Read Online Alive! Not Dead! by R.M. Smith - Free Book Online Page B

stalled cars on the highway.  Cindy kept on telling him to keep the speed down.  He kept shrugging her off though.
    As we drove, the conversation was pretty light.  Ski kept his DVCD player going the whole time.  It made it difficult to have a good conversation.  He played the music almost too loud, but at least it was decent old rock n roll.
    Ski and Cindy both had taught grade school in Airway Heights.  Mindy didn’t have a job but was in line for an interview to become an airline stewardess at Continental.
    As we drove, I observed my fellow travelers.  For a while I watched Ski driving, his left hand on the wheel, his other firmly grabbing a shogun that he had somehow jammed between the seats.  The shotgun was standing straight up, barrel up.  He would only take his hand off the barrel of the shotgun to adjust the volume on the DVCD player. He would turn the volume down if he had something to say.  Most of the time he kept quiet.  I would notice him glancing back at me a lot of the time in the rear view mirror.  I could tell by his facial expression that he wasn’t afraid or concerned about me; he was just making sure I was listening to the music.
    He had a cleft chin.  I pictured him with his baseball cap, a white t-shirt, shorts with a whistle strung around his neck yelling at kids in the gym, telling them to run their laps.  I wouldn’t go as far as to say that he had a kind of superhero’s face, but he was a ruggedly handsome man with a shaved head.  He had exactly straight white teeth when he smiled.
    Cindy rarely ever stopped looking out her side of the jeep.  Sometimes her head would keep a beat to a song on the cd, but she didn’t look at Ski at all.  I didn’t know if she was older or younger than Mindy, but I could tell they were sisters.  Her long dark hair would blow in the wind, too.  Sometimes she brushed it out of her pretty face, but she never looked back at me or even at Ski.  I wondered if she and Ski were arguing.  They didn’t seem to have a couple’s chemistry…or maybe she was on her period.  Then again, with the way the world had changed and so many people had died, maybe she was just in her own state of mourning.  After all, she did just find out that her parents were probably dead.  She seemed to have a short temper, and she didn’t act like she trusted me.
    Mindy was next to me on my right in the backseat.  Sometimes she would sing along with the songs.  She had a pretty singing voice.  She was also much prettier than her sister – actually prettier than most women.  Her face was clear of any blemishes.  Her eyes were a striking blue.  She had a very easy going personality.
     
    As we came into the small town of Connell, Cindy started talking about being hungry.  We all agreed to stop.  There was a Harvest Foods grocery store in town that Cindy shopped at from time to time.  It was next to a Michael J’s Family Restaurant.  If the grocery store didn’t yield anything, we decided Michael J’s might be the ticket.  There had to be some fresh food in one of them.  Ski parked the Jeep right at the front doors of the grocery store.  There were a few cars in the parking lot.  A few others were parked in slots further away from the store.  Employee parking , I thought.  Ski pulled the shotgun from between the seats.  We all went into the darkening store.
    It was starting to get late.
    There was enough leftover daylight coming through the front windows for us to make out our surroundings.  Most of the aisles were empty of food.  The whole place had been looted.  There weren’t even any empty boxes on the shelves.
    Cindy said “C’mon there has to be something!”
    “I’ll check in the back,” Ski said.
    “Be careful.  You don’t know what’s back there.”
    He smiled an I’m-not-afraid-of-anything smile as he went through some swinging doors.  We heard some rummaging around.  He came back out holding a lit flashlight.  “I found