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Authors: David Rogers
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building was small. Even without power, it was well lit with sun scattering in through the windows. With Austin trailing and covering her, she re-cleared the whole building once more, then snapped open a pair of garbage bags and doubled them up together.
This being backwoods Georgia, and a gas station, there was plenty of jerky, in a variety of flavors and types. All of it went into the bag, followed by all the snack crackers and pretzels she could find, then hard candy and bagged soft candies that hadn’t deteriorated in nearly two months of no air conditioning. The days might be cool, and the nights cold, now; but before that un-air-conditioned interior temperatures had been in the 80s and 90s on some days. There was no way the chocolate bars had survived those conditions, not without disintegrating into melted messes, so she left them alone.
She topped the bag off with whatever potato chips would fit, then hefted it over her shoulder and lugged it out to the car. Jessica didn’t care if any of the chips got crunched up due to rough handling; she’d already started experimenting with potato chip stew. The concoction was bolstered with whatever kind of canned soup she might have on hand from the latest scavenging, but the chips helped stretch it and bulk up the calories. And it wasn’t bad if the chips didn’t go in too soon, and if more were reserved to sprinkle across the top while eating.
“Potato chip soup.” she thought as she stuffed bags of Lay’s and Ruffles into her sack. “What hell my mom would raise if she knew that’s what I was feeding my daughter.”
She burned a few more trips hauling out some two liter bottles of soda, plus a few cases of bottled individual sized sodas, just because they would count as cheap calories that would yield more water bottles once drunk. But other than some packs of lighters and a double handful of batteries, that was the extent of what was on offer. Not much. Something, but not much.
As she was scooping the batteries and lighters into a plastic bag from the store’s stock, Austin spoke up.
“We’ve got maybe two hours until dark.”
Jessica nodded. “Probably.”
“What’re you thinking?”
She doubled the bag into another, then tied its handles off in a firm shoelace knot so the contents wouldn’t escape. “After what happened earlier, definitely get the hell out of Georgia.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“What then?”
He gestured upward. “Traveling after dark is stickier than daylight, especially when we’re going to have to stop for gas. Even if we don’t have any problems with visibility, driving through the night is going to mean we have to do another fuel stop before morning. Or we’ll have to stop and stay in the car, without a lot of fuel left in the tank to keep us going.”
Jessica left the bag on the counter and leaned back against the shelves behind her. “Yeah, that had occurred to me.”
“We’re quite a ways from Knoxville. One night around here somewhere won’t hurt. Unless you want to sleep in the car; but we should probably still take a look around and pick a spot to stay until morning.”
Jessica nodded unhappily. She really wanted to keep going, but being out after dark was dangerous. Zombies were quiet, with nothing but the scrape of their feet on the ground and the occasional bit of rustling clothing to announce their presence. Moaning and growling; that was the movies. When a body died, the heart and lungs stopped. Without air moving through the throat, there was no Hollywood soundtrack or Foley artist to announce the monster’s presence.
How the zombies kept walking and eating without the use of their heart and lungs was an entirely different question; but she had to work with what she knew. They walked, they ate; they killed. Why, how . . . irrelevant, and they weren’t in any sort of question-answering shape. Seeing them was the only defense. In
This being backwoods Georgia, and a gas station, there was plenty of jerky, in a variety of flavors and types. All of it went into the bag, followed by all the snack crackers and pretzels she could find, then hard candy and bagged soft candies that hadn’t deteriorated in nearly two months of no air conditioning. The days might be cool, and the nights cold, now; but before that un-air-conditioned interior temperatures had been in the 80s and 90s on some days. There was no way the chocolate bars had survived those conditions, not without disintegrating into melted messes, so she left them alone.
She topped the bag off with whatever potato chips would fit, then hefted it over her shoulder and lugged it out to the car. Jessica didn’t care if any of the chips got crunched up due to rough handling; she’d already started experimenting with potato chip stew. The concoction was bolstered with whatever kind of canned soup she might have on hand from the latest scavenging, but the chips helped stretch it and bulk up the calories. And it wasn’t bad if the chips didn’t go in too soon, and if more were reserved to sprinkle across the top while eating.
“Potato chip soup.” she thought as she stuffed bags of Lay’s and Ruffles into her sack. “What hell my mom would raise if she knew that’s what I was feeding my daughter.”
She burned a few more trips hauling out some two liter bottles of soda, plus a few cases of bottled individual sized sodas, just because they would count as cheap calories that would yield more water bottles once drunk. But other than some packs of lighters and a double handful of batteries, that was the extent of what was on offer. Not much. Something, but not much.
As she was scooping the batteries and lighters into a plastic bag from the store’s stock, Austin spoke up.
“We’ve got maybe two hours until dark.”
Jessica nodded. “Probably.”
“What’re you thinking?”
She doubled the bag into another, then tied its handles off in a firm shoelace knot so the contents wouldn’t escape. “After what happened earlier, definitely get the hell out of Georgia.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“What then?”
He gestured upward. “Traveling after dark is stickier than daylight, especially when we’re going to have to stop for gas. Even if we don’t have any problems with visibility, driving through the night is going to mean we have to do another fuel stop before morning. Or we’ll have to stop and stay in the car, without a lot of fuel left in the tank to keep us going.”
Jessica left the bag on the counter and leaned back against the shelves behind her. “Yeah, that had occurred to me.”
“We’re quite a ways from Knoxville. One night around here somewhere won’t hurt. Unless you want to sleep in the car; but we should probably still take a look around and pick a spot to stay until morning.”
Jessica nodded unhappily. She really wanted to keep going, but being out after dark was dangerous. Zombies were quiet, with nothing but the scrape of their feet on the ground and the occasional bit of rustling clothing to announce their presence. Moaning and growling; that was the movies. When a body died, the heart and lungs stopped. Without air moving through the throat, there was no Hollywood soundtrack or Foley artist to announce the monster’s presence.
How the zombies kept walking and eating without the use of their heart and lungs was an entirely different question; but she had to work with what she knew. They walked, they ate; they killed. Why, how . . . irrelevant, and they weren’t in any sort of question-answering shape. Seeing them was the only defense. In
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