By the time they finished loading the Hummer it was getting dark. Yue was worried they’d pushed the envelope too hard trying to get everything done in such a short amount of time. LeBron kept nervously peeking out the windows to see if a parade of crawlerz were heading their way. They gathered together in the yard with their dad and said a few last words. They held hands and said the Lord’s Prayer as they’d done a zillion times on Sundays as a family back before the death of civilization. Then Drew bent down with a lighter and set the comforter on fire.
They didn’t have time to stay and watch it burn. Trusting in the gasoline-soaked blanket to handle the task they’d set for it they jogged back to the Hummer and put the garage door up. Yue drove while Drew rode literal shotgun. He was happy to be driving down the road in a vehicle that actually had all of its windows. He knew that wouldn’t last long. Other than trying to say a few comforting words Yue and Drew both ignored the continued sobbing coming from LeBron in the back seat.
Chapter 31: All for One
“Do you think we should paint a three on the door?” Drew broke the long silence. He’d been trying to remember the number from the movie for the last twenty miles.
“I’ve been thinking that since we first saw this thing sitting in the garage.” LeBron said. Yue looked over at him happy to see that Drew had managed to wring a smile out of their perma-depressed brother.
“I’ll be happy if we can keep the windows in this one. We’re going to have to figure out that syphoning trick too. Using the turn signal on this thing eats up a gallon of gas.” Drew said looking uneasily at the gas gauge on the overly masculine dashboard. Whoever had bought this thing was definitely trying to compensate for something.
LeBron’s smile slipped slowly away as silence reclaimed the interior of the Hummer. None of them were ok. The toll of losing both their parents so horrifically in such a short amount of time was a terrible burden on all of them. Drew kept remembering that he’d only been legally adopted since right before this all started. He’d only been able to really call them mom and dad for a short amount of time. Until they’d actually taken him to the courthouse and signed the papers, he hadn’t really believed it was going to happen. Deep down he’d felt like he was going to be rejected again.
LeBron was a wreck while Yue seemed to be doing ok. Part of that was her trying to be strong for her little brothers. Bart and Nancy had been the only parents she’d ever known. She didn’t remember foster care or the adoption process or any of that. She just remembered being brought up in a house filled with love. The values and strength her parents had instilled in her were what was helping her cope with their deaths now. She wished she could transfer some of that inner strength to her brothers.
“We need a plan.” Yue announced.
“You’re saying that driving north isn’t going to fix everything?” Drew joked.
“I’m saying I want to live a long healthy life. I’d like the same for for both of you. That’s not going to happen if we get killed. Driving north for the sake of driving north isn’t going to cut it. Where do we stop? How do we know when we’ve got where we going? We need a destination. We need a plan.” Yue said dramatically.
The conversation about a plan brought LeBron back out of his shell. He’d been thinking a lot about what they should do. His overly analytical brain ripped apart everything he came up with though. The idea of finding an isolated farm like the President had brought up in his speech sounded great on the surface. Until you realized that there’d be a ton of survivors trying out that option since the President had mentioned it. Survivors tended to be very territorial. They also tended to be well armed. Considering none of them had ever so much as grown vegetables in the backyard they could put that option towards the bottom of the list.
After seeing how the family had been surviving on the pontoon boat, he liked the idea of living in a large lake with places along the banks to loot, hunt or pick food. Just because they couldn’t farm didn’t mean they couldn’t pick fruit and vegetables. LeBron had no idea how corn worked. He assumed that if you had a big cornfield one year then the corn would grow there again the following year. Even if that’s not how corn worked, he did know that apples and grapes and fruits would keep on growing on the same trees and vines every year.
They had weapons. They could always hunt for what they needed. With most of the human population wiped out there was going to be wildlife galore. By next summer they’d probably be tripping over deer and other wild game. The same could be said for the fish populations as well. With a little bit of effort, they could survive out in the middle of nowhere.
Scavenging wasn’t going to be an easy long-term solution. Pretty much all of the brick and mortar retail stores had been cleaned out before the crawlerz even made it over the border. If they wanted to carve out an existence by scavenging, then they’d have to do it by house hopping. Even that might not get them what they needed to survive. Back in their old house they’d watched as at least one group of refugees went door to door collecting all the supplies they could. The only
