ANYONE ELSE?: (ANYONE Series Book 2) A post-apocalypic survival novel

by Angela Scott

  I maneuvered the cart faster, a bit of a skip in my tired, achy step. A smile crept across my face even as I tried not to get my hopes up. The baby stopped crying, maybe afraid of the extra speed, but that didn’t stop Callie. She jogged at my side, tethered to her leash, meowing as we went.

  “I’m trying, I’m trying! Freaking cut me some slack!”

  The lot was empty. Not even one abandoned shopping cart littered the site. Papers and trash blew across the yellow lines marking the individual parking spaces. Empty plastic grocery bags pressed up against the building and a few of the trees that lined the sidewalk.

  The deer headed right to one of the trees. Most of the leaves were long gone, but the deer didn’t seem bothered. She nipped at the branches, bark, and buds without any hesitation. Good for her. It was kind of nice having one in my group able to take care of itself.

  One animal down. One more to go.

  I pushed the cart right up to the sliding doors and pressed my face to the glass. There was no use trying to break in if everything was looted or gone, though I hadn’t expected it to be. Most of the town appeared to be left intact. Everything seemed pretty much in place, minus the people. Only a few buildings, stores, and homes looked picked through and destroyed.

  I’d seen enough news to witness riots and looting when people were mad or scared. I’d seen people loot and break stuff, busting in windows when their favorite sports team won. People were weird that way. To see a large portion of the town left alone could only mean they didn’t have time to destroy anything.

  Yay, me.

  The skylights in the ceiling provided enough light to see shelves upright, and items lining them, though I had no idea if those particular items would be useful or not. It was a good sign at least.

  I stepped back and looked to my cat. “I don’t have my gun this time. I have no idea how we’re getting in.” Shooting out the glass had worked twice before—at the pet store at the beginning of this whole apocalyptic mess, and then again at Rite-Aid when I’d cut myself and needed antibiotics. That gun was long gone.

  Callie gave me a long, drawn-out meow. If I read her right, she didn’t care. She just wanted me to make it happen.

  With the cart at a standstill, the baby started crying again. The almost pathetic whimpering between hiccups caused me to worry.

  For the first time, I really looked at the kid.

  Its matted bangs clung to its forehead. A snot bubble balanced from the end of one of its nostrils, but its large brown eyes stared up at me, reminding me a lot of the old lady. Desperation.

  I didn’t think babies could look desperate. Afraid, mad, hungry, cold, sick, but desperate?

  This baby did.

  “I’m going to get us in there.” I rocked the cart a little. “Where there is a will, there is a way.”

  I stopped.

  Where there is a will, there is a way.

  My bracelet. The one Cole had given me.

  I glanced down at my bare wrist where it used to be. It was only a piece of leather with those words pressed into it. It had no real monetary value, but it had meant everything to me.

  I ran my fingers over the place the bracelet used to occupy. Losing it sucked. I missed it and I missed him.

  The baby whimpered. Callie meowed, so I mentally shook off any thoughts of Cole or the bracelet and tried to focus.

  “Okay, I know. We’re so close. What we need is inside, and I’m going to get us in there. I promise.” Even as I said the words, I had no idea how. I couldn’t see rocks anywhere. Nothing in my backpack seemed useful, though my brain went through each item like a grocery list. I knelt next to the cart and searched the bottom rack. Besides boxes of garbage and smelly blankets, there was nothing.

  I stood and placed my hands on my hips. Think. Think. Think.

  Nothing came to mind.

  I went back to the sliding doors and pressed my face against the window again. I banged my forehead on the slick surface once, only once out of frustration. The movement rattled my brain and quickly reminded me I wasn’t as healed as I thought I was.

  Come on, just let me in.

  I spread my arms out to either side of me, my palms flat against the glass.

  With nothing to lose, I pushed against the door, willing it to budge just enough to let us squeeze through. Since nothing ever came easy, I stood back, shocked, when the door slid partway open.

  Chapter 23

  First the baby.

  Then the cat.

  Both demanded immediate attention. Although it sucked having to pick whose needs I should meet first, especially since I had known my cat a lot longer, the kid’s whimpers and choked hiccups won over Callie’s persistent and annoying meows.

  My cat had a lot of fight left in her. The baby, not as much.

  The wheels of the cart and the deer’s hooves clacking on the linoleum floors echoed in the otherwise silent and empty building. One wheel on the cart spun in crazy directions, twisting every which way but the direction that would make pushing the cart a whole lot easier. It squealed with every rotation, adding to the creepy ambiance.

  I pushed the cart past the produce section. Nothing resembled fruits or vegetables. After months and months left to wilt, rot, and eventually dry up, everything looked terrifying. I had no idea bananas and lettuce could look like evil aliens. Only the labels above each monstrosity provided the answers. I determined right then and there not to go anywhere near the meat and dairy section.

  A heavy, earthy dankness hung in the air. It wasn’t pleasant, but not as awful as it could have been. A couple of months before, this place would’ve smelled like death and we would’ve walked right back out. For that, I was grateful. As I passed the cleaning supply aisle, I remembered a commercial where they blindfolded unsuspecting people, placed them in a room full of trash, and spritzed the place with air freshener. The people thought they were on a tropical island, breathing in the flowery fresh scents. Apparently, that air freshener was that good.

  After I fed everyone and met their needs, I planned to spray the crap out of Walmart.

  Distracted by everything the store had to offer, the deer stopped following me and went its own way, exploring. I’d shut the sliding doors at the front of the building after we entered, so the deer was fine to entertain itself. One less thing to worry about for the moment. Callie walked on the leash at my side, meowing and refusing to let me forget about her.

  “I know, I know. You’re next, I promise,” I assured my cat as I scanned the signs hanging from the ceiling, searching for the infant area. It had to be around here somewhere.

  As hungry as I was, as deprived and tired as I felt, I stuck to my plan — baby first, cat second, myself last. It would’ve been so easy to grab a box of chocolate cereal off one of the endcaps and tear into it, but I didn’t.

  It was probably one of the most adult things I’d ever done.

  Where is it? Where is it?

  “Ah-ha!” I spotted the baby sign and headed the cart in that direction, weaving between displays and bins. Destination ahead.

  I’d never had a reason to shop in the baby area of any store before. Why would I? All I knew was that everything needed to keep a kid alive their first couple of years could be found in that section.

  It was far more complicated than that.

  One whole aisle was dedicated to diapers. All kinds of brands. All kinds of sizes. Boxes and boxes of diapers, each claiming to be the best at preventing leakage. Another aisle for baby foods and cans of formula from the newborn stage all the way up to toddlers. Soy, lactose-free, advanced, sensitive, organic.

  The variety of bottles and nipple shapes made my head spin. I guess I hadn’t seen enough nipples in this world to realize so many crazy options existed. Are babies really that picky? How many nipples had they seen?

  Everything on the shelves overwhelmed me. My tired and hungry self couldn’t cope with making complicated decisions, so I glanced down at the filthy sobbing creature in the shoppi
ng cart. “Tomorrow, I’ll do better.”

  I ripped the plastic off one of the bottles with a normal-looking nipple, grabbed a can of formula that stated it was gentle and had an easy to digest protein for fussy babies — and this baby was fussy. Sounded good to me.

  I turned the can over, doubled checked the expiration date, and let out a breath of relief to find it was good to go. To be fair, expired baby food would’ve been better than no baby food. An apocalypse created desperate measures, but I took the unexpired date as a victory.

  The instructions said one scoop of formula for every two ounces of water. That was a problem.

  “Water? We need water.” I placed the bottle and the can of formula in the seat portion of the cart and wheeled us in the direction of bottled water, which was one aisle over from the soda section — a section I planned to visit a lot.

  Again, I had more options—distilled water, spring water, purified, and sparkling. Why couldn’t water just be water?

  I hadn’t any choice in a long time, and now that Walmart presented me with so many, I could scarcely handle it. Tired and hungry brains don’t do well with multiple selections, and mine was no different.

  Purified water seemed like an okay choice, so I poured six ounces of water in the baby bottle, not sure how much the kid would really eat. I opened the can of formula by peeling back the foil lid.

  Holy hell.

  Neuro complete, my butt. What the crap was this stuff made of? I glanced at the ingredients and recognized none of the words. Jeez.

  My own neuro makeup revolted against the smell of baby formula. With the rotting food that lingered in the store, my personal funk, and a baby swimming in its own filth, I couldn’t believe something would top it.

  Maybe babies’ taste buds were a lot different from adults. For the kid’s sake, I hoped so.

  After dumping in three scoops and having enough of that smell, I quickly put the lid back on the formula and shook up the bottle to mix it together.

  Satisfied that the clumps worked itself into a frothy milky substance, I leaned over the edge of the cart and placed the nipple in the baby’s mouth. “Sorry, kid. Supposedly, this stuff is good for you.”

  Its tiny hands reached up, brushed against my own as it clasped the bottle. Little fingers touched mine, so soft and delicate. Its chestnut brown eyes peeked out from under long lashes and stared up at me. Its tears and whimpering stopped as it sucked at the bottle. A tear still clung to the corner of one eye.

  I slipped my hand out from under the baby’s, allowing the kid to hold its own bottle, and brushed the tear away. “You’re going to be okay,” I said before taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly. “We’re going to make this work.”

  The baby stared at me, probably trying to figure me out as much as I was trying to figure it out. It was a weird relationship thrust on both of us.

  I placed the partially opened jug of water in the cart next to the formula and scooped my cat into my arms. “Okay, Callie, your turn.”

  Litter box, check. Water bowl, check. Wet and dry cat food, check.

  Keeping her on the leash didn’t seem quite right, and though the store was humongous, I decided to let Callie run as free as the deer. I knelt and undid the crappy, barely-a-leash leash from my cat’s neck. “Don’t go insane.”

  She didn’t hold back, running right to the food and sniffed at it. Seeming to not know which one to eat first, she took turns nibbling from both bowls, a bite here and another bite there. Maybe she thought the food would disappear if she didn’t constantly eat from both.

  The store had a lot of space for a cat to explore, but I grabbed a pet bed off the shelf and placed it on the floor for her. Soft and inviting. A few toys and a scratching post made for a nice setup.

  The deer stood at the end of the pet aisle, watching me the whole time. I stared at her and she stared at me.

  “What do I do with you?”

  Walmart had a section for babies and another for cats, but nothing for deer besides the hunting section. That didn’t work for this scenario.

  Fresh fruits and vegetables were a no-go. All the plants had died months before. Not knowing what else to do, I grabbed several large dog bowls, placed them on the floor, and filled one with water, another with dry dog food that looked like it was packed with lots of veggies and proteins, and then dumped a bag of birdseed, and a combination of hamster and guinea pig food in the other. “Hopefully, this will be okay for you.” I mixed the seeds and pellets together with my hand.

  As an afterthought, I grabbed a big ol’ fluffy dog bed off a shelf and placed it next to Callie’s, but then moved it away since I wasn’t quite sure where they stood with one another. “There ya go. Comfy and cozy just for you.”

  The deer walked down the aisle, sniffed her bowls of food, looked at me one more time, and began eating. She dipped her head from one bowl to another, much as Callie did. Apparently, having choices was difficult for animals, too.

  While they were distracted, I slipped a sparkly collar around Callie’s neck and a teal-colored dog collar around the deer’s. Both had tiny bells hanging from them, nothing too obnoxious, but as they moved I would be able to hear them in the store. At least, that was my hope. Neither seemed to notice. With a cat, being attacked and scratched was always a possibility. With a deer, anything was possible.

  Seeing both animals eating and the baby content in the cart, happily sucking away at its bottle, a sense of accomplishment overcame me. I smiled.

  Food, water, and shelter — I had done it.

  We’d live to see another day.

  Thanks, Walmart.

  Certain that they would be okay, I gave the deer’s neck a gentle pat and a scratch behind her ears. “You two, don’t do anything dumb, okay?”

  Neither acknowledged me. To be fair, if I had a big bowl of food in front of me, I’d be ignoring everyone and everything, too.

  Chapter 24

  Who was that giggling, manic person running and skipping through the food aisles, grabbing random things from the shelves, overloading her arms, and shoving as much of it into her mouth as she could?

  It was me.

  But not really me.

  It was as if I watched myself from a distance, like a bystander, instead of being the participant in the crazy scenario, an out of body experience of sorts.

  I could see myself, laughing like a lunatic and behaving like a child, but I couldn’t control it. The rational part of my brain had skipped town, left the building. The id part of my personality took over.

  And even though a little voice whispered, “Hey there, Buckaroo, you really should slow down. Be smart about this. Even though Walmart has bathrooms, they’re not functioning, and all of this is going to come back to bite you in the end — literally,” the animal part of my brain screamed, “Food, food, food, food! Eat it! Eat it ALL!”

  So, the little voice of reason threw up its hands and walked away.

  The insane part of the whole, wild experience was that I couldn’t remember tasting anything. Not the Pop-tarts, the fishy shaped crackers, the uncooked Ramen noodles, the bags of cereal, the pudding, the packets of flavored tuna fish, or sealed applesauce. None of it.

  I shoved it in and tasted nothing.

  I should have been less gluttonous, but aisle after aisle of so many food choices made it impossible to be conservative and sensible. I had eaten MREs and beef jerky for way too long to hold back my crazy when a bag of stale Cheetos presented itself.

  I collapsed on a bean bag chair surrounded by empty boxes, devoured cans of soda, and crumpled wrappers, feeling like Jabba the Hut — a big giant unmoving slug of a being.

  The baby sat up in the shopping cart, the nearly empty bottle of formula in one hand and a partially slurped baby food pouch in the other, staring at me through the bars.

  Though it was nice to see the kid sitting up, I pointed a finger. “Don’t judge me.”

  The kid only blinked its long lashes and then lifted the p
ouch to its mouth.

  My stomach gurgled. Apparently, tuna fish and tapioca pudding didn’t mix well. I was grateful that on the other side of the store there were shelves lined with Pepto-Bismol if I needed it. I probably would.

  I laid my head back against the beanbag and stared at the ceiling. “Ah, I can’t believe I ate all of that.” Not my brightest move by a long shot, but hunger and deprivation could make even the calmest of people go bonkers.

  The skylights above me took on an evening hue. Although I felt like a bloated puffer fish sitting there on the beanbag, I forced myself to stand. Night was coming, and if I didn’t get prepared, we’d soon find ourselves in the already creepy-like situation, alone in an abandoned building, in the complete dark.

  I wobbled a little on my feet and felt like I carried a fifty-pound bowling ball in my gut. I didn’t sit down even though I wanted to. I had a lot to do.

  “Okay, kid, looks like we’re staying here for the night. I guess we should make the best of it and get comfortable.” The trash on the floor would need cleaning up. For now, I planned to move us to a different section of the store and not think about how I succumbed to my animal instincts.

  I took hold of the shopping cart and steered us away from the grocery section for my own safety. I doubted I would attempt to eat anything else since I felt full and a whole lot sick, but mayhem might ensue if I came across a box of ding-dongs.

  “Well, we need light, it’s going to be dark soon, and we need a place to sleep.” I glanced down at the baby, who looked up at me. “And we really need to get you cleaned up, pronto. You’re gross.”

  The baby thrust out its bottom lip.

  “I meant that in the nicest way,” I quickly tried to smooth over the fact I had somehow bruised the kid’s ego. “But you know it’s true. If it makes you feel any better, I stink, too. We’re a pair of nasty humans. You worse than me, of course. I don’t have poop in my pants.” That was one thing I had going for me so far.