“It’s not impossible to survive by looting houses. Our neighbors had a house full of supplies and they died less than a week into it. We abandoned our house and it was full of food and weapons. We find enough houses like that we can survive for a long time.” LeBron said. He’d been talking non-stop for at least the last thirty minutes laying out his thoughts on what they could do. Yue felt like she should be taking notes while Drew just wanted LeBron to summarize and tell them what they should do. He thought the living on a boat eating fresh fruit idea sounded pretty good.
“Dad warned us about going house to house though. He made it sound like that’d be the most dangerous way to try to survive.” Yue challenged the door to door scavenging idea. It seemed like that may be where LeBron had been driving the conversation to. As soon as she said it, she felt bad about it. LeBron had been so animated in describing his ideas that he’d broken out of his depression. She hoped she hadn’t just driven him right back into it by bringing up one of the last conversations they’d had with their dad.
“I’ve thought about that and I totally agree. One thing we haven’t talked about has been joining up with other survivors. At some point we’re going to need some sort of social interaction. Also, there’s a certain amount of safety that comes with numbers.” LeBron said seemingly unphased by Yue bringing up their dad.
“If by social interaction you’re talking about meeting hot chics I’m in.” Drew said from the driver’s seat. That plan definitely sounded better than eating apples on a boat with his brother and sister for the next few years. He moved it up to plan number one in his mental list.
“How would we meet other people though? The ones we’ve run into so far haven’t been super friendly.” Yue said. She was thinking of the creep in the in the jacked-up truck. The guy who’d been killed by the foreign exchange students turned highway robbers. Even some of the cops they’d interacted with since all of this started had been more intent on ripping them off than helping them out. Of course, they had murdered a bunch of people to steal a U-Haul full of supplies. It wasn’t like they were innocent in all of this either.
“I don’t know. I guess I’m thinking of towns that managed to wall out the infected and are still keeping them out. Of course, that’d mean they’re also keeping outsiders away. Otherwise they wouldn’t stay uninfected for very long. Somewhere out there the government has set themselves up too. The President said they’d enacted some plan to ensure the United States survives. To me that means they’ve got secret bases somewhere loaded down with supplies. Of course, I’d bet they’re also shooting outsiders who get too close. There’s also a good chance the bases are so remote we’ll never be able to find them.” LeBron said.
“Sounds like we’re back to driving north.” Drew deadpanned from the front seat. He’d really been hoping after all of that talking LeBron had a better plan in mind than keep going and hope no one killed them.
“The family back on the pontoon boat were nice.” Yue reminded them.
“Yeah. They very nicely told us to get the hell out of their territory. The scallions were good though.” Drew said.
They kept the conversation going a little longer trying to figure out what they were going to do. There were just too many variables though. The country sped by as Drew kept them at a steady sixty miles per hour. There were long stretches of the interstate where you couldn’t tell anything was even going on. These stretches were inevitable ruined by a wrecked car or bodies lying on the side of the road. They hadn’t seen a surger in a few hours. Probably because they were in the middle of nowhere. Which was exactly where they wanted to stay. LeBron and Yue were already trying to figure out the best way to bypass Atlanta.
Yue reached up and flipped on the overhead dome light so she could see the map better. They’d found a state map in the glove box. Yue’s heart stopped beating.
“Why are we driving at night?” She asked loudly.
“Ah hell.” Drew said. He immediately started looking to see what the next exit looked like. He was praying it was going to be as desolate as everywhere else they’d been driving past. If he pulled off into a populated area they were screwed. He couldn’t believe none of them had noticed it was getting dark. He’d turned on the headlights without even thinking about it.
The exit they pulled off on was about as desolate as you could hope for. It was so deserted it made you wonder why they’d bothered building an exit there. Drew took them down a long off ramp then took a hard right at the bottom of it. The place looked untouched by the apocalypse. Other than the lack of any lights in the few buildings they drove past nothing was out of the ordinary. Despite how empty the landscape looked Drew still gunned the engine to get them far enough down the road to avoid any unwanted visitors.
Hearts beating like baby rabbits dropped into a cage with a hungry python the three of them sat in the Hummer once they settled on a place to park. The worst failed to materialize. They set watches and spent an uneventful night trying to sleep inside the packed Hummer. It was a no
