At the front of the store there are snacks and drinks by the register. My bag is overfull by the time I’ve loaded up a lot of that stuff. I also grab a few pens, pencils and two journals. As I’m pulling the sides of my bag together to wrestle the zipper closed, there is movement in my peripheral vision.

It’s outside, on the other side of the giant windows at the front of the store I see a small group headed my way. Two cops and a tall, skinny guy in a sweater vest.

Spinning on my heel, I race to the back room and yell at Jasper, “Let’s go! There’re cops outside!” I keep walking to the corridor that leads to the back door, and he’s caught up with me by the time my hand touches the doorknob.

We follow an alleyway to an empty lot that is overgrown with bushes and skinny trees, and we hear those men yelling to each other and banging on the door before we’re out of earshot. It’s a lucky thing I saw them, and we were able to avoid that group. The last thing I want is to be questioned or detained by small-town cops when oversight doesn’t exist anymore.

“Let’s head into those woods over there,” Jasper says pointing across another street and down the road a way. “When we’re well out of sight, we can sit down and take a look at the map.”

I nod and we stick with that plan. I feel like a fugitive. I guess we did break into that store and stole a few things. But c’mon. There’s no bookstore business anymore! Money isn’t worth anything. It’s not like we trashed the place. Maybe we should break into bigger businesses from now on though. Probably the owner of that shop saw us come into town and asked the cops to help him deal with us. I don’t think we would have had the same trouble if we were in an H&R block. Or a Barnes & Noble or Books-A-Million. I can’t picture the managers or workers at those stores caring if someone broke in.

After walking into the woods a little ways, we sit on a felled tree and Jasper pulls out a folded-up paper map of Georgia. There are a few neon green marks made with a highlighter.

“Okay, we’re right here. We should continue up this road until we go left here then stay on it for the rest of the day.” He points at one of the marks. “This is an Amazon distribution center. We should be able to get there within a couple of days. I want to stop there and resupply.” He points at another mark further along. “This is a Wal-Mart distribution center; we’ll stop there too. In the meantime, we should just make camp each night. I have a sleeping bag and a hammock, so that should do us until we get to that distribution center and can outfit you with better gear.”

I nod.

“Then we should get to The Place within three weeks—”

“The place?” I ask.

“So, my mom lives with this group of people. They have a—I guess it’s a farm? They call it The Place, and themselves The People. It’s like a hippy-commune-live-off-the-land kind of deal.”

“Huh.” It sounds like a cult.

“Yeah, I left that whole lifestyle when I was sixteen. And my mom wanted to stay. It was tough because they’re all about isolation from the modern world. So, my mom and I weren’t able to keep in contact.”

I knew it! Definitely a cult.

“They’re probably doing alright, they live off the grid anyway, but I just want to check in…” he trails off. There are obviously some mixed feelings about The Place.

“Okay, well that sounds reasonable,” I say patting him on the leg, then standing, stretching and adjusting my bag. “Let’s get going. I’m kind of excited about looting an Amazon center. Do you think they’re guarded?”

He shakes his head. “No, they were for the first week. It was actually the national guard that was protecting them, but most of them deserted when they weren’t being paid anymore. They’re probably concentrating on their FEMA camps now. They don’t have enough people to guard warehouse too. So the distribution centers were protected from the initial looting, but their easy pickings now.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to interact with the national guard if we don’t have to.”

He nods. “Yeah, I’ve already hit up a few of these centers. And there are more of them the closer we get to Atlanta, but they’re also more likely to have been looted or burnt down.”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“Huh.” This guy thinks of everything.

Walking with Jasper is relaxing. We don’t talk a lot unless we’re taking a break. It’s a beautiful day, most of the smog and ash from the initial attacks and fires have dissipated. Weirdly, the sunsets have been spectacular. Bright purples and pinks swirling at the horizon like some kind of surreal ai painting. I’m guessing it’s something to do with ash particles still in the air, but I can’t check google like I’d like to. It really sucks having no internet. I don’t know how generations past dealt with this. If I’m ignorant about something now, I just have to stay ignorant. And I can’t fact check anything. Annoying. I wonder if the internet still exists? Like if enough infrastructure is destroyed—? Come to think of it, I don’t exactly know what the internet is made of. And I can’t look it up! Damn it all!

When I voice these concerns to Jasper as we stop behind a burnt-down gas station for lunch, he reassures me that the rest of the world still has internet. The US was the only country attacked up until the power went off. There’s no reason to assume the rest of the world is off-line.

So, during the week from that first attack on the CDC until everything went down, Jasper was looking up the GPS coordinates of retail warehouses to loot, learning about the extent of the attacks and putting together outfits, meals, weapons and a whole go bag. All while I was reading useless conspiracy theories and following a suicide pact playing out live. I even kept working until the end which was totally fucking pointless.

I feel dumb. I’ve always known that book-learning isn’t my forte, I failed as many classes as I passed before I dropped out of high school. But I was confident that I had common sense. A little bit of street smarts maybe? But no, I don’t have any smarts at all.

“Hey, what’s up with your face?” Jasper asks.

“Huh?” I wipe a hand over my face. Is there a bug—?!

“You just looked really sad there for a second.”

“Oh, uh, just thinking about all of the mistakes I’ve made since all this started. I’m really dumb, and I just wish—I don’t know what I wish. But I’ve done everything wrong,” I babble.

“Oh, you’re fine,” he says dismissively. “I wasn’t even following the news when Katrina hit. Didn’t even think of evacuating. I ended up walking for miles through three feet of water in my bare feet.” He shakes his head at himself. “Talk about dumb—I didn’t even grab a few bottles of water from the gas station when I had the chance. I’d lost my wallet, and I thought it was wrong to steal from them.”

Laying my hand on his thigh, I try to show emotional support. His experience during Katrina seems to be a core memory that is still affecting him even in this totally apocalyptic disaster that is worse than Katrina in all ways. Poor guy.

“I ended up dehydrated and really sick. And that gas station was part of a large chain that was insured. They were compensated for everything, and I didn’t need to worry about it. I made myself sick for nothing. It didn’t matter at all. I was useless, couldn’t barely take care of myself much less anybody else.”

“That sounds awful.” I give his leg another squeeze, then I lean over and hug him, wrapping both arms around him as he pulls me close under his arm.

He kisses the top of my head and squeezes me tight for a second, then he gets back to cooking. He’s making another one of the dehydrated curry tofu meals that are so good. I can’t wait.

Jasper is the first big guy I’ve ever been with. Well, I haven’t been with him yet, but I’m going to be. And I can already see the benefits. Top-notch snuggling. Comfy hugs.

I’m startled out of my reverie by movement in the distance. Behind the parking lot, there is an overgrown field, and some plants are jostling. Like something is low to the ground is coming towards us. I gently elbow jasper and point at what I’m seeing.

Quietly, he picks up his long gun and stands to focus on the movement.

We’re too far north for gators and the thing is too bulky to be a snake or a squirrel. Definitely not a cat. A coyote maybe? Or wild dog?

We have seen a few groups of dogs, just a mix of domestic breeds running around together. I’ve never been a dog person, and these wild groups of 5-10 dogs are kind of scary. Just yelling and waving a stick tends to scare them off though.

Maybe this is a mountain lion coming towards us?

We stand sill and silent, Jasper pointing his gun as the weeds continue to jostle closer and closer to us until an animal pops out into the parking lot.

It’s a corgi! An adorable one with a blue handkerchief around its neck. Oh my god it’s so cute. It hops around and barks at us happily and Jasper gives it some jerky and a scoop of rice. The little dog shakes its whole butt with joy as it eats up the food.

“Hey little cutie! Aren’t you just the sweetest thing!” I enthuse, scritching its ears and petting it. “Isn’t he adorable?” I ask Jasper.

The dog sits, looking at Jasper expectantly for more treats. Then holds up a paw.

“Aw, here ya go bud,” Jasper says, shaking the offered paw then giving him some more jerky.

When Jasper won’t give him anymore, the corgi stands on his back legs and yips a few times, hopping around in a circle. When Jasper still doesn’t offer more jerky, the dog runs off.

“I hope he’s okay,” I say, watching the plants jostle as he goes back the way he came.

“He looks really clean and healthy. I think somebody must be taking care of him,” Jasper responds.

I nod.

When we get to the distribution center, we should get some dog or cat treats. People food isn’t really safe for animals, and we’ll probably keep running into them and want to feed them.

It takes us more than five minutes to realize that our packs are missing. While we were distracted by that corgi somebody snuck up behind us and lifted our bags with all of our stuff in them.