“Are you sure? Thank you so much! Bless you and thank you. I’ll head back to my camp and hook up the RV and I’ll come on back. It’ll take me a bit; I’ll load up all my supplies.” BJ smiled.
“I’m building a storage shed, for a lot of our supplies.” Brian said.
“Might I suggest that with some of your things, maybe bury it? If someone comes, and they take the supplies, you’ll at least have some hidden.” BJ suggested.
Brian looked at the women, startled. They looked back at him and then at BJ.
“That’s a good idea BJ. With all we have, storing them in one place would be easy picking for bad guys. Thank you for suggesting that. Maybe you women pick up a bunch of fifty-gallon containers and more duct tape. We can dig holes, put the containers in the holes, seal them against moisture and then cover them.” Brian suggested, rubbing his face. Why hadn’t he thought of that? You can’t think of everything, he thought.
“Sounds good, we’ll take the trailer. I’ll go get Cooper up and fix us some breakfast. Would you like to stay for some eggs and oatmeal, BJ? And a cup of coffee?” Emma asked, getting up.
“Oh, yeah, sure, thank you.” BJ said happily, the tightness in his face vanishing.
Ӝ
Emma found the Walmart and pulled in. Paadi was watching out for others around. Emma carried her weapon, but she depended on Paadi to watch her back. She felt safe and confident with Paadi at her side. She’d be terrified alone and by herself. She smiled, thinking about BJ. The man practically wept at the large breakfast and coffee.
After breakfast, she and Paadi left Cooper with Brian, who’d begun to build the clothes line poles. When they got back, they could hang the lines and then start on laundry. They had a long list of things to get. Each trip out, they tried to fill the trailer to capacity. Getting out of the truck the women each grabbed a cart. Emma had parked the truck in front of the doors. They each had a flashlight, as well as a headlamp, since the lights from the windows didn’t penetrate very far into the store.
“You know, sometimes I hate coming into these places. It is sooo damned quiet and it’s spooky.” Emma grumbled.
“Yeah, it’s wicket spooky. I’m not a chicken, but I’ll admit, these places make me nervous. If we hear screechy violin music, run!” Paadi agreed, and laughed, eliciting a laugh from Emma as well.
“It still stinks in here, from all the produce rotting. What a waste of food.” Emma bemoaned.
“You got that right. But, while we’re here, I want to pick up egg cartons. I’m sure the eggs that are in them are more than likely bad, but we could use the cartons for our own eggs.” Paadi suggested.
“Let’s do that first. Here, I brought some Vic’s rub, just in case we needed it. Put some under your nose. I don’t think it will stink horrible, but you don’t want to take a chance.” Emma said, rubbing ointment under her nose. She handed the small bottle to Paadi, who did the same.
“Tingles.” She laughed. Going to the cases, they found the eggs. Milk cartons were bloated, some had exploded. It did stink, but not as bad as Boston had. Carefully taking the eggs out, they lined them up on the floor. They took a dozen empty egg cartons with them.
Both women then went to where there were the laundry items were located and picked up packs of clothespins, clotheslines and liquid laundry detergent. They pushed the carts back to the truck and unloaded.
“You know, this is a hell of a workout.” Paadi puffed, lining the large bottles of detergent in a row. Going back in, they picked up all the large plastic containers they could get.
“We can store our winter clothing in theses and stack them up to save space. These are pretty rugged totes.” Emma said, gathering the lids to the containers and stacking them inside the large containers.”
“When Brian builds the storage shed, it will be nice to move a lot of the things out into the shed. Storing stuff in these will keep the bugs and other yucky things out.” Paadi agreed.
They also picked up more metal trash cans. They filled the totes with rolls of duct tape. They also picked up two heavy duty mop buckets with wringers. They filled the trailer. Emma thought it was very satisfying to build up their reserves.
The women went back in and made their way to the baking section. Emma wanted to try and bake a cake with Brian’s sun oven. Doing a box cake mix would be the least waste of materials, if the project failed. They had a lot of eggs from the chickens. She was glad they’d picked up the cartons, they could at least store them better than a bowel. She’d also picked up several glass baking pans, along with a few nonstick pans as well. They were walking down the aisle, picking up bagged nuts, baking powder, baking soda, bread flour, yeast and anything that wasn’t nailed down. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught movement and nearly screamed, her hand slapping across her mouth.
“What on earth is the matter with you?” Paadi asked, pulling her weapon and looking around. Her headlamp flashing across Emma’s face and down the aisle.
“I think I saw someone run past us.” Emma whispered, fear tight in her voice. Paadi’s eyes grew large and she got in front of Emma, crouched over, her weapon pointing in different directions looking for the threat.
“Which
