This time felt less like an adventure and more like a curse.
Kent took the gas can and dumped the fuel into the Explorer. He and Tori then moved to siphon another car. While they worked, I went to Olivia and Jon, who were sitting in the Explorer. They were talking about something, maybe even arguing, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying, and they immediately stopped when I opened the door.
“Trick or treat,” I said and tossed each of them a Tootsie Pop. “Early Halloween.”
“Thanks,” Jon said and ate his hungrily.
Olivia wasn’t as enthused. “I don’t eat candy.”
Figures.
They both seemed upset, and I had a pretty good idea why.
“It’s okay, Jon” I said. “You did what you thought was right.”
What I really wanted to say was, “Why the hell didn’t you believe me?” but that would have been piling on.
“I’m sorry, Tucker. What you were saying about Chris seemed so… incredible. But I’m with you now. I hope you believe that.”
I couldn’t bring myself say, “Sure! No problem!” Truth was, he was on thin ice with me. He had almost gotten us killed. It’s hard to let something like that go.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, which meant absolutely nothing.
Olivia was staring straight ahead, as if her mind was miles away.
“You okay?” I asked.
“So many people,” she said, sounding dazed. “Gone. It’s just… impossible to imagine.”
“We still don’t know what happened to your mom,” I said, trying to give her hope but realizing how hollow it sounded.
She gave me a sad smile and said, “You’re a glass-half-full kind of guy, huh?”
“I try,” I said. “C’mon, be crazy. Eat a lollipop.”
I held the candy out to her, and she grabbed my hand. She held me tight and looked right into my eyes.
I felt as if she wanted to tell me something but couldn’t bring herself to do it. She was tortured, but we all were. My fear was that she was going to say something like “I love you, Tucker,” which I might have welcomed at the beginning of the summer, but not since Kent had admitted he had a thing for her.
And since Tori kissed me.
The last thing we needed was that kind of drama.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Take it. There’s plenty more where that came from.”
I gave her a big smile, trying to break the tension.
Olivia returned my smile and took the pop.
“For you, I’ll even eat sugar.”
The moment had passed, but I was struck by the insanity of our situation. We were alone in a near-dead world. We were all we had. If nothing else, we had to know that we could rely on one another. Without that, we would end up joining the three-quarters that didn’t make it.
Kent and Tori finished topping off the gas tank, and we all climbed back into the SUV.
“Now what?” Kent said. “Do I just drive without knowing where we’re headed?”
“I’m hungry,” Jon declared.
“I need a shower,” Olivia added.
Everyone looked to me. Whenever there was a decision to be made, I was expected to be the mediator. It wasn’t a comfortable position. If things went bad, I’d get grief, and so far there was very little that had gone right. But we couldn’t just sit there staring at one another.
“We have maybe four hours of daylight left,” I pointed out. “I say we find a store and gear up again. We’ll get a map. Then we should find a place to spend the night. A hotel or something.”
“And tomorrow we’ll head for Nevada,” Tori said.
“Why?” Olivia asked. “Do you seriously think we’re going to join up with a merry band of survivors and take back the world?”
Tori opened her mouth to answer, but no words came out. Olivia might not always have the big picture in mind, but those few words had put the plan under the harsh light of reality.
“Seriously,” Kent said. “For all we know, the Air Force has already found them and wiped them out. They have radios too. They could have heard that broadcast.”
“So what do you want to do?” Tori asked, peeved. “Crawl into a hole and hide?”
“Not me,” Jon chimed in. “I want to keep moving.”
“But if we’re moving, there’s a better chance of being spotted by those black planes,” Olivia warned. “Hiding out sounds good to me.”
“Not to me it doesn’t,” Tori shot back.
“So then go!” Olivia shouted. “Maybe it would be better if we split up.”
“Stop!” I ordered. “Nobody’s splitting up, so just… relax.”
There was a tense quiet in the car.
“We can’t do this,” I said. “We can’t turn on each other. Like it or not, we’re all we’ve got.”
Everyone stole looks at one another as if the reality had finally sunk in that our entire universe consisted of… us.
“Let’s not look too far ahead,” I added. “One step at a time. All right?”
There were a few grumbles of reluctant agreement.
“Good. Let’s go to the next big town. We’ll find a store, gear up, and then find a place to sleep. I don’t want to spend the night in this car.”
That was one thing that everyone could agree on, so Kent started up the car, and we were off.
The next big town was Springfield, Massachusetts. I’d been there once with my father to visit the Basketball Hall of Fame, but I was nine, so there was very little that I remembered about the city. Kent pulled off the interstate, and within minutes we found a Walmart.
“Seriously?” Olivia complained. “First Target, now… this?”
Nobody commented.
Walmart was open for business. Or at least it was open. The five of us grabbed carts, split up, and went on another shopping spree through the deserted superstore.
On this trip I was less worried about comfort and more concerned with practical items. I picked up a flashlight, a couple of headlamps, and some camp lanterns. Batteries too. I had always taken electricity and light for granted. Not anymore. I also grabbed some water-purification tablets in the camping area. There was no way to know if we’d always find plumbing with running, filtered water. The last thing we needed was dysentery. There was a big first aid kit in the same area, so I put it into my cart along with a waterproof box of matches and a compass. I took another hoodie, a T-shirt, and extra socks and underwear. In the grocery area I took a bunch of ramen noodle boxes and freeze-dried food packets thinking we could boil water over a fire and have a hot meal. My last stop was in the book area, where I found Tori thumbing through a large road atlas.
“This is pretty detailed,” she said. “Every page is a map of a different state. But it’s also got fifty folded satellite maps of each state. “It’s not Google Earth, but it’ll do.”
She dumped it into her cart and moved on. I took note that she had restocked with several boxes of ammunition. Gotta love Walmart. Where else can you buy candy and bullets?
We all met at the front of the store, and I was relieved to see that Olivia had chosen much more wisely this time. She only had a pair of jeans, a sweater, socks, and underwear. We all stared at her near-empty cart.
“What?” she asked defensively. “I couldn’t find anything I cared to wear.”
Everyone had been equally practical, for whatever reason. Jon had thought to grab several walkie-talkies and replacement batteries. Kent had stocked up on bags of trail mix, beef jerky, and Gatorade. Everyone picked up headlamps and lanterns. We were in and out of there in half an hour with our supplies packed into individual canvas bags.