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They paused to forage as they passed houses. More often than not, Justin found little, either because the families hadn’t stocked up before the Crisis, or because looters had been there before them. Once, Justin became enraged to find looters had smashed the glass jars of everything they hadn’t taken. He was infuriated. As scornful as he was of human society, he seemed to feel the senseless destruction violated some code of survival, some unwritten rule of wasteland courtesy everyone should obey.
As a group, they gave the towns a wide berth. Justin would hide the wagon, Carly, and the baby as best he could and head off alone into the towns to see what he could find. It was seldom worth his effort. Even most of the houses in the towns had been looted.
Were there that many survivors? Or had they somehow managed to find the only area in the country that had been picked clean in such a fashion? They met a few people on the road during their first month of travel, and there was always a mutual wariness. Most didn’t want to trade away their food.
Carly knew Justin was worried when he found a house with a small barn behind it and told her he was heading out alone for a day or so, headed east to see if maybe their route was too well-traveled and another one might have more supplies available.
As with many of the houses they’d stayed in during their travels, it appeared as though the residents had just stepped out. It was a comfortable little home, decorated in warm earth tones, and Carly would have ordinarily liked it, but being without Justin made everything seem drab and dour.
Carly hated being left behind, but they had Dagny to think of. She tried to hold back the tears to avoid making Justin feel bad. She knew he had to do it. They couldn’t live solely off the small game Sam brought them, not with Carly nursing a baby.
Sam was on high alert all night, and every time he jerked awake at a sound, Carly woke, too. She had a gun on the nightstand and a rifle stored under the bed. Sam went into the kitchen and pawed at the door to be let out. She finally opened it for him and he disappeared into the darkness. She sat at the kitchen table and waited for him, the rifle clutched between her trembling hands. But he was calm when he returned, and he checked on his cat, who was curled up in a soft basket Justin had found at a pet store. Dagny was sleeping in a dresser drawer that was serving as a makeshift cradle. Sam sniffed her and was apparently satisfied with the data he gleaned. He hopped back up on the foot of the bed and curled up in a ball. Carly got back into bed, but her sleep was light and unsatisfying.
The next morning, she nursed Dagny before she got out of bed. Thankfully, they both seemed to have figured it out and Carly hadn’t had any trouble since they started on their journey. It was a big relief because she’d worried about sterilizing the bottles properly on the road.
The house had an electric stove, so Carly had to build a little fire in the yard the next morning to make some coffee and breakfast. She saw the remnants of a fire ring in the side yard, likely built by other travelers who had stayed here before. She fried some Spam, but just picked at it, though she knew she should eat for Dagny’s sake. She looked down at her baby, sound asleep in the baby sling, but she couldn’t force down another bite. Sam and Tigger watched her with intent stares until she gave up on eating and put the Spam into the wolf’s bowl. Sam had a passionate love for Spam, but since Justin loved it too, Sam seldom got a nice, big meal of it. He shared with Tigger grudgingly.
Carly went out to the barn and checked on the horses. They had already gone out into the yard, found the flower bed at the side of the house, and were in horse heaven. She sat outside for a while with them under the shade of a nearby tree. Dagny woke while she was lounging there, and Carly enjoyed a pleasant morning of playing and cuddling with her. Storm would stop eating every now and then and trot over to Carly for a pat on the nose. She grinned because Storm was becoming more like Sam every day.
She waited. Justin should be back any time now. Any time now. After Dagny’s midday feeding, she put her in her makeshift cradle in the bedroom and sat down at the kitchen table. Every time she glanced at the stopped clock over the sink, it reminded her Justin was late.
She pulled her gaze away from it to the sideboard. A pile of mail still sat atop it, bills that would never be paid. The corner of an envelope caught her eye and she pulled it out of the stack. Cederna Pharmaceuticals. Carly blinked and tore it open. It was a form to be sent to the insurance company of the residents. Both of them had gotten a flu shot at the local pharmacy. A flu shot made by Cederna.
She heard the door open and looked up, relief and joy flooding through her. “Justin! Oh, thank—”
It wasn’t Justin.
A ginger-haired man stood there, looking just as surprised as Carly felt. Someone else was behind him, but Carly didn’t get a good look as she scrambled to her feet and bolted into the bedroom. Carly grabbed her gun off the top of the dresser and darted to the doorway, which looked out into the kitchen, across the small hallway. Where is Sam? she wondered and blinked hard to suppress tears of fear.
“You stay right there!” Carly shouted at the man, who hadn’t moved since he stepped through the door. His eyes were wide.
“Please, lady,” he said and held his hands up. “You can have whatever you want. Me and my wife are going to leave now, okay?”
“Where’s my wolf? Did you hurt him? I swear to God, if you hurt him—”
“A wolf?”
“A wolf with a cat!” Carly shouted.
The man lowered his eyes, and he cast a quick look back at the woman behind him. Carly realized how crazy what she’d said must have sounded to him. “I didn’t see a wolf with a cat,” he said, and his voice was soft and soothing. “I’m sure they’re around here somewhere. I’ll help you look.”
At that moment Sam came in through the open door and trotted past the couple in the doorway, Tigger dangling from his mouth as usual. The man’s jaw dropped as Sam went into the bedroom behind Carly and hopped up on the bed, depositing Tigger beside him.
Carly was bewildered, to say the least. Sam didn’t like strangers, but there he was, treating the ginger-haired man and the person still hiding behind him with familiar indifference, as though they were members of the family.
Dagny let out a little whimper and a halfhearted cry. She was spoiled rotten for affection and her mother’s presence. When she woke up alone, it was odd, and she didn’t like it.
“My God, Stan, is that a baby?” the woman whispered, awed.
“You stay the fuck away from my baby,” Carly snarled and waved the gun at them.
The woman poked her head around the man’s back. She was almost as short as Carly but stout, with a sweetly rounded face. “I just wanted to see her. I haven’t seen a baby since the Crisis. I didn’t know if the babies would be immune...”
Carly lowered her gun to her side, but kept her finger curled around the trigger. “What are you doing here?”
“Um, we... We actually live here,” the man said in an apologetic tone. “But that’s okay. You can have it. You can have whatever you want. Just, please, don’t hurt my wife.”
“I’m not going to hurt her unless you try to hurt me. Or my baby. Or my animals. You didn’t scare my horses, did you?”
