The next morning I went out to the garage to find my red and black motorcycle. I had promised Jacob a race after all.

We might not have a lot of time left together and I wanted to make the best of it. Which meant a bit of racing. We were going to make a memory.

My bike was in good shape. Clearly, my uncles had taken good care of her.

I felt someone watching me. I turned around.

"You seriously have a motorbike but you can't drive a car?" Jacob rolled his eyes.

I leaned over the bike's handlebars as I sat down. "I don't have a license. I can drive."

"I've seen you drive. I know what I'm saying." Jacob teased. "I thought that this would be a little too... Dangerous for you."

"Hey, I can do danger!"

"I know you can. I've seen you do some awfully stupid things in front of zombies. But everything I've heard about pre-Z Locke? Well, it makes you sound like a square."

"You know I'm not a square." I said as I put on my helmet.

Jacob smiled. "Yeah I guess so."

"You're looking at me funny."

"I'm not."

"Yes you are."

Jacob rolled his eyes again. "You're so weird. So are you actually serious about racing me?"

"I don't know. Are you taking care of your shoulder?"

Jacob shrugged. And then winced.

"I take that as a no." I sighed. "Well you took it easy last night like I asked."

"You're such a good doctor." He teased.

"Shut up. I guess we can race. But I need to get some practice in. I'm rusty."

"Oh of course." Jacob laughed. "You're still gonna lose."

"I mean probably." I shrugged.

"That's not how smack talk goes. You're supposed to say something like, no you're going down!"

"Aw but annoying you is so much more fun." I smiled.

He scoffed. "I'd hardly say you're annoying me."

"Oh yeah? You sound annoyed to me." I teased, winking at him.

He rolled his eyes. "Okay race you at three."

"Seems too soon. Your shoulder—"

"Yeah yeah," He waved his hand dismissively. "Doctor says I'm fine."

"I'm your doctor and no I did not. I literally just said five seconds ago—"

"You said we could race if I took it easy. Which I did. Besides, we're probably gonna be leaving soon anyway. I wanna race you once before that."

I tried to mask my disappointed expression. I knew he had to leave but it felt different to hear it coming from him. My shoulders slumped, but I tried to cover up by leaning down to check on my bike.

"Yeah. Fine, we'll do that." I gulped.

"It's a date, Locke." Jacob put his good arm casually in his pocket, leaving me alone with my bike.

I spent the rest of the morning getting used to being on a motorcycle. It'd definitely been a while. It felt like an eternity, but really that was simply due to the zombie apocalypse.

At three o'clock the gang gathered outside, on a little dirt road outside my uncles' house where I had practiced. I was still rusty, but I felt confident that I could probably beat Ducky, if only because Rebel, the stupid name I'd given my motorcycle, wasn't slowed down by weight quite as badly as Ducky. There I had an advantage.

Nicole climbed into Jacob's passenger seat and Callie climbed in the back.

"I thought this was just you and me?" I asked, stopping at the line we'd spray painted to be the starting line.

"It's not like I'm gonna let either of them drive, but sure they can join me!"

Felt like three against one somehow, but I didn't have the logic to back it up, so I allowed it. Fine the girls could take Jacob's side. It just made me want to win harder.

Jake stood between our vehicles. "Can I ride with Jacob too—"

"No." I told him.

He frowned. "Fine. Okay first one to reach the tree, loop it and then make it back to the starting line is the winner."

He waited for us. I gave him the thumbs up after making sure my helmet was secure. Jacob sent him a thumbs up as well.

"On your mark, get set, go!"

Jake didn't have a standard racing flag to swing. Instead he had borrowed one of Uncle Fred's pride flags, the tiny cheap ones they had out at parades, and swung that instead. It didn't have much of an effect but the colors were quite pretty.

I hit the gas. Too hard. My bike jerked forward in an unnatural manner. I smoothed out the ride, transitioning away from the initial abrupt start.

Ducky sped past me as I figured out what I was doing. I could feel the wind on my skin as I pushed forward. I caught up to Ducky just as we rounded the tree.

Dirt flew up and created a haze of dust in front of me. I gagged, as my mouth immediately tasted gross and old. My bike teetered a bit but I caught myself.

I zipped around to Ducky's driver's side, waving as I caught up with Jacob. He stuck his tongue out, a gesture I mimicked.

I barely overtook him. I crossed the spray painted line seconds before Ducky.

My stop was as smooth as my start. Out of excitement I tried to break a bit too quickly and was nearly thrown off my bike. I managed to keep myself in my seat.

Jacob came to a pretty clean stop— thank god cause he had Callie and Nicole in the car with him. He got out, looking as strange as the day we first met with his tall boots and black leather jacket. He leaned against the car, looking somewhat smug, somewhat impressed.

"That was a tie." He said.

"No it wasn't. I clearly won."

"It was definitely a tie." I could tell by his grin he only meant to aggravate me.

"JJ, tell him I won."

Jake hesitated. "Well..."

He too wanted to annoy me by denouncing it a tie. He was torn between honesty as a judge and his duty as a younger brother.

"It was pretty close, Eri."

"Oh come on, JJ."

Jacob high fived him.

"Judge declares it a tie. Sorry, Eri. What can you do?"

I opened my mouth to argue some more just as I notice more dirt kick up near the road. A black mustang swerved as it stopped in front of my uncles' house. A man stepped out.

We stared.

Okay long time no see! I'm terribly sorry for the delay. I'm still alive, still writing! Last year was just a really depressing year for me and some big stuff happening in March that made it hard for me to write. I really want to finish this story! It'll probably be the last story I publish on this Wattpad account. If I continue with Wattpad it'll probably be a new account that's not attached to the stuff I wrote when I was fourteen, or I might stop Wattpad altogether cause I'm never on and almost no one reads my stuff anyway. I'm not continuing any other projects I've started on Wattpad. But I PROMISE I'm finishing Dead Serious first. Even if it takes me five years, I'm finishing Dead Serious and I'm finishing it here. Anyway my last chapter was posted February 7th, 2021 so it's almost been an ENTIRE YEAR. Yikes. My bad.
Shoutout to Kcplayz7805 for encouraging me to keep going! You might be my only reader, but I absolutely appreciate you so much. This chapter is dedicated to you.
~Oz