Drew turned off at the exit then drove quickly past all the typical interstate exit carnage. There were burnt buildings along the sides of the road. The vehicles scattered around were a mix of military and civilian ones parked at odd angles. Here and there human sized lumps lie in the road covered in the rags that used to be their clothes. Nature slowly working away at the leathery flesh and faded yellow bones that were all that remained of what used to be living, breathing, laughing people. Each lump had their own story. None of them ever dreaming their story would end up like it had. Going out as a pile of rotting meat on the street of some exit in the middle of nowhere.
Drew dodged the fleshy speed bumps and headed down a road named Lakes Blvd. The name of the road made him think this exit might have been a good option after all. He took the first left turn once they got out of the main part of the town and followed it as it looped through a ritzy looking neighborhood. Continuing on down the road he veered sharply to the right to get on a loop that ran around a lake. They could see the sky-blue water peeking at them through gaps in the trees they were passing.
“This is where the rich people live.” LeBron said in awe as Drew drove them down a random driveway towards the lake. The driveway he’d selected didn’t lead to the biggest house. He’d chosen one instead that was set back off the road further than the others. The large house had a dock with a boathouse on the end of it down by the lake. Drew parked in the driveway in front of the four-car garage.
“I wonder if they have stables?” Drew asked no one in particular. He was also impressed by the expensive looking lake house. For some reason it’d gotten him thinking about the possibility of riding horses around. It might be the future of transportation as gas supplies continued to dwindle. Yue ripped him right out of the saddle of his horse-riding fantasy back to the harsh reality of their lives.
“Hurry up and clear the house. We need to get dad somewhere safe and comfortable. He’s not waking up at all now.” She said poking at Bart and fussing over him. She looked scared.
Drew and LeBron got out of the truck quickly. They walked towards the large house with weapons at the ready. Even with the extra ammunition they’d found on the dead soldiers back at the rest stop in Florida they were running dangerously low. Dangerously low defined as anything less than a couple of barrels full of bullets each. They had multiple green ammo boxes full of loose bullets plus the twenty or so magazines they kept loaded. They’d seen how fast those rounds disappeared when they got into a serious confrontation though.
The house was locked up tight. Assuming the owners weren’t sitting inside getting ready to shoot them in the face through the tinted bay windows that was actually a great sign. No windows were broken, and the doors were all locked. That meant that there probably weren’t any crawlerz curled up inside on the couch waiting for a couple of nimrods to come busting in the front door. Drew was thinking this was some rich dudes vacation house. He was less concerned now with clearing the house than with how they could get in without breaking a window.
“Let’s go around back.” He whispered to LeBron who nodded in understanding. They moved around the house checking each window as they went. A full revolution of the house later they were standing back where they’d started. They were still trying to figure out a way in that didn’t involve breaking a window. Yue kept looking over at them and making hand motions for them to hurry up.
Drew told LeBron to wait then ran back over to the truck. He hopped in the driver’s seat and backed the truck up until he actually hit one of the ornately carved wooden supports for the front porch. With Yue fuming at him to just bust out a window on the bottom floor he jumped out and crawled across the hood of the Expedition to get on the roof. He walked quickly across the roof of the big SUV and used that extra height to boost himself up on the roof of the wraparound porch. He waved down at LeBron and Yue then went to check the windows up on the second floor.
The three windows he could get to from up there were all locked. One of them was a fancy window that opened vertically instead of horizontally. It flexed when Drew pushed on it. He kept applying more and more pressure until the top part of the frame snapped. He kept pushing until one side of the window came loose. Once he had that side open, he unlocked it to open the other side then quickly slithered in.
Yue could be frustrated all she wanted but Drew had gone through all the extra hassle for their dad. They needed a place that was comfortable that they wouldn’t have to run from any time soon. That’s why he didn’t want to go around breaking windows to show that someone was in the house. If nothing had broken in previously it stood to reason that they should be safe to spend a few days here. Not that reason was something you could necessarily depend on in this new normal. Drew put the window back in the frame as well as he could making a mental note to bring up a roll of duct tape to seal it back off.
Drew walked quickly through the
