Chapter 12

“Your feelings aren’t your fault.”

 The men couldn’t stop at the next store, as its roof had collapsed. In fact, most of the stores had fallen in on themselves. They decided to pass all the outright destroyed ones, and they didn’t tug twice if a door held fast. As they reached the city’s edge, Dan locked his gaze on the last brick building on the right side of the street. The local World Quality Market.

Behind its fallen sliding doors, the store shared the same story the others had, with its scorched produce and toppled shelves. But unlike the others, this store had nothing but empty shelves and barren racks. The produce section at the front had been stripped clean. Only strings and old paper and rubbish remained. And as the men passed by each aisle, they found little else.

Soon, the light faded, and they struggled to see. Dan felt around, but he ended up groping empty air. Andrew opened the back freezer, where the milk, juice, and beer were kept. Used to be kept. Gritting his teeth, he kicked the wall.

“And here I was thinking people didn’t have time to loot,” Andrew said, resting his head against the glass. “Turns out, they just didn’t give a shit about the gift shop.”

“Well,” Dan said, “they didn’t miss out on much.”

Andrew scoffed. “Don’t disrespect Nate the Knight!” he said. “Go, knave. Atone for your crimes by checking the back. Try the loading docks, the corners, anywhere. I’m going to crawl under the shelves out here.”

With that, Andrew walked off to the lighter side of the store.

At the store’s back left corner, two swinging doors stood under an exit sign. Behind them, Dan found a thin concrete room filled with metal shelves and high stacks of boxes on pallets. It ended in a massive rolling steel door that sat half-open. Most of the boxes had scattered across the floor, and the few that had remained on the pallets and shelves were dead empty. He rifled through everything he saw, but the looters hadn’t left much more than trash. Trash and dust. He slumped onto a wooden pallet. Stroking his elbows, he closed his eyes. The men wouldn’t last another four days of walking. Not with only a scrap of rotting sandwich and a bag of beef jerky. They’d get one more day at most. He rested his head in his hands and let his shoulders drop. He’d already gone sluggish. What would he be like in another two days? Four? Surely, they wouldn’t resort to anything drastic. The thought of an Andrew-stew turned up Dan’s nose.

But he still hadn’t found anything. How much time did those looters have? Thirty minutes warning? Dan had lived through four food shortages, and he’d never seen shelves empty that fast. Of course, Valton didn’t have any other store to loot. In that case, it might make sense to head toward OldMouth Bay—but no, those four direct hits would’ve blasted everything to dust. On the other hand, Grant’s Crossing, might have fared better. Dan didn’t remember seeing any light coming from Grant’s—and if Valton had told him anything, it was that people weren’t a factor yet. Still, if the men chose to head to Grant’s, they’d have to get there first. At the rate they were walking, it might take three days. Four, if it got cold out. Not enough time—not enough at all.

But then, something crashed. A weight dropped into his chest.

Jerking his head up, his blood froze in his veins. Something—a hand, black as pitch, curling with smoky shadows, emerged from the wall before him. Grasping at air. Grasping at him. He tried to scream, but he couldn’t even breathe. It stayed there, almost motionless, for far too long. All Dan could manage was to slowly shuffle backwards from where he sat. He tumbled backwards off the pallet, smacking his head on the ground. When he stood up again, he only saw boxes. His heart ached and strained. Something in his eyes felt heavy—everything hurt.

It wasn’t real, it wasn’t real, it wasn’t real. But it had looked so real. But he couldn’t believe that—he had to ground himself. Looking around, he counted all the brown objects in the room. Then, the blue objects. Then, the green objects. He felt the ground underneath himself, then rubbed his hands on a few boxes. His breathing slowed. The smell of ash had bothered him before, but it was good for grounding. And the sound of his feet tapping against the floor calmed him enough that he felt himself slip back into reality.

Sighing, he let his shoulders fall. He needed his fucking meds.

Under where the arm had reached out, underneath a pile of plastic wraps and garbage, laid a single box, marked, “Overstock 30/4/1753. DISPOSE AFTER 15/9/1753.” Dan cocked his head, his body still numb from his episode. Tentatively, he opened the box.

Inside, a small jar of peanut butter laid on top of a bag of cat litter. Dan pulled it out and marveled at it. With a fierce grunt, he set it aside and pried the cat litter out of the box. Underneath lay a mashed loaf of white bread, three cans of sweet corn, two cans of peas, one can of pineapple chunks, and three bags of potato chips. Hands shaking, Dan pulled the cans out, tittering, chuckling, laughing until his throat hurt. That arm melted away from his mind, almost as if it hadn’t happened at all. After all, tricks of the mind and hunger went hand-in-hand, right?

Dan scuttled over and stuffed half of the food in his pack. He lifted the loaf to his face and sniffed it. “Mr. Andrew!” he called.

A few moments later, the financier scuttled in, soaking wet, and grinning from head to toe. “Find anything?” Dan held up the bread and pointed to his open pack on the ground. After an instant of stupefied staring, Andrew’s smile split twice as wide. “You beautiful man! I mean, it’s not perfect, but—and look here!” Andrew started rifling through his pockets. “I couldn’t get any running water in the bathroom, but I found a little puddle! The wet bastard tripped me, but I kicked its arse. Look at this!” Andrew presented the water bottle to Dan, full of swirling, dusty water. “Dear God, was it cold!”

Dan felt a wintry breeze slip under the tin door, bringing with it a scent like a doused bonfire. For some reason, be it joy or lasting fright, tears welled up in his eyes. He could have hugged Andrew, but he held himself back. Shaking the tears away, he stuffed the food into his pack.

“We’ll have to ration this,” Andrew said. “But I don’t know where we’re going. We’re just kind of wandering.”

“I thought about Grant’s. But it’s—big—you know?” Dan said.

“And it’s leagues away.”

Dan’s mind twisted about. Looters had picked the store clean even before the blast. An hour sifting through garbage had earned them a single box. After people started coming out, what would the men find? Half a box? A quarter? And after that, when every store was drained, what then?

If the men wanted to survive, they needed to get somewhere. Before supplies ran out, of course. It’d have to be a place with a steady supply of resources. The sort of place that stopped existing three days ago. But if they got far enough from the blast site—past the mountains, perhaps—they might get lucky. But the further east they went, the less they’d find. First, they’d run into the endelwood at the border, and two thousand kilometers beyond that, the Nihasian Desert, which stretched for another two thousand kilometers until it turned back into endelwood at the Uranglian coast. And not a house or a road in between. Years down the line, they would have to farm for food, but Dan was just about the worst farmer anyone ever saw. Reggie had brought a box-garden back to their dorm once, twenty-five years back. Reggie said the windows would make it easy. But when they planted the seeds, they never got anything more than a box of special dirt. And whenever Dan bought live plants, they withered—leaving yet another box of special dirt.

Dan decided to leave the farming to the farmers.

So going west would work better. But with the forests burnt down, the only food left would be in towns. Maywest, Grant’s Crossing, perhaps even OldMouth Bay, after enough time. Again, Dan had to face the fleeting future. Starvation. He’d found himself in a logic loop. Just the kind of thing that always held him back. That inflexibility, that inability to innovate that had let men like Charlie and Reggie soar past him. His inability to drive himself forward had left him here, alone. Failed, again. Not like Reggie. Oh, Reggie’d be on his boat by now, sipping mimosa without a care in the world. Probably sailed off at the first siren.

Dan sat up straight.

Reggie.

“Andrew,” he said, tapping the financier’s shoe again and again. “Andrew.”

“Yeah, I’m here,” Andrew said. “What?”

Dan jumped up and whooped. “I’ve got it!”

Hello, friends! If you're enjoying this story, consider supporting me on Patreon! If you'd like more stories, I post new chapters to my mainline series every Monday and Friday, and I upload a new short story every other Wednesday! Below are some of my other stories.

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Little Comforts: The world ends, and two men, Dan and Andrew, must rush to the shore for safety, pursued by a vengeful soldier and the remains of her family.