Jo nodded.
"One, two, three." Reese and Jo lifted the travois until he could take the weight unassisted. He leaned forward and forced his legs to move, dragging the cradle forward through the sucking mud.
"Mush!” Ben shouted gleefully.
"This guy…” Reese grunted, shaking his head.
Jo picked her way through the mud field, ranging out ahead of them, using a long stick she'd found to maintain balance. Reese followed twenty yards behind, dragging Ben in the makeshift litter. Their rate of progress slowed even further than before, but Ben was able to finally rest his injured leg.
By the time they found a city limits sign on the edge of Ellsworth, Reese had long since given up looking at their surroundings as they walked. There were too many bodies, too much destruction, and too much sorrow for him to process. Instead he focused on one squelching step after another: pull free of the mud, slop a sodden shoe down one more step, repeat, and move a little further down the road. More than once, he lowered his guard and his eyes drifted to the side of the road. The further inland they moved, the more people they spotted in small clumps, gathered by the remains of structures. Some cried over bodies, others moved in a trance, not seeing anything as they stumbled around the wreckage of their lives.
Only once did someone approached them, running—comically slow as the mud stripped off one boot. The man approached them, begging for help. Reese informed him that they were seeking help for themselves, but instead of an angry response, the wretched survivor dropped to his knees in the mud and wept.
Jo gave the poor man half a bottle of water—her last reserves—and the last snack bar she’d brought from the ranger station, and they moved on. Every step brought them closer to the perceived salvation of Ellsworth.
The sun crept closer to the horizon with each slogging, painful mile they passed, but by the time they found a cluster of buildings on the outskirts of Ellsworth, the debris and mud from the tsunami finally started to lessen. Reese could hardly believe it as their pace quickened, less hindered by ankle-deep mud than the shin deep muck they'd been traveling through. Jo moved on ahead, easily outpacing Reese with the travois, until she disappeared from sight.
Everything around them was still wet—as if floodwaters had only recently receded a few hours earlier—but the high watermark stains on the sides of buildings only appeared about a foot above the ground. However, any hope Reese had of finding streetlights and welcoming, lit buildings in Ellsworth were dashed as the sun fully set and darkness swabbed the town.
"They lost power this far inland?" Reese gasped as they finally broke free of the mud field and dragged the litter across damp, but clear asphalt.
"I guess so," Ben replied. “Okay, man, let me out—I can handle walking on this. Seriously,” Ben pleaded from the travois.
"Don't gotta tell me twice," Reese said, dropping his burden to the ground.
Ben clambered from the litter and retrieved his spindly crutch, then winced as he put weight on his injured leg. "Thanks, bro. I'd still be back there in the mud if you hadn’t—”
Reese waved off his gratitude while trying to stretch his back. "Don't worry about it."
Jo found them a moment later, a broad smile plastered on her face. She walked up with a spring in her step, her stick thumping on the asphalt. "Well boys, I got good news, and I got bad news. Whaddya want first?" She waited, glancing from Ben to Reese.
Reese sighed. “Let’s have the bad news.”
Jo stuck her tongue out at him. “Party pooper. Alright, it’s pretty obvious—there’s no power here,” she said, raising both hands to encompass the buildings lining the deserted street.
“And the good news?” asked Ben in a tired voice.
“We ain’t the only people left on earth after all. Looks like a good chunk of town—the ones that stayed behind, that is—are all gathered over yonder.”
In the gathering gloom, Reese could hardly see where she pointed, but he could see a faint glow emanating in the distance, behind the row of small shops that lined the street. “Is that light?” he asked.
“Ahyup,” Jo replied, rocking on her heels. “Looks like the locals got some gennys runnin’ over at the Walmart. I’d say it’s the only game in town right about now.”
“I don’t know about you guys,” Reese breathed, “but I’m about at the end of my rope.”
“Right there with ya,” Jo replied. She clapped Reese on the back. “What say we go check it out?”
“Think they have any bottled water and toilet paper?” asked Ben as the group limped down the road.
It took longer than Reese liked, stumbling around on dark, unfamiliar streets, but they finally rounded one last building and came within sight of the Walmart. Immediately, Reese’s rising spirits crashed to earth and burst into flames.
The store itself was in a state of partial collapse. Most of the front windows by the double set of automatic doors had been smashed. The doors themselves had been covered in haphazard chunks of graffiti smeared plywood. A semi-circle of cop cars, lights flashing, stood as silent sentinels in front of the building. Outside the barrier, maybe half a dozen uniformed cops held a sizable crowd at bay.
They stood at the far end of the parking lot and watched the writhing mass of people. There were arc lights set up at strategic points behind the cop cars. Reese could see the situation was almost completely out of hand. An object sailed through the air over the crowd toward the store, glinting in the harsh glare of the lights. It shattered into a thousand sparkling teardrops on the hood of the closest squad car.
“You guys see that? Someone’s throwing bottles at the cops…” muttered Reese.
“You
