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Jay wishes she had thought to grab some of her cds before she left. She keeps fiddling with the radio, groaning when she's met with either empty static or emergency alerts. All Danny had in his car were half decent rock bands they liked in highschool and a Fugees album that he stole from one of his exes.

Right now the two of them were currently parked outside a empty gas station, miles away from both their homes and the safety of Atlanta. A few cars had rode by them earlier, but they'd been sat here for almost half an hour now, in nasty ass Georgia heat that made her skin stick to the seats.

Jay looks out the driver window and has to suppress the urge to roll her eyes at the reason she feels so gross. Danny's still arguing with his brother over the phone, the same dick measuring contest those two have been having since their mom got old and sick. The added stress of everything else has had them extra wired.

She stares at his back for a couple more seconds before she huffs, irritated and already dreading the next few months of this when they finally get there. She quickly decides she needs a new pack of cigarettes anyway, and swings the car door open to pay for the damn gas herself before she melts in his car.

"Go on and fill up! I'll just pay for it." Jay calls out as she shuts the door, her companion nods to acknowledge her before turning back and continuing his conversation.

"See, here you go bringing up some old shit again. Let me talk to Mami again." Danny curses through the speaker, Jay doesn't hold back her eyeroll this time.

⟴

A warm gust of air hits her as soon as she opens the store door, her hand slaps over her nose on instinct.

It's almost as sad and empty inside as it is by the pumps, with fully stocked shelves and no one at the counter. There were a few pictures of an older couple hanging on the wall behind the counter, along with pictures of what she assumed were their children. Some pictures of the old couple were so old they weren't even in color.

She smiles softly, it must be so peaceful living your life like this- all boring and domestic. She lets herself daydream about all the different faces on the wall, assuming personalities and relationships from the tiniest smiles and stiff poses.

Eventually that gets boring, Jay calls out a 'hello' and takes a few small steps towards the counter. Her eyes catch on a closed 'Staff only' door and she makes her voice a little louder.

"Y'all on break or somethin'?" 

No response.

She sighs and leans forward on the counter, idly contemplating grabbing something to eat. She wasn't really feeling any of this junk food shit. Her and Danny would be fine once they got to Atlanta anyway, then they'd be eating nice, warm, home-cooked meals.

A bump from behind the door pulls her out of her thoughts. She jumps a little and tries not to feel embarrassed when the hair on the back of her neck starts to stick up.

"You good back there?" 

No response again, her eyebrows furrow and goosebumps creep onto her arms. She quickly lifts herself over the counter to make her way towards the door. As she pushes closer to it, she can hear faint groans on the other side.

"Did you fall?" The smell from earlier is noticeable again, and getting stronger with each step.  "You need help'?"

She hesitates for a second as he hand hovers over the door handle, "I'm coming in, alright? I'm not here to steal anything!" Jay says loudly, with a deep breath she twists and pushes the door open.

The first thing she notices is how strong the stench has gotten, her eyes water and she can't help but stumble backwards and hold her nose. When she finally pays attention to what's in front of her, her heart drops into her stomach.

The old woman in the pictures is dead on the floor, black blood pooled around her and eyes emptily staring at the ceiling. It's so gory it almost looks fake, shes almost worried she's having a nightmare, stuck in one of those slasher movies Danny loves so fucking much.

She swallows hard as her eyes trail down her body, the lady's stomach is ripped open, guts spilled into her husbands hands. Organs she doesn't know the names of lay dark and leaking onto the floor. The sound of her own heartbeat in her ears drowns out the wet crunch that fills the room.

For a moment, all Jay can do is stare and stand still. Wide brown eyes make contact with the yellow tint of his. He growls at her and snaps his jaws, letting her get a good look at the black gums and nasty yellow teeth. Her body doesn't remember it can move until the husband starts to force himself to stand.

Her adrenaline kicks in then, and she rushes forward and slams the door with a loud bang. She wastes no time staring at it, quickly turning around to hop over the counter. The handle starts to angrily rattle just as she's exiting the store.

Theres a thought of walking to the car and burying the memory immediately, the way Danny must've been doing since he saw it and called her. And suddenly, shes thanking whatever deity that will listen that she found out about all of this because he called her, and not because one of those ran into her workplace.

"You took a while, girl. You get me anything?" Danny says with a goofy smile on his face when she sits down in the car. She shakes her head 'no' instead of answering.  "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm good." Jay lies, her eyes pointed at her feet. She cringes at how her voice shakes. "Did you fill up?"

She can feel Danny's gaze on the side of her face as he speaks. "Yeah. The fuck happen in there?"

"I– um," She thinks of what happened in the store and has to blink away the sting of tears.  "One of those sick people were in there. He was eating."

"Shit. You get hurt?"

"No. It barely saw me," Jay assures him, turning her head so she could make eye contact.  "I just—He was eating his own wife, Danny. All those happy pictures on the wall, decades of life, and then I look back there and it's like none of it even mattered."

"It doesn't make any sense. I don't understand how you can be so sick you do something like that." He agrees, he moves to turn the key in the ignition.

"Saw this kid take a bite out his mom. He went from limp in her arms to just– " He cuts himself off, voice cracking in the middle of it. "I'm sorry you had to see it too."

Jay doesn't know how to respond to any of that, so she settles for nodding and placing her hand on his arm.

"This is gonna take longer than a few months, ain't it?"

"I don't know, Jay." He admits with a lazy smile moves his arm so he can squeeze her hand before he pulls away to turn into the road.

"We're gonna be okay though." He adds last minute, before reaching over and turning up the volume to the radio. Jay scoffs and leans her head back onto the seat as a shit-eating grin spreads across Danny's face, the interlude to that crappy rock album starts to play instead of static.

⟴

"You're not making any fucking sense, Tony."

Jay wakes up to cars beeping and an earful of Danny arguing on the phone. His car door is open and his legs are hanging out of it. She has to unstick the side of her head from where it was stuck the car window and rubs dried drool off the side of her mouth as she takes in her surroundings.

She pops her neck and groans, they're still in a traffic jam, caused by Atlanta turning some people away earlier.  A few people are standing outside of their cars, a glance in the rearview mirror and she can see a group of men shoving eachother. At least the city's visible through the trees from where their stuck.

"I talked to you earlier today. I talked to Mami! Shit doesn't go downhill that quick." Danny is almost yelling, Jay feels her heart drop again.

"What's going on?" She mumbles, sitting up straight in her seat. "Is Ma alright?"

"Tony's trying to tell me she's dead– that there's a bunch of those things in Atlanta!It's being ran by the fucking military. That couldn't happen."

Jay opens her mouth to talk only to close it again when there's a loud bang and the car  shakes.

"Tony? T?" Danny smacks his phone in an attempt to get it to work, Jay feels the sting of tears in her eyes again. "Fuck!"

She swings open the car door to get out, and catches the sound of helicopters flying over her. She stumbles out of the car and follows them with her eyes, her mouth feeling dry as they hover over the city.

They release the bombs, and she hears each 'boom' one by one until the sound of helicopters fade away. Jay watches in horror as the city of Atlanta burns.

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