Unprepared Page 14

  “I’ll add the same amount of sugar,” she continued, pouring the sugar into the measuring cup, then into the bowl.

  Kelly opened the bag of raisins sitting on the counter and handed it to Maureen, just happy to have something to do with her hands.

  “Just pour the whole thing in,” Kelly suggested.

  David and Steve had their backs against an office block, scanning the empty space between themselves and the mall entrance. There was no movement, but that didn’t mean there was no one there. Anyone who’d made it this far would have learned not to be seen if you wanted to live. Movement meant a person or an animal, with either being potentially useful, either for food, information, or both. There was a half moon in the sky above them, which illuminated their faces every time it appeared from behind a cloud. This meant their movements were controlled by the heavens above. They both looked up at the outline of a cloud moving closer to the weak, half moon hanging above them.

  Just a little longer...

  Almost there...

  Almost…

  David gave the signal, tapping Steve’s shoulder. They drew their weapons in front and ran across the parking lot towards the mall entrance, giving the dozen smashed up cars in front of them a wide berth, not knowing who or what could be inside them, before arriving to the outer wall of the shopping center and standing against it, frozen in time, as the moon made another unwelcome appearance. The entrance to the mall was just to their side. They just had to wait for the moon to give its signal.

  Baking powder was not something preppers tended to have in their stockpiles, which suddenly made it one of the most valuable items of the moment.

  “What else can we use?” Kelly asked Maureen, an avid baker.

  “Oh, baking powder’s just sodium bicarbonate and cream of tartar together,” Maureen responded chirpily.

  “I did not know that,” Kelly said, actually impressed. “So you’re the chemist in this operation.”

  “Nooo, just when it comes to baking. Besides, we’re not cooking a traditional cake in the oven, so we won’t be using a rising agent anyway.”

  “So how are we going to bake it?”

  “You’ll see,” Maureen said, smiling. “Go fill up this pot with water. Don’t use the good water, either. Just use creek water.”

  Kelly gently frowned in confusion, but Maureen told her not to worry.

  “You’ll see,” she repeated.

  Steve took the road flare out of his back pocket and handed it to David, who knew approximately where to throw it, once they were inside the mall. This would illuminate wherever it landed, creating a distraction for anyone nearby while hopefully allowing them to sneak towards the sporting goods store on the right.

  David made the first step, walking like a cat, into the interior of the mall. The cold air made it harder to smell the stench of feces, but not impossible. He and Steve crouched down behind an information board near the entrance, close to the entry of the sporting goods store.

  Thank God, he thought, looking at the closed shutter of the store. It was still locked down, although the shutter appeared bent and damaged in the dull, grainy moonlight streaming in behind them.

  David took the cap off the cylindrical flare, exposing the igniting compound. Going purely by touch, he pulled the flare’s cap in two, feeling for the abrasive texture of the scratcher. He tapped Steve’s shoulder, giving him the “Get ready” signal. Steve closed his eyes tightly and stood up, aiming the rifle around the sign, into the darkness, prepared to kill anything that moved. With his eyes also closed, David then hit the cap hard against the top of the flare. It began hissing with a red flash, the brightness visible through his closed eyelids. David stood up and threw it hard into the darkness, the shadows of tables, debris and door frames dancing as the flare charged through the air. It hit a storefront door frame with a clunk and rested, hissing in the distance, illuminating the concourse of the mall some forty yards away. David then ran over to the sporting goods store's shutter, fishing out the key in his pocket, while Steve had opened his eyes and now aimed the rifle in the direction of the flare, fizzing loudly. His hands fumbling, David couldn’t get the key into the shutter’s keyhole.

  “Shit,” he said, dropping the key.

  It bounced off the shutter grille, narrowly avoiding the key slipping inside the shop and out of his reach forever. He clawed at the ground and grabbed it hard, bringing it back up to the keyhole, about a foot off the ground.

  “Come on!” whispered Steve, focusing his gun intently into the mall.

  David managed to unlock the grille and tried to pull it upward, but it was jamming. Someone had tried desperately to get through the shutters and had bashed at the tracks on either side of the door frame, warping it and preventing it from opening up. David pulled hard, with the structure clanking and rattling loudly. He pulled again, this time forcing it up by about ten inches off the ground, but that was all he could manage.

  “Steve!” he called, dropping his backpack off and pushing it under the shutter, sliding in afterward.

  Steve ran over, rifle in hand, and did the same, while David poked his Desert Eagle outward, through the slats in the grille. If anyone was in the mall, they had now certainly heard them.

  The familiar hiss of a butane cooker broke the silence of kitchen, with Kelly placing a large pot of cold creek water on top of the flame. They used paving stones as a method of extra support for the pot, aware that little, single-burner camping stoves were never designed to hold the weight of three gallons of water.

  “You’re going to boil the cake?” Kelly asked.

  “Now you got it,” Maureen replied.

  “In creek water?” asked Kelly, a little incredulous.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll boil the heck out of it first,” she said, careful not to say the word ‘hell’, even though the kids were in bed, asleep.

  “I, uh… I have my reservations about this,” Kelly commented.

  Maureen laughed.

  “I’ll boil off any bugs. I’m just sick of everything tasting like chlorine.”

  “Oh, I’m with there you there,” Kelly replied. “Though the chlorine does hide the taste of mud!”

  Maureen took the candle burning in the kitchen and walked to the hallway, leaving Kelly alone with the pot of cold, dirty water and a blue butane flame. She didn’t like being alone, even for a moment, while her husband was somewhere in the depths of hell. Maybe with a broken leg, or taken hostage, or worse. Maureen returned with a pillowcase in her hand.

  “Alright, Maureen, you sure have my attention. I have no idea what you’re planning.”

  With his pistol in his right hand, David turned on his flashlight and scanned the messy store frantically to make sure they were alone and, equally importantly, to see if the supplies were still there. He moved towards the back, where everything was hidden, stepping over boxes and sports junk that no one wanted to loot in those early hours following the pulse. Steve moved backwards into the store, Keeping the rifle aimed towards the front.

  “Dave?” he whispered loudly.

  There was no answer.

  David didn’t hear him, being too busy out the back, jamming food into the two backpacks at his feet. The supplies were all still there, everything was still intact.

  “Dave?!” Steve said, louder.

  “Just keep guard! Gimme a minute!”

  “Hurry up, man!” Steve answered back, nervous.

  Running purely on adrenaline, David threw all manner of things into the backpack, quickly filling it up. He hastily moved onto the other backpack and began filling that too.

  Steve then saw noticed something. Some movement.

  It was someone moving inside the mall, getting closer, darting between obstacles, their face becoming visible by the light of the road flare, still burning angrily further down the mall. Steve and David had agreed to shoot dead any threat, no questions asked. But was this a threat? Steve didn’t know, but he didn't want to come home a cold-blooded murd
er. He was a dad; not a cold-blooded killer. It had to be self defense. He shouted clearly across the mall.

  “If you come any closer I will shoot you!”

  David heard this and packed the backpack furiously, filling it up to the brim, but knocking the first backpack over, some of its contents spilling onto the floor. He scrounged around the floor, stuffing it all back in. A voice called out from the direction of the flare.

  “Take it easy, man! I just wanna trade. You got the key for the store. I wanna trade with you!”

  “No trading! Stay where you are. If I see you I’ll shoot you! I promise you that!”

  Other than the sound of plastic rustling at the back of the store, there was no sound from the direction of the flare. A few seconds passed, before the male voice called out again, clearly desperate.

  “Come on, man! Don’t be like that. I need food. I’ll trade. I’ll do anything you want. I’ll suck your dick. Anything. Please!”

  Steve was shocked.

  “Stay where the fuck you are!” Steve shouted back.

  Carrying both heavy backpacks in his arms, David moved as quickly as he could from the back of the store toward the front, knocking into things in the darkness.

  “Let’s go!” David said, heading towards the shutter.

  Steve moved with him, poking the barrel of the rifle through the shutter and aiming it towards the guy near the flare, while David pushed the backpacks and his pistol underneath the shutter. David slid underneath and to the other side, picking up his gun and aiming it in the direction of the flare. Now it was Steve's turn. Steve removed the rifle from the shutter and got down on the ground, sliding underneath it on his back.

  “Come on, man! Please! Don’t do this! I'll do anything!” came the voice.

  “I said don’t fucking move!” said Steve, on his back, sliding out and putting on the backpack.

  “Where is he?” David asked, unsure where to aim.

  Steve got to his feet, now outside the store, and hoisted the rifle butt back to his shoulder, scanning for the source of the voice.

  “Close the shutter!” Steve ordered.

  David pulled down hard on the shutter and it crashed against the ground. While David was jingling the key frantically in the shutter's lock, Steve noticed movement behind a collection of planter boxes, much closer than he had seen the man before.

  “Stop!” Steve yelled, to no avail.

  Steve aimed at the boxes and pulled the trigger, causing an explosion of sound to echo through every corner of the building. David fumbled with the lock, his ears now ringing from the gunshot. A figure stood up slowly from behind the planter boxes, clutching its throat.

  “Oh my God, I got him,” Steve said, the sound of regret in his voice.

  The injured man made a gurgling sound and staggered a couple of feet toward one of the mall's the planter boxes, before collapsing. They had to get the hell out of there immediately.

  “You’re putting it in that?”

  “You betcha,” Maureen replied, opening up the pillowcase and scraping in the sticky contents.

  She’d added cooking oil and cinnamon to give it a little more flavor, but ultimately there wasn’t much else to this cake, other than flour, sugar and raisins.

  Maureen squeezed the end of the pillowcase into a ball and used a piece of twine to tie it closed.

  “You’re gonna cook the cake in a pillowcase in water?” Kelly asked, now more curious than incredulous.

  “It’s how my grandma used to do it. Or at least that’s what she said they did back during the depression. But you know how it is with grandparents; saying absolutely everything was done harder back then.”

  Kelly screwed up her face and tried to imitate the voice of an old woman.

  “In my day we used to walk fifty miles to get to school.”

  “In the snow!” Maureen replied.

  “Barefoot!” added Kelly.

  “And naked!” Maureen answered, both of them now laughing.

  This bland, pillowcase shaped, muddy-water cake was proving to be a great distraction from the dark thoughts constantly trying to enter their minds.

  With the water boiling, Maureen lowered the pillowcase into the bubbling water and put the lid on the pot.

  “Now we wait.”

  The waiting was the painful part, as it meant they naturally worried about their husbands. Kelly tried to distract them both by talking about food.

  “I’ll tell you one thing I really miss: Lasagna.”

  “Oh, don’t get me started. I lie awake at night fantasizing about food,” said Maureen.

  “You do that too?” Kelly asked.

  “Every night. I would kill for a pizza, dripping with melted cheese. Or a steak.”

  “Mmm,” Kelly replied. “I haven’t had pizza in months. I’ve forgotten what it tastes like.”

  “And chicken. And turkey. Oh, and ham.”

  “Bacon.”

  “Oh, stop. I’d forgotten about bacon,” exclaimed Kelly in delight.

  Weighed down by their looted treasure, and fearful of running because of the noise it would create, it had taken David and Steve almost an hour to get back to their suburb. Once they’d reached the end of a nearby street, they slinked quietly between two dark houses and into the forested area behind their own homes. They were almost home, two innocent murderers in a lawless land.

  The sound of the rear door opening sent a shiver down the spines of the two women in the kitchen. Maureen blew out the candle immediately, plunging them into darkness, while Kelly picked up the gun resting on the kitchen bench. Kelly ordered Maureen to stay there, while she moved towards the hallway at the back of the house. She heard a quiet whistle, a chirping sound, coming from down the hallway. It was their signal.

  “David!” she called.

  “We made it!” he responded.

  “Steve?” Maureen called out.

  “Hi honey, I’m home!” came the response, with an invisible smile in the dark of the night.

  Kelly, David, Maureen and Steve stayed up until the morning light, their spoils of victory spread across the living room floor. It wasn’t until they'd drawn the blinds and Kelly had removed the black sheet off the window that they could truly assess what they had obtained some hours before. With a pen and paper, Steve and David noted everything they’d collected.

  “OK, so… We got… One bag of pool chlorine, a Glock G29 compact handgun, four packs of ground coffee, thirteen chocolate bars, two bags of powdered milk, two bottles of whiskey, another two of rum, two bottles of brandy, a container of weed, a box of cigars, a bag of dried fruit, two jars of peanut butter, another two of chocolate spread, and the pièce de résistance: five boxes of condoms!”

  Maureen and Steve looked at each other, coy smiles on their faces. David threw a box of condoms across the room to Steve, offering one of his worst jokes to date.

  “Now you can’t say that I don’t give a fuck!”

  Braxley and Portia appeared in the living room.

  “D’you guys want raisin cake for breakfast?” Maureen asked.

  They looked at the haul on the living room floor, then back at their mother, nodding. The moist cake, still warm and surprisingly not tasting like mud, went down well. It was dense, but compared to the bland foods to which they’d grown accustomed, this was heaven in a bowl. The cake had the added benefit of keeping the kids silent for another ten minutes at least; their mouths full. For the first time in a long time, everyone could just live in the moment.

  Chapter nine

  Uninvited guest

  It was going to be a long winter. An early dusting of snow had fallen over Lynchburg in early December and the nighttime temperature occasionally slipped below freezing.

  “So much for global warming,” Kelly said to David, both bundled up like arctic explorers inside their own home. The jovial atmosphere of days gone by had begun to dissipate. Dark moods and common arguments were becoming more common, fueled by boredom. Kelly scanned the livi
ng room and sat on the recliner.

  “It’s been three months today,” she said to David, sitting on the sofa, buried under a comforter.

  He heard what she said but stared at the floor, ignoring her presence. Their conversations had withered away lately, typically replaced by silence. Silence in a silent world.

  Kelly raised her Nikon camera in his direction, focused it to his face and clicked the shutter, being on her last roll of film.

  “Don’t,” David said.

  “What?” Kelly asked.

  He didn’t answer.

  “You’re in a shitty mood,” she stated.

  He chose not to respond to her, sensing that another argument would be inevitable, regardless of what he said. Kelly wanted to engage in conversation, even though neither had anything to say that hadn’t already been said.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Of course I don’t want to talk about it,” David thought, but he said nothing.

  “David. Neither of us are happy right now, but we need to communicate.”

  David continued to stare the floor. He wondered why she didn’t just go into another room and leave him in peace. Kelly found his silence a little insulting, feeling like she was putting all the effort into keeping their collective sanity. The two sat in silence again, in some sort of conversational Mexican standoff where no party could possibly win. After another minute of dead air, Kelly spoke.

  “David, if we don’t communicate-”

  “Shut up. Please. Just stop talking.” David snapped.

  Normally he would never talk to his wife like that, but she was being ridiculous. Didn’t she have somewhere to be? Something to do? Why was she in the room, her sole purpose being to annoy him?

  “Don’t talk to me like that,” she responded.

  David pressed his molars together, breathing through his nose. He wanted to get up and get in the car and drive away. He wanted to be somewhere warm. Away from this house and his nagging wife. Kelly, ever the savior, tried to turn the conversation around.