Apocalypsis 03 - Exodus

out in secret, we can’t be hanging around here waiting for those slavedrivers to come after us.”
    “Yeah, this’ll be the first place they look,” said Ronald.
    Winky was staring out into the rain, in the direction of the slavedriver camp.
    I nudged her in the arm. “What’s the matter? Having second thoughts?”
    She shook her head without looking at me. “Nope. Just getting into the right frame of mind.”
    “She’s getting her game face on,” said Peter, standing by the now nearly-empty trailer, all ready for its three passengers.
    “Come on,” I said. “No sense in waiting. We don’t want the rain to stop while we’re in the middle of it.”
    “Do you think the rain woke them up? Maybe they’re not sleeping anymore,” said Jamal, looking worried for us.
    “They could be but probably not. We’ll have to use the cover of the rain to get as close as we can and then we’ll just have to wing it. You okay with winging it, Winky?”
    She nodded, glancing at me quickly before looking back to the highway. She was dead serious, totally in the zone.
    “Let’s do this,” I said, walking out of the trees.
    “Bryn, wait!” said Bodo, immediately getting shushed by everyone around him. He waved them off and came over to me, grabbing me into another big hug. Water was streaming down both of us. I looked up at him and tried not to focus too much on how amazing he looked with his wet face and the flows of water coming off him in small rivers. Even bald, he was gorgeous.
    “Be careful. I don’t want to have to come in dare and rescue your big butt.”
    I smacked him on the arm. “Watch who you’re calling big butt, big head. ”
    “I brushed my teeth so I could kiss you. Iss dat okay?”
    I nodded.
    He leaned down and kissed me hard on the mouth, gripping the back of my head and forcing the kiss deeper. His minty tongue tangled in mine, immediately heating me up from my core outwards, the rain only barely keeping us cooled off.
    “Gettin’ steamy in heeeere,” said Peter.
    Bodo finished the kiss and gave me one more quick peck, before pulling back a little and staring into my eyes, his hands on my neck and cheeks now. “I’m not kidding. Be safe. I luff you.”
    I didn’t hesitate. “I luff you, too.”
    He grinned big. “Dat’s good. Even if you haff a little Cherman accent. I like it anyway.” He kissed me once more and let me go.
    Winky grabbed my arm and pulled me away. “Come on, lover girl. Time to go whoop some ass.”
    I turned away from our friends and followed silently, pushing Bodo’s face and kiss from my mind. In what felt like less than a minute, we arrived at the edge of the highway. It was dark and the rain obscured a lot of what we could see. We had to drop down as soon as we got near the edge of the road to avoid being noticed. The highway had been built up on a slight hill, with the shoulders on either side going down into ditches and then the fields beyond. On the other side, there was just a short piece of bare land before the tree and then the nearby town’s outer limits. The two smashed up cars were in front of us, the closest one a little off to the right. We used the body of the one farther away to shield us from the view of our targets.
    “Now what?” Winky whispered, lying down next to me on the upper slope of the drainage ditch.
    “Now we army-crawl up to that car and see what we can see underneath it.”
    I tried to ignore the stinging scrapes I was suffering as a result of our choice to go on our bellies onto the highway. We might have been able to go to the car standing up, but the frame was smashed up, and it wasn’t a very tall car to begin with. All of the glass had been broken out, too, making the solid part of the car only a few feet high, or less in some places. Luckily, there was no glass on this side of the car; but the tiny rocks we crawled across felt like I imagined the glass would have felt, anyway, so it was no consolation.
    We reached the middle of the highway before we were able to see anything. We had an imperfect view of the trees the slavedrivers were sitting under from the space below the car. The weeds on the side of the road had grown so high, we were only able to make out a couple of the people there. Both of them were leaning against one of the trees, and I couldn’t tell if they were sleeping or awake.
    “Can you see anything?” I asked.
    “No. Stupid grass is in the way,” Winky whispered back.
    I was straining my eyes to