Playlist for the Apocalypse

Chapter 6: House of the Rising Sun

EVELYN

Evelyn was not quite sure what she'd expected of Jonathan Johnson, but she knew that it had not been anything close to the unconscious young man that she was now pushing in a shopping cart through an abandoned mall. Sure, she had braced herself for the sight of him. As a pre-med student she'd readied herself for the worst and while his injuries weren't as terrible as she had been preparing herself for, she still felt completely ill-equipped. She hadn't really allowed herself to picture a face or body to match the voice she'd been listening to every day for the past month. He was taller than she'd thought, leaner and more muscular perhaps. She glanced down at him now, she'd propped him up to face her with his long legs hanging out the back gate. She'd used her jacket to create a sling from the handlebars so that his legs wouldn't bend. He'd likely dislocated one, if not both of his knees from their fall, she couldn't tell through his pants and amid the dirt, blood, and bandages he was covered in. She frowned, realizing that she also hadn't pictured him to be as reckless as he was. She, herself, had never been impulsive, in fact, her mother had always called her "my little worrier" because of her overly responsible nature. Rescuing Jonathan had been uncharacteristic of her to say the least, but then again so was leaving the bunker at all.

It was hard to look at him like that, his broken form slumped against the basket of the shopping cart. She caught herself studying the rise and fall of his chest, counting his breaths. When she'd first found him buried under the debris, she'd worried that he was already dead. She wouldn't think about that now. He was alive and she forced herself to focus on other things. His dark hair was cropped military style, and he was dressed in athletic pants, a t-shirt and utility jacket. Her cousin Kevin would have called him handsome, and he wouldn't have been wrong... Evelyn shook her head at that silly thought. Kevin was always so vocal about such things, at fourteen he had just discovered the joys of dating and he was always complaining that Evelyn was so boring because she didn't have boy drama to talk about. He would have been astounded to hear about how his uninteresting older cousin, with her bad sense of direction and terrible aim, had battled her way to Metrotown tower. No doubt he would poke fun at her for the way in which she'd lost both her bike and gun during the quest; one to a flat tire and the other to attempting to wrench open the Metrotown Tower stairway door, it was fine, the gun had been empty anyway— Evelyn's pace suddenly faltered; Kevin had been fourteen, before the Blackout. Kevin was now sixteen. At least Evelyn hoped that her cousin had reached his sixteenth birthday... The thought of her charismatic, bubbly cousin not getting to live out his teenage years or worse spending them shambling through some godforsaken place was too horrific to consider. She shifted her attention back to Jonathan. If Evelyn had to wager a guess based on his appearance, his survivor colony was probably somewhere nearby. He wasn't dressed in a way that suggested he might be travelling long-distances. She felt the faint yet familiar glimmer of hope in her chest. If there was a survivor colony nearby, it could mean her family was nearby as well. She glanced back and forth and the decaying mall signs and shivered. She refused to believe they were here wandering amongst the zombified hordes of shoppers.

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Jonathan woke up when they were in the healthcare section of Walmart. Upon seeing his eyes open, Evelyn immediately thrust an expired bottle of painkillers in his direction.

"Take this," She ordered and without hesitation, Jonathan obediently gulped the last two pills in the bottle down his dry throat. Evelyn didn't know how much pain he was in, but she knew it had to be considerable. He did a good job of hiding it, but she figured anyone who took drugs from a random stranger, had to be in pretty rough shape.