“Yeah, this is weird,” he said.
“Maybe the employees got kidnapped,” Corbin suggested, “or maybe they fled when the looters attacked.”
Whatever the case, it seemed like they were definitely alone. Shane felt marginally safer, so he took his hand off his holster and signaled for Corbin to do the same. The young man hesitated a second before slinging the AR-15 over his shoulder. Then they approached the nearby display. There were a variety of solar kits stacked on top of and around the table. As Shane looked at the different options, Corbin pointed to a large shelf in the far corner.
“They’ve got a wind turbine for houses over there,” he noted. “Looks like you attach it to the roof.”
“That won’t be much help in the summer,” Shane replied, “when it’s muggy and there’s absolutely no wind, just stagnant humidity.”
“Good point, but maybe we could take both. Solar panels and a wind turbine together would give us plenty of power.”
“We’re not taking anything,” Shane said. “We’re buying, and we’ll stick to the solar panels for now.”
“If the shop owner is dead, then all this stuff will go to waste,” Corbin said. “The looters will just come back and take it eventually, and then they’ll sell it on the black market for ridiculous prices.”
“We’re not taking anything. If no one is here, we’ll leave money and a note.”
“It’s your money now, sir,” Corbin said. “I gave it to you, so you can do whatever you want with it, but dead people don’t need money.”
Shane settled on a 400-watt solar starter kit with four small panels. According to the box, it was intended for RVs, cabins, and trailers.
“You think you could help me set this up?” he asked. “Because, truth is, I’ve never messed with one of these before. I don’t know how to install them.”
“Oh, definitely,” Corbin said. “It’s really not that hard. We just have to get up on the roof to mount the panels. Once you mount the panels, all you have to do is run the wires down into the house to the batteries.”
“Great.”
Shane tipped the large box onto its side and started to wrap his arms around it, but at that moment, a new voice spoke from behind him.
“Freeze!” A woman’s voice, but crisp and cold as ice. “Don’t you dare move! I caught you boys in the act this time.”
Though he was in an awkward position, his arms wrapped around the box, his back slightly bent, Shane froze in place. Corbin had reached out to help him, but as soon as the woman spoke, his right hand twitched in the direction of his rifle strap. Shane dared a small shake of his head, and Corbin pursed his lips in frustration.
“Ma’am, we don’t want any trouble,” Shane said.
“Shut up,” she replied. “Let go of that box and turn around to face me. Oh, you just thought you had free run of the place, didn’t you? You’d have cleared me out if I’d given you enough time. I know your type.”
Shane set the box down gently, but when he did, it tipped over and fell onto the table with a thud. He tensed, expecting the startled woman to do something rash. When she didn’t, he turned to face her. She was a large individual, her hair pulled back into a severe ponytail, revealing a taut, shiny forehead above dark eyes. Shane spotted what appeared to be drying flecks of blood on her blouse, but his eyes were drawn to the silver Smith & Wesson revolver clutched tightly in both hands. A large bandage was wrapped around her right wrist. Behind her, the office door stood open, and he saw a cluttered space beyond filled with cardboard boxes.
“This is my store,” she said. “My name is Klara. I own the place, and despite what you people seem to think, it’s not a free-for-all. You can’t walk in here and grab whatever you want. You got away with it last time, but I caught you.”
“Well, we’re actually glad you’re open for business, because—”
She spoke right over Shane. “I told you to shut your mouth. All I want to know is if you’re the guys who broke my windows earlier. Yes or no. I cut myself on that damn glass.”
“No, ma’am,” Shane said. “We just got here. We saw the sign on your door and assumed the place was open because, you know, it says you’re open. You didn’t answer when we called.”
“I was in the bathroom,” Klara said, practically shouting. “I came out as soon as I could. You thought you’d take some stuff and run before I got out here, didn’t you?”
“I had every intention of paying,” Shane replied. “Even if the place was abandoned, I would have left enough money to pay for what we took, along with a note. You can ask the kid here. We discussed it.”
“We did,” Corbin said.
The hateful look she gave Shane suggested she didn’t believe him. Her grip on the gun was remarkably steady. Shane didn’t want to test her aim.
She examined the table behind him, her lips moving as she counted the stacks of boxes. “Looks like a solar kit is missing. Prove to me it’s not sitting inside your vehicle, and then maybe—just maybe—I’ll believe you’re not robbing the place.”
“Of course.”
Shane signaled for Corbin to walk ahead of him as they started back through the store. He didn’t fully trust the kid not to try something crazy. As they walked toward the broken front windows, he heard the woman’s quick little footsteps behind him. The Volkswagen van was the only vehicle parked directly in front of the store, and when they reached the door, the woman stepped past Shane and shoved her way outside.
She flung open the driver side door of the van and leaned inside, peering around the seat into the back. She was seemingly unconcerned now about the armed men behind her. If they’d wanted to, they could have overpowered her. Corbin even dared to grab the strap of his rifle, though he had yet to pull it off his back.
After a second, she stepped back, kicked the door shut, and nodded. “Okay, I just had to make sure. It looks like you don’t have any of my stuff in there, unless you’re hiding it in a compartment or something.”
“We’re not thieves,” Shane said.
“Well, I did catch you in the act of taking something,” Klara repeated, glaring at him. “It’s easy to say you were going to pay for it after you got caught. Isn’t that what shoplifters always say?”
“Oh, gosh, can we just leave this stupid place?” Corbin muttered, gripping the rifle strap tighter. “What a waste of time. She knows we didn’t take anything. She just enjoys being difficult. We’re not to blame for your broken windows, ma’am, so it’s not fair to take your frustrations out on us.”
“We’ll pay for the solar panels,” Shane said. “I have a credit card and I have cash, whichever you prefer.”
“I don’t want your credit card or your cash,” Klara replied. “I don’t want any money at all. It’s no use to me. Barter only. You have any food at home? That’s worth more to me than a stack of bills. C & R Supermarket down the street hasn’t reopened yet, and I don’t have a membership at the wholesale club, so food is what I need.”
Shane rolled his eyes. “Are you serious? You want us to lug food back here to pay for a solar power kit? Ma’am—”
“I’m serious,” she replied. “Food is what I need, and not anything that’ll go bad in a day or two.”
“If you’re not taking cash or credit cards, you should put it on the sign,” he said.
“I’ll run my business how I want.”
“We don’t have to put up with this, sir,” Corbin said. “Let’s go. Someone else will have what we need. This lady is just taking out her anger on us.”
Klara still had the Smith & Wesson, though she wasn’t pointing it at anyone at the moment. It occurred to Shane that they potentially had a bit of a high noon showdown on their hands. Who could draw, point, and shoot first?
He wouldn’t let it come to that. Klara had every right to protect her business.
“Okay, fine, we will return home and get food,” he said. “Stuff that won’t spoil.”
“Good,” she replied. “About a wee
k’s worth seems fair, don’t you think?”
“A week of food? Are you crazy?” Corbin snapped.
“That’s what I said. A week of food in exchange for the solar panel kit. You’re getting the better end of the bargain, I’d say. You’ll get power off those things for a lot longer than a week.”
“Can we take the kit with us and bring the food?” Shane knew how she would answer, but he had to try.
“I’m sure you’d love it if I was that stupid. No, you don’t take anything until you pay.”
And with that, she marched back to her store and stepped inside, pulling the door shut behind her. The door was, of course, useless since the big picture window was completely shattered, but Shane took her point. She disappeared into the gloom of the aisles.
“She leaves the store unattended with the door unlocked while she goes to the bathroom,” Corbin said. “Then she gets mad at customers for being inside and looking at merchandise. Does that make any sense? What a wholly irrational person.”
“She’s upset,” Shane said. “It’s doesn’t matter. We’ll barter for the solar power kit. We need it.”
“You’re too nice to bad people,” Corbin said with a scowl, walking around the van to the passenger door. “You have to stop letting people take advantage of us. There’s no reason to put up with it. All it does is encourage bad people to keep being bad.”
Being nice is the reason you’re still here, kid, Shane thought, but didn’t say.
“We have to live in this town,” is what he chose to say instead.
He got back inside the van and started the engine. Corbin took the rifle off his back and held it between his knees, seething.
He’ll get over it, Shane told himself as he backed out of the parking space. He’ll have to.
He drove back through town. It continued to amaze him how quickly the definition of civilization had changed in the absence of the power grid. People tended to loiter outside more these days. Most people left the doors and windows in their homes open day and night—the Georgia heat was merciless in enclosed spaced. Many lived in tents or sheds; he assumed they were transients, travelers stranded when their vehicles died. Others had taken a similar course of action as Shane, fortifying their property by building bigger and higher fences, sealing windows, putting up NO TRESPASSING signs. There seemed to be more angry dogs chained in yards than before.
As they turned into Beth’s neighborhood, moving down a street in which half the yards were cluttered with trash, Corbin pointed at a small house behind a low brick fence. It was set farther back from the road than the other houses and surrounded on three sides by trees. What Corbin was pointing at quickly became clear: a row of dusty solar panels on the slope of the roof.
“Yeah, I see it,” Shane said, slowing down to get a good look at them. “Some of Klara’s satisfied customers perhaps.”
“Probably not,” Corbin replied. “Those panels look old. They’ve been sitting in the sunlight for years.”
Shane was tempted to stop and cut a deal with the homeowners. It would save him from having to crawl back to Klara with buckets of food. But the house appeared abandoned. The front windows were wide open, and the rooms inside seemed empty. There was no vehicle in the driveway, and the grass was overgrown.
“No one seems to be home,” Corbin noted, adjusting his grip on the rifle. “What do you think?”
Corbin raised his eyebrows—a question. Shane knew immediately what he was suggesting.
“No. We’re not going to steal the solar panels off the house,” Shane said, picking up speed to drive past the house.
“Why not?” Corbin asked. “The house looks abandoned. There’s no sign that anyone lives there, which means they left the solar panels behind. Maybe the homeowners got stranded somewhere far away and just decided to settle in.”
“We don’t know that for sure. You can’t steal someone’s property based on speculation.”
“There’s one way to find out,” Corbin said. “Let’s go back and check the house: knock on the doors, look in the windows. A lot of people got stranded across the country with no way to get home. You saw them. We all did. People living in tents or sleeping in the cars. They might never come back. That cow at the store is messing with us. Why give in when we can get solar panels for free?”
“Because someone might still live there,” Shane said, “even if they aren’t home at the moment. We’ll stick to the deal we made with Klara.”
He also thought, but didn’t say, that he was uncomfortable with the idea of someone giving up on getting home. It was a dreadful possibility that made him think of Jodi. Surely, these homeowners would come back. Surely, everyone would eventually come back.
Corbin frowned and sat back in his seat. “I hate being a pushover. Don’t you?”
Shane ignored the comment and drove on.
8
Mike was forced to use the pedicab, though it took all his strength just to get the stupid thing moving. Because it had three wheels, it was slightly more stable than the Schwinn, which meant he was less likely to flop over on the street. Owen had no problem on the Schwinn. If anything, it was a struggle for him to hold back and stick with Mike. He had a furious look on his face, the look of a kid who wants to kill someone. This was the same kid who’d knocked a man out in the middle of Walmart. Mike was worried about what Owen would do if they caught up to the kidnappers.
They followed the direction the motorcycles had driven off, but it was slow going. Mike’s nausea had abated somewhat, but he still felt so weak. His limbs were all skin and jelly. Then again, it was the most exercise he’d gotten since his cancer diagnosis.
“Are you sure you don’t want to trade, Uncle Mike?” Owen asked. “You’re pulling more weight than me. That pedicab is kind of bulky in the back.”
Mike struggled to speak between heavy breaths. “I’m not sure…the Schwinn would be…any better, kid. I’d have to worry about…balancing that thing. Let’s just keep…keep going.”
The winding country road seemed endless, an asphalt artery cutting through green forested hills, giving no hope that it would ever end. Even if they eventually caught up with the kidnappers, what would they do then? The kidnappers had taken both the .38 and the pellet gun. Mike and Owen had no weapons. Worse yet, Jodi had made it clear she didn’t want to be followed. She would be furious if Mike let Owen attack the men, and Mike had no doubt the kid would try.
Still, what else could they do? Owen would never have agreed to continue on alone to Macon, even if Mike had been foolish enough to try to talk him into it. Maybe it would have been best. If they could reach Macon, they might return with Shane and possibly some weapons. However, by then, Jodi would be so far down the road, they would surely never find her.
This is what we have to do, Mike reminded himself, not for the first time, even if we’re destined to fail. We can’t abandon Jodi to the mercy of those animals.
“Uncle Mike!”
It was only when Owen called his name that he realized he’d come to a complete stop. The world swam around him, as if it had all turned to water. He leaned over the handlebars of the pedicab, his face in his hands.
“Sorry, kid,” he said. “Give me just a second to catch my breath.”
He took a deep breath, and the dizziness diminished.
“Why don’t we leave the Schwinn?” Owen said. “We don’t need it. I’ll drive the pedicab, and you can sit in the back and rest.”
“No, no, we’re fine.” Mike rubbed his eyes and rose in his seat. Mostly, he was afraid that if he fell asleep in the back of the pedicab, Owen would make rash decisions with no one to rein him in. “Let’s keep going. I just needed a little break.”
He started pedaling again, but he knew it was a futile gesture. He’d just about reached the limit of his strength, and once he passed out, there was no telling what the kid would do. More than that, he could see that Owen was getting more and more desperate.
A small town was situated amids
t the trees just ahead: eight or nine buildings beside a muddy creek, including a dollar store and what appeared to be an auto body shop. Though the shop didn’t seem to be open, there were a few vehicles in the parking lot.
“Okay,” he said with a huff. “Okay, kid. I admit defeat. This is a miserable experience. Maybe we need a better form of transportation before I die on this seat.”
“Don’t talk like that.” Owen replied. “I’m not going to let you die.”
“Let’s see if we can’t borrow a vehicle up ahead,” Mike said, gesturing toward the town. “What do you think? They seem to have a nice selection of old crappy cars. Surely, at least one of them still works.”
“If that’s what we have to do, fine,” Owen said. “Can you make it that far?”
“What is it, two hundred yards or so?” Mike took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Yeah, I guess I have to, don’t I? Let’s find out.”
“You can do it,” Owen said. “Just concentrate and don’t pass out.”
“Is that all it takes?” Mike replied with a laugh.
Despite the kid’s encouragement, by the time they neared the town Mike could only inch along. When he finally reached the auto body shop, he crumpled over the handlebars of the pedicab again, as limp as a boiled noodle. Owen appeared at his side and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. He helped Mike to his feet, and together they approached the shop. There was a small plastic bench just outside the door, and Owen brought him there and helped him sit down.
The shop was closed—it looked like no one had been there in days. In fact, the whole town seemed strangely empty. While Mike tried to recover some of his strength, Owen strolled through the parking lot, checking the vehicles that were lined up and waiting for repairs.
“This one has keys in the ignition,” he said, indicating a mid-80s maroon Chrysler Cordoba.
Surviving The End (Book 2): Fallen World Page 6