“Stack the deck, you mean.”
“Yeah, if you want to use a card metaphor.”
“So where are we headed then?”
“Not sure yet.”
“How about Canada? Fewer people up there.”
“Too cold.”
“You’re from Rochester, aren’t you?”
“Born and raised.”
“And yet you’re afraid of a little cold?”
“Not afraid,” said Jim. “But the winter’s a different beast when you don’t have central heating. The idea is to find the perfect intersection of all the different variables. It’s not just about finding a place with fewer people. It’s about finding…”
“I get you,” said Jessica. “We need a place that’s easy to live at, yet no one else wants to go there.”
“It sounds impossible when you say it like that.”
“Yeah, it does.”
“We’ll do the best we can.”
“You really think we should leave?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe we should take a vote.”
Jim shook his head. “I’m going to get us out of this,” he said. “We’ll head to Pennsylvania.”
“Pennsylvania?”
Jim had simply opened his mouth and the words had come out, but now that he considered it, Pennsylvania wasn’t a bad option. It’d be a little warmer, and the northwestern part of the state was much less populated than the Eastern Seaboard.
“But why not go farther? Wyoming or something like that? We’ve got an RV. We can go as far as we want.”
“There isn’t much chance that we’ll be able to make it that far. Think about it, we need fuel for the RV. And fuel for us. If we drive across the country, we’ll be out in the open, not knowing where we are. Then we’ll be driven to do stupid things out of desperation, taking risks for gas and food. We’ll be sitting ducks, essentially.”
“Moving ducks, you mean,” said Jessica, apparently trying to make a joke.
“Targets, either way you look at it. Anyway, the shorter we keep our trip, the better off we’ll be.”
“But what about the owners of this RV? Didn’t they drive from across the country or something? They made it this far OK.”
“I don’t know if they were telling the truth. Look what they tried to do to my wife. And anyway, things are just going to get crazier from here on out. During the immediate aftermath of the EMP, a lot of people probably stayed put. Now they’ll be leaving their houses, and they’ll be desperate and hungry, ready to do anything to keep themselves and their families alive.”
“You’re saying they would have had an easier time of it when they were driving out?”
“Exactly. Who knows what things look like now.”
“You’re probably right. So, we go to Pennsylvania and then what? Find some abandoned house there?”
“Why get another house? We’ve already got one right here.”
“The RV?”
Jim nodded.
They were almost all the way around the lake, almost to the spot where Jim had hidden their gear and food.
“Stay in the RV?” said Jessica, sounding incredulous, and maybe a little annoyed. “Are you crazy? This thing is small. Ridiculously small.”
She was right. It might have been called a midsized RV. But really it was just a little larger than a large work van, the kind that plumbers used.
“There’s not enough space for us in here. There are four of us.”
“We’ll have to make it work,” said Jim.
“But why? Why not just find some house somewhere.”
“Hear me out,” said Jim. He felt much better now that he’d slept, and his mind was working rapidly, piecing together the plan as he spoke. “Now what’s the main disadvantage of a house?”
“The disadvantage? I don’t know if there are any. All I can think of are the advantages. Like shelter, warmth, a place to sleep. Walls and doors that help us defend ourselves. Keep the bad guys out. Way more security overall than an RV with tinfoil walls.”
“Well, here’s one huge disadvantage,” said Jim. “A house stays in the same place. All the time. It doesn’t move around.”
“Yeah, that’s pretty obvious. But you were just saying that we’re not going to have gas to simply drive the RV from one location to another. And that’s too dangerous and all that.”
“I’m not explaining myself well,” said Jim. “What I’m suggesting is that we hopefully make it down to Pennsylvania, scope out a good spot far out in the woods where no one goes, and then park the RV there. And live in it.”
“OK, I think I’m seeing where you’re going, but…”
“The thing is,” said Jim, cutting her off. He was starting to get excited about the idea. It seemed like it really might work. “With a house, everyone knows it’s there. It’s going to be on various maps, city plans, all sorts of papers that people can find. And people remember. They know where a house was. Sure, you can try to hide it. You can try to obscure the driveway with branches or something, but that really only goes so far.”
“Wait,” said Jessica. “Are you saying that what we do is park an RV out in the woods, and the advantage over a house will be no one knows it’s there, or ever was there?”
“Exactly.”
“You know, that’s really not such a bad idea. We’d be invisible, essentially.”
“As long as we get far enough out. I’d want to avoid places like state parks. Those are on the map.”
“Then what do we want?”
“Maybe some private land that’s not used. Someone who had too much land than they knew what to do with. Let it overgrow. Let it go to seed.”
“Private land? You really think that’s a good idea?”
“Definitely. It’s even less likely now than ever before that the owner would use it.”
“I guess the property deeds don’t really mean much now.”
Jim shook his head. “It’s a shame,” he said. “People worked for what they had, and now? Nothing. They’ve got nothing. The strongest will take what they want.”
“You’re getting off topic a little bit.”
“Breakfast is ready,” called out Rob, sounding a little overexcited, probably because he’d never been much of a cook.
“And I think it might actually be edible,” added Aly. “Thanks to my help.”
“Couldn’t have done it without you, Aly.”
Breakfast was a plate of fried sandwiches. Rob had combined canned ham and fried eggs, one of Aly’s makeshift recipes. He’d fried the pieces of white bread in so much oil that it was almost like deep frying, with the slices of bread completely submerged in the oil.
“Here you go,” said Rob, handing Jim a sandwich.
Jim reached back and grabbed the incredibly greasy sandwich, getting grease all over his hand.
“That’s delicious,” said Jim, taking his first bite, unable to stop chewing long enough to speak with his mouth closed.
And it really was. He hadn’t eaten anything in so long that the sandwich really could have been anything and he would have found it delicious.
But the sandwich really was good. The huge hit of fat, protein, and carbs was just what he needed. Jim knew that fat had more calories per unit of weight than carbs or protein, so deep frying the bread for the sandwiches really was a good idea. A good way to get some extra calories.
“We’re lucky to have all that coconut oil,” said Jessica.
“I just don’t want to know what they were doing with it in this RV.”
“Gross.”
“Don’t worry. We’re all too hungry for it to matter anyway.
“You’re right.”
A few minutes later, they’d reached the stash of stolen supplies that Jim had left. He stopped the RV, made a mental note of the fuel gauge position, and everyone except Aly set to work hauling all the gear into the RV.