Chapter Text
Three and a half months ago was the last time that anything was legitimately normal. Three and a half months ago, no one was out there trying to eat anyone else’s face, arms, or legs off. Three and a half months ago, Stiles Stilinski and Scott McCall had thought the zombie apocalypse was simply a joke and any preparations they made were for their own amusement.
Now… they were living in it. And they were glad for all the things they did in the name of fun.
It all started in the fall of their junior year in college. Best friends from diapers on up, they’d both gotten into schools in Boston, mostly because that’s where they’d both wanted to go to their respective school but also partially because they didn’t want to be separated. For two years they attended school in Boston and went home to Beacon Hills for breaks. However, over the past summer they’d found admittedly shitty jobs, but jobs nonetheless and while employed, they had gotten an apartment together. The beginning of their official adult lives, another milestone met head on as best friends. And then this shit went down.
Sometimes, Stiles felt bitter that he was robbed of the whole adult experience. You know the one; getting tired of paying bills, buying groceries that didn’t include frozen dinners and junk, actually fixing the plumbing after flooding the kitchen instead of pulling out a roll of duct tape, having to buy your own clothes instead of waiting for Christmas and birthdays because your Aunts and Grandmothers always send enough underwear and your father finally knows your style of clothing.
Not having to worry about said sheriff father catching you super drunk when you come home to pass out because you were only twenty and shouldn’t have been drinking at all. Okay, so maybe that experience he’d done every weekend in college so he was over the not having to sneak part, because seriously, sneaking around was half the fun.
Other times, Stiles looked at all the things he had done since the beginning of all this mess and thought, fuck adult experience, this shit was way better. In an “I hope I don’t get my face eaten today” sort of way. Which is admittedly not the best way to live, but what can a guy do in the midst of the zombie apocalypse?
He and Scott had only had their apartment about two months before the outbreak happened and they were forced into the strict rules of containment to the city of Boston, which put a serious damper on all activities. At first, their community – and the whole country for that matter – didn’t know what was going on. The government released very little information as the government was wont to do, and they thought it was something like the swine flu scare from years back. But with each passing day the security got tighter, and as security grew tighter, more news leaked in from the surrounding cities and states.
A virus had gotten out and initially, scientists and doctors were baffled by it, not sure what to make of it. Seemingly healthy people began to deteriorate rapidly, their bodies shutting down as they literally began to decay alive, but even as everything seemed to indicate imminent death, the infected continued to go on. Not live, per say, but just keep going. And along with the skin rotting from their bones and generally looking like they would fall apart, they also developed the lovely side effect of an insatiable craving for human flesh.
Which they attempted to curb by eating the closest living person with no remorse.
There was no reasoning with those who were infected, they were as good as dead and if you were bit, you had a few hours - at the most - to say goodbye before you became part of the hungering hoards. That’s if you only got bit; if you got bit and caught, you had a few minutes tops before more of the zombies descended upon your helpless body and began to eat you.
The first report Stiles heard about the virus, he thought he’d ended up tuned into the Night of the Living Dead. It sounded a lot like the broadcast and for the rest of the day all he could hear in his head was “in all cases the killers are eating the flesh of the people they murdered”. He also spent the rest of the day in a mild panic because fuck man, zombies weren’t supposed to be real. Not even all the Adderall he took could make him focus on any of his schoolwork.
Despite the widespread panic, the government tried to maintain a semblance of normality in the country, saying they had it under control and it wouldn’t spread any further than the already affected states. To start, they quarantined the previously mentioned states where the virus had hit but another piece of information they never released, along with how many were infected, was the precise location of the start of this everything. Though whether that was due to them being unaware of the starting point or not was unclear. Once it seemed like simple quarantining wasn’t going to work, travel between states was severely restricted before being eliminated altogether and eventually the larger cities were forced into self containment, no one coming in or going out with the exception of government run supply trucks.
People were told to go on with their lives as normal, though that was easier said than done. Everywhere you turned, people were taking precautions to protect themselves; wearing cloth and disposable masks over their faces, donning protective clothing, using excessive amounts of hand sanitizer and looking scandalized any time they came into contact with anyone else.
However their precautions were things that would do nothing to save them if they did come in contact with the infected; Stiles knew this because as soon as he had heard about the disease, he did all the research he could, even forgetting a paper until ten minutes prior to class. He immediately shared all his research with Scott, because it would suck if his best friend slash roommate got infected. From what they knew, the virus wasn’t airborne, it was through the mixing of bodily fluids, most commonly being bit; you know, the whole saliva in the wound thing. So other than making sure not to getting bitten, so as long as you didn’t go pouring someone else’s blood into an open wound or having sex willy nilly, you were good there.
Stiles had never been gladder to be an unappealing nerd than he was after discovering this fact. Seriously. If he had people trying to sleep with him left and right like the popular guys at school, he might as well shove his arm in a zombie’s mouth. As it stood, he was barely a step above virgin. But he wasn’t a virgin and that was a positive because dying a virgin would have sucked.
Of course, the longer the containment and isolation from other sources went, the more scarce supplies became which quickly led to the implementing of rationing. Luckily, Scott and Stiles were typical college students and their cupboards were already stocked to the brim with the sort of food that they didn’t have to worry about going bad. There was enough ramen, boxed mac n’ cheese, canned chili, and soda to last them a long while. They even had a full supply of junk food and frozen food, and while everyone expected the epidemic to be under control soon, they took no chances and kept a secret stash of the non-perishable foods, just in case. They were part of the “preparing for apocalypse” generation, after all, and that may have been just the thing to save them.
The crazy idea of containment worked to keep the sickness from invading for all of one month in the city of Boston. Not even. Three weeks and a couple days. The middle of the fourth week, shit went down in a bad way. Someone was infected. No one knew how it happened or where even, but they were and they were in the city. A crew put together for containment of the illness managed to quarantine the person, and several others who would later turn out to be afflicted.
After the scare, strict curfews were enforced and the number of allowed movements through the city cut back, but still, life went on. Everyone was on edge but most people didn’t want to let anything more scare them into hiding. When the city officials said they had rounded everyone up and gotten them out of the city, all the remaining citizens breathed a sigh of relief and it looked like things would be alright.
It wasn’t until the day an infected slipped through the cracks unnoticed, that things got serious. And right on Stiles’s campus, in his lecture hall, he got to witness first hand just what it was like for someone to turn. It was about a week or so since the first infected had arrived in the city. The girl had come in with a mask on, like many others did so it wasn’t really out of the ordinary. She’d sat down and pulled her supplies out, ready for the three hour long evening class. They had an exam the next week, so everyone who hadn’t already dropped out was in class to take down the study notes in an attempt not to fail out of the class. The teacher always waited until the last hour to give the aforementioned notes in order to keep the students there and not have them running out before lecture was over.
Half way through class, Stiles noticed the girl didn’t look so well; she was hunched over her desk, shoulders shaking slightly. With a concerned frown, he leaned over his row to hers, just to ask if she was alright in a low whisper. She nodded; giving what he assumed was a weak smile behind the mask before turning back to her notes. It wasn’t until the professor began outlining what to study that it actually went down.
One minute she was coughing quietly, then the next there was blood all over the front of her mask and she started gagging, almost as if she were going to throw up. She ripped the mask off, choking hard while more blood splattered on the floor. Everyone was moving away from her, including Stiles, unsure what to do.
One boy, an aspiring medical student, took a chance in approaching her and that’s when shit really hit the fan. With exceptional reflexes, the girl reached out, grabbing his arm and sinking bloody teeth into his arm as he let out a pained scream, too shocked to pull away immediately. It was that shocked hesitation that gave her the opening and after another moment, she was ripping flesh and muscle away, chewing. Stiles almost threw up from the site and sounds of her eating another human’s flesh. But even without that very obvious clue, there were also the sores that seemed to have just appeared on her skin that made him completely certain. It was in that moment Stiles knew exactly what was happening and he wasn’t going to stick around for the inevitable.
“Everyone get the fuck out of here! She’s infected!” He yelled, grabbing his backpack and pulling it over his shoulder as he practically jumped over a row or two to get to the stairs at the side, taking them two of three at a time just to get to the door first.
He was out the door and down the hall running, hearing more screams from the room behind him but not stopping or turning around to look back. That would be stupid and he’d seen enough horror movies to know that turning around meant death. Even if it was just one girl infected right now – and that poor bitten kid – he wasn’t taking any chances. Instead, he was dialing Scott, hoping his friend would answer and not just hit ignore like he’d done a million times before. A few rings and he got a hushed voice.
“Dude, I’m working…. Aren’t you supposed to be in class?”
“Fuck class. It’s here. That… whatever it is… Virus, disease. It’s here. I just saw this chick fully freak out and she bit a guy and… Fuck! Dude! We’ve got to do something! She was fucking eating him!”
“Just calm down! Are you okay?! Did she bite you or anything?!”
“No. Fuck. I’m okay. Fuuuuuck.”
“Go home. I’ll be there in twenty.”
Stiles pressed himself up into a little nook in the hall, head leaned back against the wall as he spoke to Scott and caught his breath. Hearing screams from the direction he’d just ran in, he looked up just in time to see some girls ran past him and there was blood on them, but he didn’t know if it was their own or someone else’s. Shit. “Hurry, dude. Please.”
And with that, Stiles hung up, taking off in a dead sprint for his bike as he avoided everyone gathering in the halls to check the commotion, glad that his apartment was only a few blocks down. Grabbing the bike, he jumped on and sped off, pedaling harder than he had ever before. Oh how he wished for his jeep, but she’d been benched for the semester, back home in Beacon Hills for repair because towing her cross country to get repaired would have been stupid. Getting home in almost no time, he was just about to throw his bike down outside, but after a moment, thought better of it and carried it inside. It was, as of the moment, his only means of transportation.
It was closer to forty five minutes when Scott finally arrived home, but he was in one piece and Stiles threw his arms around his friend, breathing hard and shaking. Scott hadn’t even experienced it in person and he looked pale in the face as he embraced his friend. Without pulling much apart, they move to sit to together on the couch. They didn’t move for a long time, turning the TV on to find the news playing no matter what channel really; people were panicking as more and more infected were coming out of the woodwork, biting others, eating flesh. The two could only watch in horror as the story played out on the screen as well as just outside their window. At one point, Stiles almost threw the remote through the screen because it was just horrific and he didn’t want to see it anymore. After that, they put on a movie and fell asleep on the couch, too scared to go to their individual rooms.
Containment crews were sent in to try and round up those bitten as well as those who had already succumbed to the disease. It took the rest of week in that first month and well into the first week of the second month for those fighting the diseased to “win”. And even then, it was another full week before the clean up was complete and they were approved to leave their home. That was the day Stiles started carrying around his old baseball bat from intramurals. Scott didn’t have any sports equipment to use as weapons – lacrosse sticks weren’t nearly as damaging as a metal bat – so he settled on a hammer for now, keeping it tucked in his belt loop.
They soon found out that actual weapons were hard to come by because of the tight security and the string of suicides by gun, along with an increase in crime during the madness, so they made do with their weapons and rarely went out without the other.
With the outbreak in the city quote-unquote handled, things went back to the locked down, controlled norm Stiles and Scott had grown accustomed to. Security was up and it looked like there was a whole slew of new cops standing around town, or patrolling the streets. While everyone else thought it made them feel safer knowing they had constant monitoring of the city, Stiles just felt uneasy. The sight of cops everywhere was foreboding, almost as if they knew what was coming but weren’t about to tell the civilians anything.
If nothing else, it reminded him of the days back home where he knew each and every move the police and sheriff departments made, thanks to being the sheriff’s kid. Being in the dark did not suit him one bit, and while he scrounged for information, it seemed even scarcer than previously. But they made do, and for the next week and a half, everything seemed to be fine. Maybe even looking on the up and up.
And then one morning, Stiles woke up and everything just felt…. Wrong. He slid out of bed, grabbing his bat and quickly going down the hall to Scott’s room to find his friend sitting up in bed, staring out the window with a frown. Stiles quickly clambered into Scott’s bed beside him without a word and the two sat wrapped up in Scott’s comforter like they hadn’t done since elementary school, just watching and waiting for whatever was coming to happen.
Outside was mysteriously calm, which should have been the first clue; rarely a car drove down their street and there were even less pedestrians. Neither was inclined to move to turn the TV on so they had no idea if there was a restriction on leaving the home put in place, but they weren’t going outside regardless. Beside the conspicuous lack of people, it was a beautiful sunny day that contradicted the feeling of dread and foreboding in the air, which made what happened next all the scarier.
It started at around one in the afternoon. A shrill screaming pierced the eerie silence outside. They both tumbled out of the bed, running for the window just in time to see a woman running down the street, and if the dark stain on her yellow shirt was any indicator, she was injured. It didn’t take long for the culprits to appear; a group of three decaying women in business suits were running after her at fast speeds, especially for ladies in heels and the one who’s entire left leg seemed to be twisted backwards.
Scott and Stiles exchanged equally terrified looks before going to shove their couch up against their door, and Stiles’s bookcase in front of the window that had the fire escape on it. Taking up their weapons, they climbed back into Scott’s bed, watching out the window as chaos descended on the city. There wasn’t anything else to do and they had to be prepared for what would come, even if that meant watching the infected chase the healthy.
It obviously wasn't the best plan, because every noise in their apartment made them jump, every scream from outside – or sometimes it sounded like inside on different floors – made them nervous. At one point, there was banging at their front door; someone in a panic screaming about needed bandages. They didn't knock for too long before running off to another door and Scott and Stiles exchanged guilty looks but this was about self-preservation and each other's safety. There wasn't a whole lot of room for helping complete strangers out.
They continued to watch the madness unfold, the flicker of fires in the distance and sirens as fire departments, ambulances, and containment squads alike zoomed through the city. Neither left the cocoon of blankets except to use the bathroom across the hall, and then the other would follow and stand watch outside the door; no action seemed too paranoid or too cautious. It wasn't until night fell that they realized they had literally sat there the entire day, but still they didn't move. They took turns sleeping, because it just felt safer that way, even though neither Scott nor Stiles felt rested after they'd slept.
As the next morning broke, it seemed like everything had mostly calmed down outside, but it was unspoken that they weren't leaving the apartment that day either. The electricity was still working, which seemed to be a good thing for now and they moved themselves to the living room after blocking Scott's window off; just in case because even though they were on the sixth floor, you could never be too careful. News reports on every channel talked about the sudden outbreak in Boston and things looked bleak. Sitting back to back on the couch, the two twenty year old males clutched their weapons and listened to the reports for hours before Stiles finally stood, disappearing into the kitchen and coming back with two frozen dinners.
"Might as well eat them while we still can." He said, though he wasn't hungry and he suspected Scott wasn't either by the way he picked at the food. But it was something to do.
Something to do outside of sitting and listening to the screams or the reports on the television or really anything to do with the madness outside. It was halfway through the fifth day of being locked in their apartment that a shocking news report came in. Something they had never thought they’d hear.
Stiles was eating a bowl of Cocoa Puffs while they still had milk and Scott was doing something odd like counting how many more days he could go before he had no clean underwear. The TV, like always, was on and droning on about the situation. Even the words “Breaking News” weren’t anything to make them do anything more than tune back into the anchor’s voice.
Both boys glanced to the TV, ready for it to tell them something else that would be wholly unhelpful to the two of them stuck in this apartment.
“We have reports now saying that if you encounter an infected person, you can and are highly encouraged to use whatever force necessary to terminate them. Containment Crews are unable to keep up with the sheer numbers and if you are able to do so without infecting yourself, execute the contaminated in order to protect the unaffected.”
Scott stared wide-eyed at the screen before looking at Stiles. “They just….”
“Oh my god, do they even realize how many people are going to end up killing others and blaming it on this shit?!”
“Dude… that’s only if there’s anyone else left.”
Stiles fell silent for the moment; they hadn’t heard any sirens for the last two days and any screaming at all today. “Still… it’s just…”
“I know, dude. I know.”
It had been a full week before either of them ventured out of the apartment. They’d been cooped up for far too long, and it had been days since they’d heard or seen any signs of zombie life outside their window.
The halls of their apartment building were unsurprisingly empty as they walked out, Stiles holding his bat by his side and Scott clutching his hammer. It was a mark of the tension that Stiles didn’t make any crack about Scott’s choice in weapon as they exited onto the street.
They’d seen what it’d looked like from their window, but on the ground level it was even worse. There were bodies, or parts of bodies, or blood stains where bodies had been. Cars were crashed into buildings and other cars, abandoned in favor of trying to outrun the bloodthirsty and fleshhungry creatures.
The two of them climbed into Scott’s SUV which was, by the grace of whatever deity, relatively unharmed. Driving down the street was slow going as they stared out the windows at the destruction on the street. But even more terrifying than all the wreckage and chaos were the parts of the neighborhood that looked normal and untouched, just so very empty.
Arriving at the little grocery store they frequented, Stiles climbed out first with his bat raised, looking around before walking to the door and trying it. When it opened easily, Scott followed, locking the vehicle behind him.
“Really, Scott? Who is going to come and steal your car?”
“Shut up. We don’t know who’s around and I am not being stuck without transportation.”
“It’s a piece of shit anyway.”
“Fuck you, your jeep isn’t any better.”
“Hey! Low blow, bro, low blow!”
At least their ability to banter mindlessly hadn’t been too affected.
They walked through the store, finding everything in place like it usually was, except the cheerful owner was nowhere in sight, her husband wasn’t at the meat counter, their teenage daughter wasn’t sweeping with a frown on her face, and their son – who was in some of Scott’s classes – wasn’t hitting on some woman by the register.
To be sure, they checked the backrooms as well, seeing no sign of the family, before Scott nudged Stiles out and the two started to grab whatever non-perishables they could get from the empty selection; the store hadn’t been well stocked in months but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
After bagging up their “purchases” – they left a note for the family, just in case – they headed for the door. Not much point in staying out if they didn’t have to. That’s when they heard it; the sound of footsteps and heavy breathing, then a wild shriek that didn’t sound human.
“Go!” Stiles shrieked, not needing to look back but doing so anyway; it was horrifying to see someone who had turned this close up – the girl in his class hadn’t been this bad yet when he’d run out – and he shoved Scott, all but flailing after him toward the doors.
“I’m going!” Scott yelled back, the two of them racing for the car while the former-human-now-flesh-eater ran at them. In his panic, he could barely get his keys out of his pocket.
What happened next went by so fast that Stiles wouldn’t be able to give an accurate account of what happened later even if anyone had asked. One moment they were at the car, Scott trying frantically to liberate his keys, the next, the bags Stiles held were scattered at his feet and he was lifting his bat, swinging as hard as he could.
There was a sickening thud as he made contact with the zombie’s face and it fell to the ground. Everything was still for a moment until the thing on the ground moved and with a shriek Stiles brought the bat down over its head once more. He dropped the bat, stepping back with wide eyes, every fiber of his tall, lanky frame shaking violently.
Looking back at Scott, who looked equally pale and shaky, he managed to yell at him to open the doors. It wasn’t until they’d scrambled into the car and sped off down the street, not taking their time like they had earlier, that everything started to hit Stiles.
He’d just killed someone. Killed a person. A loud, hysterical laugh bubbled its way out of his throat and Scott all but slammed on the brakes, startled by it. Luckily, they were right in front of their apartment building by then and fuck, he didn’t care as he parked on the sidewalk.
“Stiles… Stiles, no. Come on man, we have to get inside.” Scott pleaded, grabbing the bags he’d managed to hold onto before climbing out and running to the passenger side. In the end, he had to half carry half drag Stiles inside and up six flights of stairs.
He got them inside and Stiles onto the couch before the taller boy started to heave and gulp for air, grasping at his shirt over his chest. Scott recognized it as a panic attack, and he had never been too sure how to handle those despite having known Stiles since he first started getting them. But now was especially not a good time for him to try and handle this, and he sat on Stiles’s legs, grabbing his best friend’s face in his hands.
“Stiles! You gotta breathe! You gotta calm the fuck down.” Scott yelled, giving him a little shake, but Stiles was still panicking and not focusing, so Scott did the first thing that came to mind. Raising his hand up, he slapped Stiles straight across the face, the sound echoing in the silent apartment.
It may not have been the best way, but it worked as Stiles turned to stare up at Scott, finally sucking in a full breath. Scott nodded, patting Stiles’s chest and taking deep, visible breaths for Stiles to match.
They did this for ten, fifteen, maybe twenty minutes before they were both stable at least, and then Scott stood to push the dresser they were using as a barrier back in front of the door, leaving Stiles to continue breathing in and out on the couch. After a moment, Scott came back and pressed a bottle of whiskey into his friend’s hands, lifting his legs and sitting down with them in his lap.
“Did you really tell me to calm the fuck down and then slap me while I was having a panic attack?” Stiles asked weakly.
“Yea…”
“Dude… you’re the worst at comforting someone ever.”
“I gave you whiskey.”
“That… so doesn’t count.”
“Yes it does. Now drink.”
The two spent the rest of the day and night drinking, and every time Stiles seemed on the verge of hysterics, Scott would push the bottle to him again; not the best idea considering Stilinski family history but neither of them was prepared to deal with the imminent and looming conversation yet. The conversation where Stiles would freak out because he killed someone and Scott would have to remind him that that someone wasn’t a someone anymore and anyway, the not-someone was going to eat them so it was self-defense.
That talk would come a couple days later before they tried venturing out again; the electricity was out by now, and they were evidently missing candles as well as batteries for flashlights and radios. They knew what was out there now and what they’d have to do to stay safe. So armed with Scott’s hammer and a couple legs broken off an old side table to replace Stiles’s dropped bat, they headed out.
First stop had been a convenience store, grabbing the remainders of candles – which Stiles whined about because they were all the shitty scents and Scott pelted him with a box of tampons because who cared what they smelled like – and whatever else they could before hauling tail to the car again. The next stop was the Dick’s Sporting Good, because Stiles knew there was a gun section and even if that section were empty, they’d find at least something better than “the mighty Mjölnir” and their crappy table legs in the remainder of the store.
What they came away with was an armful of metal bats – “Any ammo we find isn’t gonna last forever, Scott.” – a huge storage container of ammo – “Yea, but this’ll last us a long time, Stiles.” – several guns, and a healthy disgust for the store manager who’d locked himself in the office with the weapons while he listened to the screams of his employees being eaten outside – the frantically scribbled note on the desk had told them that much, though the manager was nowhere to be seen and the office door had been torn off its hinges.
Karma.
One last sweep of the backroom, wielding a bat each after storing their new weaponry in the car, and they added some decent sized flashlights to the pile prior to heading home. They’d go scavenging again the next day, and the day after that as well. It’d be three days from then when Scott would shoot his first zombie, and another day before Stiles gave Scott the same pep talk that Scott gave him.
And then suddenly, it became a regular routine. Their days were spent gathering all the supplies and weapons they could find, their nights were spent huddled together, sleeping in shifts and checking all the stations on the radio for news. Some days they looked for other survivors – finding none – and other days were spent just planning. Planning on what they were going to do, when they were going to leave, how they were going to get out of here, and where they’d be going.
If anyone had asked them later, Scott and Stiles would have been able to tell them that it only took two weeks of living this life for any hesitation in killing the zombies to dissipate. They still felt guilt, because they both knew the moment they stopped caring about killing, they would have lost themselves. But the guilt was somewhat assuaged by their continued survival and a whole lot of whiskey.
It took about four weeks – four weeks of planning, of a regular routine of scavenging, of looking for survivors, and of killing zombies – before they’d started to pack up Scott’s SUV. The AM stations they could faintly pick up suggested that Pittsburgh had a safe zone still and to hell with staying in this dead city if there was potential for safety with other non-infected humans. They worked quickly and efficiently, putting everything into the SUV and without so much as a goodbye to the city they’d considered a second home, they left, glad to put it in their rearview.
Stiles sat in the passenger seat, long legs up on the dashboard as he reclined in his seat. “Alright, so according to the internet and my beautiful, beautiful smart phone with its car charger… the drive to Pittsburgh is about ten hours. So we can split it up five and five, or however you want.”
“Five and five is good. Hey… you got that notebook, right? Write down the directions… just in case.”
“Good call. Who knows when the internet gods will taketh their blessings away… -eth.”
Quickly scribbling down the exact directions along with mile amounts and such, Stiles tucked his phone away and pulled his iPod out. They’d tried all the FM stations and there was nothing on but static. That did not work for Stiles as he most certainly was not going to sit without music for the next ten hours, though if he wanted to he could easily fill the silence with chatter. But he suspected Scott would punch him about three hours in if he tried. Plugging the iPod into the other port in his USB car charger, he hooked it up to Scott’s radio and hit shuffle; he’d make an apocalypse playlist some other time.
For the first instance in three and a half months, things were looking up for the two of them. That is, until they came upon their first section of the roads that was backed up with cars, looking like everyone had just decided this stretch of road would be a perfect parking lot. It was eerie and unsettling, to say the least, as well as a huge ass inconvenience and the way the highway was separated by trees in the middle, meant having to find another way around the cars.
And that was how they discovered that the “simple” ten hour drive was going to be a lot longer than just ten hours.