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“No, I’ve got it. It’ll be ready soon.” Carly’s cooking had improved over the winter, and she was rather proud of her culinary efforts. She sprinkled in some spices and pepper.
“Smells great,” Justin said. “And I’m starving.”
“Did you find anything else in town?” Carly hadn’t been happy about his decision to go back into town, but their stores of food were getting low, and he wanted to see if other looters had overlooked anything and maybe check in places they might not have thought to search, like office vending machines. She’d been surprised by how fast it all went, actually. There weren’t even many more potatoes in the cellar.
“There wasn’t much left,” Justin said. “I have a feeling we’re going to run into the same problem when we start moving again.”
It was the first time in a while he’d mentioned continuing their travels. “We haven’t discussed that yet. I wasn’t sure if you were...” Carly paused. “I’d be happy staying here.” It had been a thought which occurred to her frequently over the last few weeks. She could see them building a life there with their daughter.
Justin shook his head. “We can’t stay, Carly. It was a wonderful home for us over the winter, but I can’t grow enough food and collect enough firewood to see us through another winter.”
“I can help.” Carly pointed this out, feeling a bit miffed he hadn’t included her.
“We’re not farmers, honey. Farming by hand is brutally hard work, and we could lose everything if there was a cold snap, or an insect infestation... any number of things. Storing it all would be difficult as well. We’ve never canned before, and if we didn’t get it right, we could get a severe case of food poisoning. I’m sorry, Carly, but I won’t risk your life or Dagny’s just because we liked a place.”
She couldn’t argue with his logic. “When?”
“At the end of this month.”
So soon? Carly scraped the finished Spam hash onto two plates. Justin smiled and thanked her when she handed it to him.
“I’d hoped to wait until Dagny was a little older, but we can’t. We have to get started soon, or we run the risk of being stuck somewhere over winter again with inadequate food supplies.”
“What are we going to do?” Carly took her seat, but leaned over to check on Dagny before she picked up her fork. “We don’t have enough food to make it to Florida.”
“I’m hoping if we stay off the main routes and take the back roads, we may find stores along the way that haven’t been looted to the bare walls yet.” Justin took a bite and patted his lips with a napkin before he continued. “All of the survivors are in the same position we are, Carly. For the time being, we all have to live off what food remains from the old world. Few of us are prepared to live as farmers, especially not in a northern climate.”
“Won’t there be a lot of people down South?”
“More than here,” he said.
She looked down at her plate. She knew what he meant. Many trapped up here by the snows probably hadn’t survived. She thought of Reverend Davis, the preacher who had married them, and hoped he and his wife were among those who had made it through the winter.
“We’re going to have to loot houses along the way. We may find more food there than in stores.” He saw the grim set of her face. “Cheer up, honey. We have a lot of trade goods, and besides, Sam will keep us in rabbits. We’ll be fine, I promise. I won’t let you or Dagny go hungry.”
“Won’t we find any towns?”
“What do you mean?” His gaze sharpened, and he laid down his fork.
“People living together. Communities. You said it once yourself, humans evolved to survive through cooperative society, not alone.”
Justin’s expression went carefully blank, and whenever that happened, Carly knew something had bothered him. “Is that what you want, ultimately? To live in a community?”
She bit her lip and considered her answer before she spoke. “Wouldn’t our chances be better? More people to grow food and guard us from danger. Trying to survive alone... As you said, there are so many things that could go wrong, but with others helping us, we would have more options.”
He went back to eating, but that blank expression stayed in place. “If that’s what you want.”
“You don’t like the idea.”
Carly could tell he was considering something disingenuous to say, but he chose honesty, and she was grateful. “No, Carly, I don’t. You’re right that more people mean more hands to do the work and to defend what’s ours, but with people come problems and conflicts. You’re putting your fate into their hands, trusting them with our lives, with our daughter’s life. And that level of trust doesn’t come as easily for me as it does for you.”
“You sound as if you think I’m gullible.” She made a little face at him in an attempt to lighten the mood, but Justin didn’t smile.
He shook his head. “That’s not what I meant. I mean you’re more... socially orientated than I am. I’ll admit, I’d be content with just you and Dagny for the rest of my life, but if you want a community, that’s what we’ll search for. Or we could build one of our own. That way, we could handpick the residents.”
Who would we pick and who would we reject? Who would we leave to die in the wilderness?
Sometimes, it seemed as though Justin could read her mind. “We don’t have a moral obligation to try to save everyone in the wasteland, honey. Our job is to survive, and maybe we can rebuild a world that someday has the luxury of charity.”
