I still disagreed. “Grabbing the first one we see is a total mistake. Taking a boat too small because it is easier to handle will hurt us in the end. The boat will become our home. We need it to carry enough supplies to live on and to give us room to move around. Imagine living in a little space the size of a walk-in closet at home and storing all our supplies in it.”
“We don’t even know how to sail. We should start small and get a bigger boat if we do okay.”
She had a valid point. However, going to the docks twice invited twice as much risk. We wouldn’t be the only ones stealing sailboats. It was such a perfect solution to avoid the conflicts and dangers that others would think of it too. That last thought, I kept to myself. Changing the subject seemed prudent. I said, “Okay, the exact boat will depend on what we can locate. The bigger problems are how we are going to travel from here to Everett, then through the city?”
“When we went there, my family and I, we always crossed a river. A big one. What about that?”
I pictured Everett, remembered the few trips there years ago in my mind and didn’t remember a river, especially a big one. That could radically change things. We desperately needed the map I had dreamed about. “Proceeding without a map is dangerous and foolhardy. We have to get one before we can do much more planning.”
“The cabin where we stole the food? It may have one.”
“Too exposed, I think. At least one couple already knows about it and knows we were there, and they might be watching it and waiting for us to return. There could be others.”
She wrinkled her nose and curled the edge of her lip. “Why do you think they would do that? Are we so important?”
“We’re alive and may have supplies they don’t. We’re a danger to them, from their perspective. Besides, we may attack them at any time for what they have. Again, from their perspective. If they can kill us, what we have is theirs and the threat is removed.”
She glanced around at our stores. “It isn’t much.”
“They wouldn’t know until they got here. Besides, what will that can of peas we ate this morning be worth to a starving person in a few months, or a year? Will it be worth killing over?”
“We’ll go to the cabin at night. Then they can’t see us.”
“And how will we see if there is a map once we get there? Light a lantern and attract every person within miles?”
“Okay, your turn to use your orderly brain and think of something constructive.”
“We go to the outskirts of Darrington, where there are only a few houses and they are spaced farther apart for privacy. We look for cars, first. Many will have paper maps in gloveboxes, at least I hope so.”
“So, walking up to a parked car and assuming it is locked like most are, we’ll just break a window in the middle of the day, ignore the sound of breaking glass and the people it will bring running, while we leisurely search for a map. If there is not one, we’ll just walk down the street and do the same to the next car?”
Her tone was that of a fourteen-year-old who believed someone older had made a bumbling error. I laughed. Her attitude struck me as funny, and laughter was precious. There hadn’t been much, lately. I said, “How about we slip into a garage and search a car in there where we are out of sight?”
“Ah, that sounds a lot better,” she said with a sudden smile that revealed white teeth almost too large for her mouth. “Do people with garages lock their cars? I don’t think so. If we’re seen going inside, the danger will be to find who is waiting when we come back out.”
I hadn’t thought of that, but wouldn’t admit it. As if that had been my plan all along, I said, “One of us stays outside to watch.”
She seemed to accept that. “When do we go?”
That answer took me by surprise. “I was expecting more input from you. Maybe a little resistance.”
“My input is that we need that map right away. Without one to help us make plans, you won’t get off your butt and move. So, why not go look for it today?”
She was completely right again. It was becoming a trait of hers that bothered me more and more. I sat and considered both her knack for seeing what I didn’t and that her observances were not better than mine, just different. She complemented me. Where I failed to consider important aspects of a situation, she filled in the details. Together, we were more than either of us alone.
I stood. “Okay, grab what you need and let’s go find a map.”
Her eager grin made her appear like a ten-year-old at her surprise birthday party. My new gun belt went around my waist, my twenty-two tucked into the front of it at an angle so I could bend but still retrieve it quickly. The brown coat covered the red flannel shirt that had a funky smell and was beginning to bother even me. That’s what happens when you don’t shower for a couple of weeks and wear the same clothes. However, I would have to do something soon or I couldn’t stand being close to myself.
“Sue, do I stink?”
“Oh, yes.”
“You do too,” I shot back instinctively.
“Do not. I washed two days ago. Everything.”
Maybe she had. I didn’t know. She didn’t smell, so it was probably true. “Let’s go scout around and see if we can find a car or two. Afterward, I need to wash a few things, including me.”
She held up her little thirty-two to assure me she had it with her, then slipped it into her coat pocket. I wished I had had time to make a silencer like mine for her. A little PVC pipe filled with cotton balls, a couple of rows of holes drilled on the sides, and duct tape to hold it in place. In an emergency, a toilet paper tube would work. Another valuable bit of information gained from the Internet. Or not.
It had seemed like it might work when I read about it. Maybe not cut the noise by half, but a third would be great. Twenty percent was acceptable to people who were trying to keep their presence hidden from others on the same mountain, like us. However, the little gun she held couldn’t make that much noise without a silencer, could it? I didn’t think so. And if we proceeded carefully, neither of us would have to fire our weapon.
On the other hand, just to be fair, I’d once tried to double my internet speed with a little tinfoil as revealed in a video. It was a solution guaranteed to work by the person who posted it. If anything, it slowed the speed. Then, another time, there was a job offer to make fifty dollars an hour, easily, and in the comfort of my home. I’d eagerly given my credit card number and agreed to pay a hundred bucks they needed to set me up and get the process going. Never heard from them again. So, a toilet roll silencer might or might not work.
We left the tunnel and moved in a general direction to our right, crossing the river further away from town than the last time. Avoiding where the three men had died and what had happened to their bodies since. Seeing that was something both of us could do without.
As we moved, light snow fell, large fat flakes, which was good for covering our tracks. I didn’t want to actually enter town. There were too many hidden eyes watching, the people too well-versed in fending for themselves, and they all had weapons and skills that translated to the situation. Some locals may have relished the end of civilization coming.
We approached a small, unpainted, shingled house from the rear. The sides were weathered dark gray. Inside it, a little dog yapped, and a voice growled for it to shut up. Good dog. Stupid owner. Still, he would watch out the window to see why the dog had made a fuss, so we eased back into the forest.
I didn’t want a confrontation. Many of those survivors we had seen were as bad as wild animals. There was no way to know which were which, who would help us and who would kill us on sight. At the beginning of the pandemic, as soon as the cops started to get sick along with everyone else, fewer people reported for duty each day. Things rapidly got worse. And then there were fewer cops, firemen, repairmen, and the rest. Even my packages ordered from online dealers quit arriving, and the phones for local restaurants went unanswered, so I went hungry as soon as my chips and bowl of candy were gone.