Gabriel

The person in front of me was a stranger. Who we saved from the bathroom window was not the same girl I'd known in school. She was not Linette. It wasn't just in the way she'd changed her look since the last time I'd seen her. Her brunette hair was cut just above her shoulders, and she was dressed in jeans and a pull over sweatshirt. I hadn't seen her cover so much skin even when it was snowing outside.

Not that I cared, I thought.

 At least she still had the same dimple in her chin, perfectly centered below full lips set in an almost permanent scowl. That was new, though. She used to always smile.

"It's Sparrow, now, by the way," Sparrow snapped. "And stop staring at me like you just summoned a ghost with a seance." She brushed past me and walked toward the truck, leaving us in the wake of a thankless rescue.

That was the difference. I caught it before she even opened her mouth to talk. I saw it in the way she looked around at us like she was measuring out how to take us down. Before she recognized us.

Linette wasn't brave. She was too afraid of hurting other people's feelings. But, Sparrow was a killer. There'd been a murderous intent in her stance, in her gaze. She would have stood and fought to the death.

What happened?

"Your girlfriend always this sunny?" Cypress whispered to me.

I'd shared a class with Cypress briefly when she transferred to our school, but I hadn't actually shared more than a meaningless greeting with her before. I looked between Sparrow and my uncle before finally meeting Cypress' cold glare. Either she was making a quick judgment, or she had quietly observed everyone in class in the short time she was at school.

We had dated. In fact, we'd been together since freshman year.

"No," I said after a moment. I sighed and looked back at the window we'd pulled Sparrow from. Wherever the old version of her had gone, I wasn't sure I would ever get her back.

We all changed when the world did. I guess I'll have to learn more about this new version of Linette.

"Let's go before she finds the spare key and takes the truck," my uncle said. He shuffled for the truck, and Cypress and I followed.

We left behind the shrieks and cries of the Blares and the Turned. There was no point in scavenging for what we'd initially come for. The school was a bust. We would just have to try and find our luck elsewhere.

I looked around at the abandoned cars, sitting as if frozen in time. Unbroken, untouched. The Turned and the Blares didn't care about searching through the vehicles, or destroying for the sake of destroying. Which meant no one had made it to the school to scavenge.

"Are you sure we can't spare a few minutes just to look through the vehicles out here?" I asked.

"Did you forget about what's back at the school? There's an entire herd in there, and who's to say what's straggling around out here?" My uncle turned back to look at me with a tight frown.

I'd clearly asked a stupid question in his book.

"Even I don't want to stick around," Cypress added. "And I came down here on my own in the first place."

"Why did you, anyway?" I asked her.

She shrugged. "Long story. We have a lot of catching up to do. And it looks like we're all going to have time for that wherever we're going," Cypress added with a nod.

I followed her gesture to where Sparrow had climbed into the bed of the truck. "Do you mind if they come with us?" I asked my uncle.

"Didn't plan on leaving them out here, anyway," he replied gruffly.

I opted out of the passenger seat and got into the bed of the truck along with Cypress. We sat facing Sparrow, our backs to the tailgate. My uncle opened the door to the truck, the vehicle shifting with each movement as he slammed the door shut and settled in for the drive.

The truck started with a loud roar, rattling us to our bones. My uncle turned from the school, starting back down the road, away from the herd fighting to escape the confines of the building.

The three of us were quiet. How exactly were you supposed to talk to your classmate, or your ex, so long after the end of the world? After you thought everyone else you knew in the world had died?

So, we didn't.