Derek had slowed down his car's speed considerably as he had gotten further away from the city's downtown, closer to its more suburban streets. Initially, he'd simply slammed his foot down on the gas and hit anything that got in front of him, hoping that they were the undead. He'd been slowing down gradually as the roads had cleared and people, both living and otherwise, had become less populous. Derek could only guess at the reasons behind it. Obviously, there were less people the farther from the city that you got, but his theory was that the zombies which had originated at the outskirts had all swarmed inward, where there was likely to be more...food. The last thought sent another shiver down Derek's spine, but he tried to ignore it.<br/><br/>Now that there were less people, Derek actually started to swerve in order to hit any zombies that he saw on the road. The more of them he killed, the less people stuck without a car would die, or so he hoped. As he sped up to get past a clump of zombies, not wishing to try hitting them all at once, Derek thought he caught a glimpse of another moving car, probably just under a mile ahead of him on the road.<em>Could it be a zombie that just happened to have its foot on the pedal? Or maybe they're dead...with cruise control on, or their foot stuck on the gas. Fuck...why the fuck did all of this happen?!</em>His knuckles turned white as Derek gripped the steering wheel tighter and decided to slow down, trying to keep out of the other car's view. It didn't really make sense to do so, since if the person was a zombie or dead, they wouldn't even notice him anyway. But he wanted to be careful, so he hung back.<br/><br/>A few miles further down the road, Derek slammed on his brakes. The other car, which was a very distinct violet PT Cruiser, was turning into the parking lot of some sort of Coffee Shop. The name sounded vaguely familiar to him, but he couldn’t really remember why. After a few moments of hesitation, Derek turned the steering wheel sharply and veered off the road, toward the Coffee Shop. He slowed down to the point that he was almost at a crawl as Derek’s car got closer to the joint. Steeling himself, Derek slowly pulled up next to the PT Cruiser and, after a few seconds, rolled his window down about halfway, hand ready to draw his pistol.