“How are you doing in all of this?” Shaun asked once Bart had finished drilling.
“About as well as can be expected. How about you two?” Bart asked. He looked over at the neighbors bungalow. They’d spent the extra money to install the hurricane shutters. Bart had made fun of them for that since they lived so far inland. Now he was kicking himself for not having selected to have that done to their own home. It wasn’t like the slightly higher mortgage payment would matter at this point.
“No worries. We had a few facetime calls with our family back in England. What’s coming isn’t pretty.” Shaun said. His wife was nodding sadly behind him. She looked pretty well plastered. Given the circumstances you couldn’t really blame her.
“Alright then.” Bart said and continued screwing in their last sheet of plywood while Drew and LeBron held it straight. Shaun waited for them to finish then asked Bart if he could possibly buy a gun off of him. Bart looked like he was coming up with a nice way to say no when Shaun interrupted him.
“I know how valuable weapons are at this point. I’m not stupid enough to offer you cash. What I do have is a lot of instant noodles, rice, potatoes and what not. I can trade you for a pistol and some ammunition. It’s not a bad thing to have someone the house over shooting at the same bad guys that you’re shooting at.”
Chapter 10: A Looting We Will Go
Drew glanced over at Shaun’s house as him and his dad crept out of the house later that night. Bart had come to an agreement with Shaun which had netted them a few large boxes packed with food. It turned out Shaun was a bit of a prepper. He’d stocked up on tons of instant food in case of a hurricane or alligator attacks or whatever it was that freaked out people from England who moved to Florida. Whatever the reason they’d made a deal where Bart parted with a nine-millimeter handgun along with three magazines worth of bullets in exchange for a ridiculously large amount of food. He’d have felt bad about how much food they took except that it didn’t even really put a dent in the massive supply Shaun had stored in his garage.
They were walking tonight. There was a trail that ran past their home all the way to the local downtown area. It ran past a couple of restaurants and grocery stores as it twisted along through the woods. They’d biked, skated and walked the trail together as a family about a million times. It was something their mom had liked to do every night. Drew had never felt unsafe stepping out onto the narrow-paved trail before. Now the trail lurked ominously in front of them. The biggest fear they’d ever had in the past was that there might be a gator hidden in the weeds since it ran along the side of several large retention ponds. Now Drew imagined everything from crawlers to desperate refugees lurking in the weeds on either side of the narrow trail.
“Hurry up!” His dad hissed at him. Bart had already warned him that once they went out the door they needed to move fast. They needed to put as much distance between themselves and the house as they could. LeBron, Yue and Nancy were all loaded up and ready to defend the house, but it’d be much better if they didn’t have to. Drew jogged along behind his dad down the trail for about five minutes before Bart slowed to a stop. His dad had either decided to stop because he judged they’d gone far enough or because he was on the verge of a heart attack.
“Maybe it’s time to stop using the treadmill to hang wet clothes on.” Drew suggested with a smirk. He was standing beside his dad who was now hunched over trying to catch his breath. Bart started to say something back to Drew but was trying too hard not to puke up the ramen noodles he’d wolfed down before they left. Drew wasn’t even breathing hard.
“Let’s go.” Bart said once he was finally able to straighten up. Drew was right. He’d definitely let himself go in retirement. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually jogged further than the refrigerator. He only did that when he was in a hurry to get a snack before the commercials ended. It was a long cry from the excellent shape he’d kept himself in earlier in life. Like the end of the world didn’t already suck enough now he was going to have to work on his cardio. Otherwise he’d end up crawling through the night trying to eat people for the rest of his life.
They’d gotten enough dried goods from Shaun earlier to bolster their stores to the levels he thought they needed. The reason Bart had decided to still go on the supply run with Drew was to get in some recon of the local area. It was one thing to stare out the drill holes in your plywood covered windows at random freaks running through the neighborhood. It’s another thing entirely to venture out a few miles and really see what’s going on. He was hoping to get a feel for how hard it was going to be to escape later. He was reconsidering staying in the house and wondering if they should make their run now instead. If they happened to find a bunch of canned food that he could make Drew carry back home that’d just be icing on the cake.
Bart had decided for them to
