again. When he was done, he pinched his nose and considered the situation again.
He could only think of one other plan. So he walked up to Gatorman's storage unit and readied himself to knock.
He glanced down. There was a homey little welcome mat.
"...It can't be that easy," Joe thought to himself.
He bent over, lifted up the corner of the mat, and picked up the key.
Joe was ecstatic. It truly was that easy. Unfortunately, The fireworks chose that time to go off.
Joe cowered on the ground, and as soon as his ears were done ringing, he heard heavy footsteps on the other side of the door. He bolted, taking off across the complex faster than he'd ever run before.
Gatorman lifted up the door. He looked over at the scorched concrete. He looked down at the welcome mat, the corner of which was still peeled up. He sighed and went back into the storage unit, then came out with a shotgun. He jogged around the corner to have a clear sightline towards the truck, took aim at the man climbing into the car, and fired.
Gatorman had made one slight miscalculation. The truck was parked with the passenger side facing him, not the drivers' side, and as he got a little closer to the car, he saw that it wasn't Joe whom he'd shot, it was Grayson's pet zombie.
Joe revved up the truck and floored it out of the storage facility, the passenger side door still open and swinging in the wind.
Gatorman ground his teeth and wondered who was going to tell Mary.
...
Joe didn't close the passenger side door. He was too scared to reach over the unconscious zombie.
He drove for forty-five minutes, tearing through urban and forested areas, until he finally pulled into a dark gas station in the middle of nowhere. He turned off the car and looked over at the zombie. He'd been slumped over in the seat for the entire car ride. Joe had avoided looking at him until now.
The zombie had a large hole in the back of his chest where the shotgun bullets had exited. He was bleeding profusely all over the seat. Joe could see the zombie fungus filling up the wound, but he wasn't sure if it was really doing anything, since the bleeding continued.
The more Joe studied the zombie, the more he could convince himself that it was dead...dead for real.
Joe reached over, placed a hand on the zombie's shoulder, and started to push him out of the car.
The zombie jolted, like he'd been shocked with electricity. He moaned and lifted his head off the dash, then looked around, then squinted at Joe.
Joe plastered himself against the drivers' side door. The zombie just blinked at him tiredly. Joe fumbled for the doorknob, caught it, and fell out of the car as the door swung open too fast. He picked himself up off the asphalt.
"I'm going to uh...I'm going to go in...see if I can find anything, um, useful...I'll be back, don't try to leave without me, I'm taking the keys...uh...do you want anything?"
The zombie raised an eyebrow. He glanced down at the hole in his chest, then back at Joe.
"You want...uh...bandages? Do you need those, or does the fungus...have it covered?"
The zombie nodded, glancing down at the blood saturating the car seat and the floor.
"Alright, bandages. I'll be right back."
Joe took the keys and his backpack. The inside of the gas station store was dark, and deadly quiet. Joe hadn't brought a flashlight, either. He used the faint light from the moon to find the rack of lighters right by the door, and then lit one to use as a light. It only illuminated a bit of the building at a time. Most of it was still shrouded in darkness.
Joe picked his way down the aisles, inspecting each one. Someone, or multiple someones, must've already come through, because it was pretty empty already. In the first few aisles, there was only a few car fresheners (pine scented), a hairbrush, and a packaged fruit pie. He pocketed the car fresheners and the fruit pie.
In the fourth aisle, something skittered across his feet. Joe jumped, waved the lighter around to try and see what it was, and shivered when he couldn't find the offending rodent.
The fifth aisle was empty. The sixth aisle was also empty, except for a single severed hand sitting on the shelf. Joe nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw it, then nearly jumped out of his skin again when it reared up and pointed at him. He lept back and into the other shelf, knocking it over and falling down with it.
The hand slowly let its pointer finger drop.
Joe struggled to get up. He finally rolled over, flinching from the metal shelf digging into his stomach, and pushed himself upright. He waved around the lighter, expecting dozens of more severed hands to be waiting in the corners, on the shelves, on the roof; but there was only the one. It pointed at Joe, then at the door. Joe was happy to oblige. He pried the doors open and left, but didn't get three steps away from the building before stopping and turning around in place.
He cupped his hands around his mouth. "Hey, do you have any bandages?"
There was no response at first. Then the hand came scuttling up to the glass doors holding a disembodied ear.
"Do you have any bandages?" Joe repeated. "There's a zombie that needs them. He was shot in the chest and he's bleeding all over my car."
The hand kept still for a moment, then gave a thumbs up. It scuttled into the darkness and didn't come back for a while, then came up to the glass with a roll of bandages hanging off of its thumb.
Joe cautiously approached the glass door, gingerly took the roll off of the severed hands' thumb, and thanked it profusely. He went over to the truck, already unrolling them. He stuck the keys into the ignition and turned on the headlights so they'd have some more light.
The zombie was still really out of it. Joe came up to him and held out the end of the bandage.
"Hold this to your chest." The zombie slowly did so. "Now I'm gonna wrap the roll around your torso. Here, take it with your right hand," and he did, "then hand it over to me again."
They went through this motion until the bandages had run out, and the hole in the zombie's chest had been mostly patched up.
"Feeling better?" Joe asked.
The zombie nodded.
"Can you walk?"
The zombie frowned and shook his head.
Joe sighed and ruffled his own hair. "I...guess I can't turn you out on your own just yet then. I mean, you literally took a bullet for me, so I definitely owe you one."
The zombie smiled weakly.
"That doesn't mean you can eat me though."
The zombie wrinkled its nose.
"What? Am I really that bad?"
He looked away, grinning a little, then looked back through narrowed eyes.
"Oh, I'm not good enough to eat, am I? I see how it is."
The zombie let out a weak laugh-like sound, then furrowed his brow and put his hand to his chest.
"Sorry. Laughing's probably painful." Joe looked at the moon. "Right now would be a good time to sleep…" he looked over at the zombie, then at the gas station store, where he could picture the disgusting little hand inside scuttling and plotting. He didn't know which was worse, sleeping inside the cab with a zombie or outside with the scuttling hand in the back of his mind.
Joe turned on the car and drove off. In twenty more minutes, they were parked in front of his apartment. Joe and the zombie both went inside. The zombie walked over to the couch.
"Wait, wait, wait!" Joe blurted. He opened the closet and took out a few towels, then laid them down on the couch, covering every inch. "There. No blood on my couch today." The zombie rolled his eyes and sat down.
Joe set down his bag, looked around, sighed, and the weight of the day hit him full force. His shoulders slumped and his eyes drooped. "I'm going to bed now," he said, and he turned to go to his bedroom, then turned back around. "I'm going to lock my door. I've got the car keys in my hand. I would say don't steal anything but there's nothing here to steal. Except maybe the TV. And the video games. But they don't work anymore, so practically worthless. Um…" Joe looked around awkwardly. "I think that's it. Please don't get blood on the carpet. Goodnight."
Joe went inside his room and locked it. The zombie settled back into the couch and smiled.
There was still one thing that Joe wanted to do before he went to sleep. He took out his backpack and stuffed it full of clothes; shirts and pants and a pair of pajamas. He stuffed some sunscreen, chapstick, and soap in as well. He put his phone in a plastic bag for safekeeping and put it in the front pocket, along with a flashlight, money, and some work gloves.
He looked around at all the possessions he'd gathered over the years. He'd be leaving them all behind when he left tomorrow. He might never see this apartment again.
Joe was surprised to find that he wasn't sad about this. He wasn't sad about leaving at all.
He wasn't sure why. He'd spent years here. He'd never been unhappy during that time.
But...had he really been happy either?
Joe glanced at the door. He unlocked it and peered out at the zombie contentedly sitting on the couch with a towel wrapped around his shoulders.
Joe frowned and filed his thoughts away.