"If you don't mind me askin..." she trailed off for a second, "What happened to your sister?"
Jason arched a brow and looked over to Alex as she asked, looking down and taking a breath before speaking. "...Well, she and my mom were over in louisiana when all this happened, and I was stuck south of here, and she called me up before I even heard about zombies. She was all 'Jayjay there are dead people walkin' around and eating people,'" he did a poor "...and then I was all, 'whaddaya mean? Ophie I think you were watchin' too many horror movies last night' but then she was all 'noooo I'm bein' serious here. me an' mom are heading up to Mobile Alabama, meet us there as soon as y'can.'" he paused his hushed speaking, listening for any shuffling before continuing, "but I was all, 'but ophie what if I cant make it up there? and wouldn't it be safer over here, considerin' I aint seen any dead people?' so she was all 'fine then, me an' mom will wait in mobile and if ya haven't shown up for a long time- like maybe a month? I dunno I'll ask mom- we'll start lookin for ya.' and then she hung up and I aint heard from her since."
As he told the story, he looked away from Alex, to the intersection they were at, then to the map in his hands. After he decided that they didn't have to turn for a while, he looked back to Alex. "So, I guess long story short... uh, well, my sis' is lookin' for me, and I'm not sure if she's in mobile, or if she's down here. Being bad with time doesn't help much, but I figure that with how impatient my mom and sis are, it's already been way too long, and it can't hurt to ask around." He gave a slight shrug and a nervous, hopeless smirk as they walked, and as he fell silent for a while.
The next time that he spoke up was at the next turn they took, where he had paused and looked round before going left, revealing that they had walked around a big pile up of cars, some burnt, most abandoned and bloody. With a grimace, he looked away, muttering "one shitty way to go" under his breath, a hand resting on the knife in his pocket. There was an audible shuffling coming from the street over, causing him to tighten his jaw and look around nervously. His eye caught another fire escape and he made his way there, motioning for alex to follow as he pulled down the escape and held it for her. He needed to see what the deal was, and make an estimate about how long it'd take for it to be safe enough to get through to the minimall.