novelraw Chapter 92: For The Savage Beast
Chapter 92: For The Savage Beast
The highway east was clearer than it should’ve been.
It wasn’t empty, nothing was ever empty anymore, but it was clearer than what Sera had expected. Instead of cars at odd angles and not enough room to get through, there were only a few cars that sat at odd angles on the shoulder, their hoods up like dead insects, some with doors still hung open after the occupant made a mad dash somewhere else.
The snow around them was falling fast enough that it was starting to stick to the roads and vehicles. Some cars looked like they might have caught fire, but the flames had long given way to the icy November day.
Lachlan kept the Hummer in the center lane, his eyes on the stretch ahead like he was waiting for something to come over the rise.
Like most of the other times they had ventured out, there wasn’t a person to be seen.
Well, that was until the first gas station.
The lot was half-packed full of cars that couldn’t remember how to properly park. Smaller cars huddled together like strays as those with the trucks and 4x4s parked wherever they wanted.
A man in a heavy coat stood on top of the ice chest outside, waving a baseball bat and yelling about "one per person" to a knot of others clustered at the door. No one listened to him. Instead, they pushed in and out of the store, carrying armloads of whatever they could get their hands on—cases of pop, paper towels, bags of chips ripped open in the struggle.
Nobody stopped when the Hummer pulled in.
Nobody looked up long enough to notice.
Zubair didn’t bother to reach for the door handle. "Waste of time," he grunted, his voice flat as he looked at the utter chaos in front of them.
Lachlan hummed in agreement as the massive vehicle rolled past the crowds, its tires crunching over discarded bottles and a box of cereal spilling out all over the ground in the slush.
The next stop was a convenience store attached to a car wash. Half the front windows were gone, and the rest were spiderwebbed with frost where someone had tried, and apparently failed, to tape plastic over them.
Inside, the lights flickered dim and yellow.
Sera stayed by the door while Elias and Alexei moved fast, sweeping shelves into their arms. Jerky, canned soup, protein shakes, anything that wasn’t nailed down went with them.
A woman near the back shouted at them without looking up from her own pile. "Leave some for other people!" Her voice cracked with the strain even as she frantically grabbed everything that she could. Her basket was overflowing with food and drinks, but still, she didn’t stop. "It’s people like you who are causing the rest of us to die from starvation, you know!"
Alexei didn’t bother to slow down. "Of course we are," he murmured, brushing past her with a carton of instant noodles. "But at least we aren’t dropping any."
The woman didn’t hear the tone or the words. She had already dismissed the men as she went back to filling her basket until another man tried to take a box from her, and then the shouting started.
Sera caught Lachlan’s eye as the first shove landed. He tilted his chin toward the door, and they all walked out without hurrying.
Back on the highway, the snow continued to come down heavier. The city streets pressed in closer with the growing snowbanks and cars parked along side of them. Apartment windows glowed against the gray of the darkening sky. Most of them curtained, but once in a while, a figure would appear at the edge of a parking lot or balcony, watching the Hummer pass.
They tried a box store next. The lot was pure chaos before they even stepped out. People shouted over carts piled high with whatever they’d managed to grab—some still full of half-rotten produce and smashed bread loaves, but it was the people with the television and electronics that made Sera shake her head.
While it might be good as long as the electricity held, a TV wasn’t going to keep you fed in the middle of an ice age.
A boy barely into his teens ran past with two gallons of milk, slipping twice on the slippery streets before disappearing between parked cars. Behind him, a man chased and cursed him like the milk was worth dying for.
"Next," Sera said quietly.
The east side wasn’t the side she was most familiar with, but she was getting to know it. The streets here bent strange around low warehouses and loading docks, as if the city had been built without a plan and no one ever fixed it. The further they went, the more people were outside—dragging sleds of supplies, pushing shopping carts through snowdrifts, standing in doorways with rifles across their chests.
None of them looked at the Hummer for long.
None of them smiled.
They stopped once more at a strip mall. Elias ducked into the hardware store while Alexei took the dollar store next door. Lachlan stayed in the driver’s seat, engine running, eyes scanning the lot.
Zubair leaned against the Hummer’s side, hands in his pockets. "They’re waking up," he said, almost to himself. "They now know that there isn’t going to be a rescue for them. I’m surprised. I thought they would have understood that sooner. It’s almost been a month."
Sera shook her head. "No one is ever willing to admit that the crazies were right and the end of the world has arrived. I think a zombie could have passed out flyer saying that the world has gone to pot and most would have said that it was nothing more than a belated Halloween scare."
Zubair nodded his head but didn’t bother to reply.
By the time the others came back, the sun was lower, bleeding thin gold into the clouds. The light caught on broken glass and ice, turning the parking lot into a scatter of tiny mirrors. Sera slid into her seat, shutting the door on the wind.
Alexei came in on her other side, his arms filled with fire starters, flints, waterproof matches, and a small hand-crank grinder.
When the door opened again and Elias slid in, Sera’s eyes went wide. He had at least six rolls of thick fur-lined sleeping bags, each one looking cozier than the next. Seeing where she was looking, Elias handed her one without a word.
He had barely spoken since they left the rec center, too lost in his own thoughts. But Sera didn’t mind. It was almost easier when he was quiet.
When Lachlan finally entered, the pile of supplies was enough to fill the last open spaces in the Hummer.
"Done," Zubair said. It wasn’t a question.
Outside, the light had dropped further, the sun sinking toward the west behind the frost-faded skyline.
On the way back, they took side streets. It wasn’t to avoid trouble, but rather to see it before it saw them. Twice they passed shuttered houses with curtains moving just enough to betray eyes behind them. Once, a figure darted between buildings carrying what looked like a single loaf of bread.
No one in the Hummer moved to stop them.
By the time the cabin came into sight, the creature under Sera’s skin had gone still again, satisfied. Supplies were stacked where she wanted them, not at the rec center, not in someone else’s hands.
They unloaded fast, the heavy coats going straight inside, the food sorted between immediate use and what would be moved to her private stash later. Lachlan tossed her one of the chocolate bars Alexei had found earlier, the wrapper cold against her palm.
"For the savage beast," he said with a half-smile.
Sera didn’t answer. She just tucked it into her pocket and went back to work.