Isolation (Book 2): Going Out

by Jones, Nathan

  As for Hal, once they'd finally had the evening to themselves he'd seemed content to simply hold her and silently brood, absently returning her overtures of affection but obviously a million miles away. Or at least a thousand.

  Ellie could empathize with his mood, since she'd been the same after her mom's nursing home had gone silent with no news. She still felt that mix of worry and grief whenever she thought of it, knowing that under the circumstances no news probably wasn't good news.

  She eventually drifted off to sleep again, waking up to find dawn light filtering through the cloth of the tent. Hal was easing out of bed, taking care not to wake her, although when she shifted with a sleepy murmur he paused.

  “Don't mind me,” he whispered. “Just need to hit the latrines.”

  “Okay, hurry back.” Stifling a yawn, she caught the back of his head and pulled him down to press her lips to his.

  “Hurry being the operative word,” he said wryly, pulling on his shoes and ducking outside.

  That was true enough; with the extensive decontamination procedures even going number one was a hassle that could take up to half an hour. Leading some people to joke that their main pastime in camp was going to the bathroom.

  Judging by the light it was almost time to wake up anyway, so Ellie reluctantly pulled herself out of bed and reached for her shoes, then ducked outside. The morning air was still a bit chilly, and she hugged herself as she looked around at the sleeping camp.

  The place was quiet at the best of times, but even so there was something especially pleasant and peaceful about the stillness around her right now. It was almost worth waking up early to enjoy.

  Hal must've taken her words to heart, because he was back a good five minutes earlier than she'd expected. When he saw her standing outside he joined her, wrapping his arms around her from behind and pulling her close. “You look like you're freezing.”

  “I was,” Ellie said, settling back against his chest with a contented sigh. She stared off towards the northwest, although the focus of her thoughts was out of view. “How do you think they're doing?”

  “Considering how long they've been gone, either they've jumped right into it or they're still fumbling around for how to get started.”

  They were talking about the planned community, which was finally moving forward since the first batch of people had been released from the quarantine camp yesterday. Of that group, she'd been pleasantly surprised to find that almost half of them had decided to stick around and build the settlement; even though the majority of them lived in nearby Colorado Springs, they seemed to feel that it would be safer to build new homes than to try to return to a city that no longer had utilities and was full of infection.

  As for the other half, most were motivated by family they needed to find, or they lived in more rural nearby areas and felt they could get by if they returned to their homes and kept their heads down. Ellie wished them all the best, especially those facing a long and most certainly difficult and dangerous journey to find loved ones.

  She and Hal would be facing such a journey themselves in six days.

  Ideally, it would've been as simple as just getting in the car and driving right there. But even if the Nowaks had left the gas tank miraculously full, they couldn't expect to get all the way to KC from here on a single tank. Not by a long shot.

  Elated as Ellie was to get her car back, she had to admit that the problem of refueling left her genuinely frightened. Which was only natural she supposed, after the disastrous attempt to gas up in Watkins had resulted in that traumatic run-in with the robbers.

  While thankfully that particular group had been dealt with, she was still afraid that any more attempts to stop and refuel on the way home would similarly end in getting robbed, sexually assaulted, or even murdered. Just one of the many problems that kept her up at night; she'd asked Cathy and the other relief workers about possible safe places to refuel between here and Missouri, but aside from quarantine camps and relief stockpiles they just couldn't be sure of anything.

  The relief stockpiles were generally more focused with helping entire communities, and anyway they had strict policies to prevent Zolos contamination. Ellie and Hal would probably be turned away at the gate, even with a quarantine camp 21-day certification.

  As for the quarantine camps, they probably wouldn't be handing out supplies to any old travelers who passed by. Assuming they didn't just toss Ellie and Hal into that camp for another three weeks of waiting, which would be completely unacceptable.

  They had six days to figure out some way to get gas without ending up robbed, detained, or worse.

  Ellie shivered, on the verge of suggesting they go back to their warm bed and make the most of the time they had left before the day started. Before she could, she spotted a familiar figure striding down the row towards their tent.

  Biting back a sigh, she reluctantly moved away from Hal, who stepped up beside her to greet Officer Merrill as he approached.

  The man waved when he saw them, beaming jovially through his faceplate. “Good morning!”

  Ellie exchanged a surprised glance with her boyfriend. Merrill didn't usually come into camp unless he had to, and he generally wasn't best pleased about it. “Good morning, Officer!” she called back. “What brings you around this morning?”

  “Just wanted to deliver the good news that at first light the Nowaks were officially released from this camp, and are finally out of our hair,” the man said with obvious relish.

  Maybe it was petty, but Ellie really did consider that good news. “Were they able to hitch a ride, or did they decide to stay put in the new settlement going up?”

  The officer snorted. “Far as I know, they're walking east towards Kansas City. Which'll maybe give them more empathy for what they put you through, stealing your car and leaving you to hike across Southern Utah.” He shook his head in amused disbelief. “Speaking of stealing, I caught those two trying to break the driver's side window of your car. I don't know if they were trying to get something from inside, had some idea they might be able to hot wire it, or if it was just petty vandalism, but I ran them off before they could do any damage.”

  She exchanged glances with Hal. “Thanks, Officer,” her boyfriend said. “You've been a lifesaver.”

  Merrill snorted again. “Don't thank me. I just had a feeling those two would try something, so I kept an eagle eye on them after letting them out the front gate. Although I'll certainly be glad to see the last of them.”

  Ellie had to agree.

  “But I should probably report something,” the guard added, tone casual. “It turns out someone did get into your car.” When they both tensed in alarm he grinned through his faceplate. “Me. Just into the trunk, though, using the keys I confiscated from the Nowaks.”

  She shared a glance with her boyfriend. “Umm . . .”

  Merrill's grin widened, and he slouched casually. “See, the thing is we got a shipment of fuel yesterday. More than enough for our needs, so we were authorized to give some of the surplus out to camp residents with vehicles who we know are going to be traveling long distances.”

  He waved casually towards the highway. “I heard from Cathy that you two were looking into spots to refuel on your way to Kansas City. I'd say a trip that far qualifies you to get some of our spare gas. And honestly if anyone's earned a little token of gratitude from the Colorado Springs quarantine camp, it's you two. So we filled your tank and tossed a couple 5-gallon cans in the trunk. Thoroughly decontaminated, of course. Should be more than enough to get you home.”

  Ellie could hardly believe her ears. Considering she'd just been fretting about this exact problem, this almost seemed like an answer to prayer. Although she couldn't discount the part her friends must've played; Cathy had probably begun lobbying to get them some gas as soon as she learned of the surplus, and Merrill had decided to do them a favor.

  Either way, as far as she knew that was the last obstacle to her getting back to her kids. Sure, with t
he nation in chaos they might run into some sort of trouble on the way home, but at least it wouldn't come from them needing to stop and look for fuel.

  “Even with the threat of Zolos I'm awfully tempted to hug you right now, Officer,” she said. “I . . . this means more than you could ever know.”

  “It's just a few gallons of gas, ma'am.” The guard winked at them, then waved in farewell and turned away. “I should get back. Have a great day.”

  After that news, it was certainly looking to be. There was still their worry for Hal's dad and her mom and their other loved ones they hadn't been in contact with for weeks, but at least they'd sorted out the things they could actually control.

  Ellie threw her arms around her boyfriend and buried her face in his chest. “This is it,” she whispered. “As soon as we get out, we can head straight home to our families.”

  He rubbed her back. “This is it,” he agreed. “Six more days.”

  It couldn't come soon enough.

  ✽✽✽

  As Nick pulled up to the front of the hardware/sporting goods store in Wensbrook the next morning, he decided on a different focus for the day's scavenging.

  First and foremost, while this store had a ton of potentially useful stuff, in fact probably just about everything in it could help them survive this crisis, food had to be the primary priority. Not just because he wanted to get the Norson group's food stockpile filled up as soon as possible, but because it had been the main thing Darby had wanted from his scavenging.

  Not to mention that for all the more or less nonperishable food that still had a shelf life, he wanted to get to it soon enough for him and Tallie to use before it went bad.

  He'd all but ignored food yesterday, aside from what he could find in the sporting goods store. So moving forward he needed to focus on checking the convenience stores, grocery stores, and restaurants in town, and probably spend at least the next few days emptying them of everything edible.

  First off, though, there were some final things he wanted to get from the sporting goods store.

  This morning, while somewhat jealously watching him and Tallie eat their fill of higher end camping MREs, Billy's grandparents had talked about their plans for expanding this year's garden, as well as other avenues of self-sufficiency they planned to put more effort into moving forward. There was no guarantee society would ever return to what it had once been, which meant if they didn't start thinking about long term survival, and ideally ways to make their lives as prosperous and comfortable as possible, then they'd eventually regret it.

  Nick approved of that long term thinking, while so many other people were just looking towards surviving until Zolos was finally dealt with and everything got back to normal. Which was why he'd decided this truckload of stuff was going to include things like gardening tools, seeds, fertilizer, and bags of soil. He also wanted to find any available traps, and the materials to make snares like twine and thin wire.

  Also he wanted to find water filters and purifiers, or if nothing else sand and charcoal he could use to make some. And of course as many water tanks as he could tie on the top of the truck or pile on top of things inside, the bigger the better.

  Once he'd gotten all that, he'd move on to find a grocery store or other place that might have food and fill up the rest of the space with that, with the plan to keep on searching for food for the foreseeable future.

  Thankfully, the hardware part of this store also boasted a fairly large gardening section, and he'd seen traps and twine and wire in the sporting goods part. There were also plenty of portable water filters in the camping section, a few bigger purifiers in the home section, and charcoal in the camping section and sand in the gardening section.

  Pretty much everything he needed.

  He carried Tallie inside and brought the rolling chair out of the manager's office for her to sit on, giving her a little flashlight so she wouldn't get scared. And also to keep her occupied; she barely had the strength to hold it and wave it around, but she seemed happy with it.

  With his daughter comfortable, he got to work.

  Nick did kind of regret the fact that he'd mostly left what little gardening they'd attempted over the years in their backyard to Ellie, aside from helping her prepare the garden plot and carry bags of fertilizer and soil around. He'd never learned the proportions of things needed for a good garden, and what to prioritize with limited space in the truck and time to load up.

  He started out by grabbing every single seed packet he could find, and all the gardening tools. Then he tried to load up equal amounts of fertilizer and topsoil, not sure which was more important. From there he moved on to the other things on the list, scouring the store for everything he could think of that would help with long term self-sufficiency.

  While he worked Tallie helpfully shined her flashlight in front of him, keeping up a cheerful chatter. She eventually fell quiet as the hours passed, though, until he glanced over and saw she was asleep, her flashlight clutched in one little hand and shining up at the ceiling.

  He'd been about to get her some food and water and see if she needed the potty, but he decided to let her rest for now.

  The truck was about two-thirds full by the time he judged he'd gotten everything that he'd come for today. He made sure the load was secure, then packed Tallie back into the cab and got the truck started to go search for food.

  Or, more accurately, to head just down the street to the gas station and convenience store in plain view and check it out.

  The gas station had been covered with Zolos contamination warning signs, like pretty much the entire rest of the town. Nick wondered if the outbreak really had been that widespread, or if the relief workers who'd evacuated the town had plastered the signs over everything just to be safe.

  He parked the truck by the front doors and climbed out, but as he was circling around to check all the doors and windows, which he guessed were going to be locked, he paused to examine the nearby gas pumps.

  However much fuel remained in this gas station's tanks would probably be a huge boon for Stanberry, but he had no idea how to extract it. Or even if it could be, without power. For that matter, if he wanted to transport large amounts of fuel it would be better to have a tanker truck built for the purpose.

  Maybe he could talk it over with Darby. There might be people in town who knew how to access the gas station's tanks, and how to safely transport fuel. And they might have a tanker truck available.

  It was a bit above his pay grade. He could help out with collecting fuel, and learn the ins and outs of it if they were willing to teach him, but at the moment he'd be better off just getting what he could from the convenience store.

  As Nick had expected, he had to break a window to get into the store. He almost wondered if he shouldn't be trying to find a better way to do this, maybe using a crowbar to force doors open. It might end up being just as destructive, though, and probably far more time consuming.

  Still, it was hard not to feel like a looter when he was literally breaking into places. He went to fetch one of the notices Darby had given him to tape by the door, although that didn't make him feel much better.

  “I'm going to check out the store and make sure it's safe,” he called to Tallie as he ducked inside. “Be right back.”

  At a glance, Nick realized the convenience store was a surprisingly good place to scavenge food. He supposed that due to the nature of their business they were incentivized to carry mostly nonperishable food. The hot dog rack, stand of fresh fruit, and baked goods like donuts and loaves of bread were about as nauseating as he'd expect, of course, but everything else looked good.

  In fact, the shelves were far more well stocked than he'd expected, considering his experience buying food when the Zolos crisis first started. There was no sign that the people of Wensbrook had desperately bought supplies to weather the disaster.

  He could only assume that the virus had struck this town so quickly that businesses had been forced to shut down imm
ediately, before citizens stocking up could strip the shelves bare. Outbreaks might've even happened first in public places like these stores, forcing the local authorities to shut them down.

  Either way, the evacuation combined with fear of Zolos had kept this place ideal for scavenging. While the disaster that had struck Wensbrook was tragic, at the very least Nick would be able to use what they'd left behind to help people in Stanberry and the quarantine camp.

  He quickly searched through the interior, then checked the small back room. Unlike the stockroom of the sporting goods store, it held a few dozen cases of beer and other drinks to restock the refrigerator units, as well as a few cases of candy bars and other sealed boxes of food items.

  Overall, easily enough to fill the remainder of the moving truck and then some.

  He got Tallie settled comfortably on a chair by the door, giving her a sports drink with a straw to sip on, then got to work. Most of the items were lighter than what he'd been moving at the sporting goods store, which sped things up. Not to mention providing a welcome reprieve for his exhausted muscles; he didn't even bother with the hand truck for the closer stuff, instead loading up his arms and carrying it all outside.

  Nick planned to take it all, but first he went for the healthier stuff. For a given value of healthy. The store had a decent section for canned soups and stews, tuna and sardines and kippered herring, and spaghetti and sauce. There was also a decent variety of jerky, nuts, trail mixes, and dried raisins and cranberries. Also plenty of crackers, chips, salsas and dips, biscuits, and things like that.

  Then of course there was the junk food. Lots and lots of junk food.

  Again, he was glad the Norsons and Gen were determined to forage and grow their own crops, and was resolved to help out as soon as it was safe for him to do so. All this food could keep them alive, and the junk food was certainly tasty, but he kind of wanted to make sure his kids got plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables.