𝐈𝐧𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐝

Chapter Nineteen: Gas Station Raids Part Two

"Hey, can you pass the food bag back here? I'm hungry," Charlie said from the back. I reached over to grab the bag while Dylan groaned in annoyance.

"Preparing for hibernation?" he asked sarcastically which made Charlie roll his eyes.

"No one likes you. No one. Literally, no living human being in this world likes you." Charlie deadpanned. I snickered and handed the bag back to Charlie.

"Uhm, we might have a problem," Charlie called out. I furrowed my brow and turned around to see Charlie holding up a bunch of snack wrappers. "It's empty," he said. I sighed in defeat.

"Holy crap, Charlie, how much did you eat?" Dylan chuckled and turned around to see the empty bag in Charlie's arms.

"Well, how much longer do we have till we reach Carson?" Charlie asked, looking my way. I pulled the map out of the console and started to track our location.
"I think it's...," I said, tracing my finger over the highway path. "About five more hours.

"Okay, where's the closest gas station?" Charlie climbed forward to look over my shoulder.

"About 5 miles away."
"You think you're gonna make it, Charlie boy?" Dylan snickered. Charlie opened his mouth to respond, but I interjected to save myself from another Charlie-Dylan verbal battle.

"Calm down, we'll make one last stop and then we'll drive the rest of the way, okay?" My peacemaking attempt thankfully worked because Charlie went back to looking outside the window and Dylan went back to concentrating on driving.

He pressed on the gas, obviously hurrying to get to the gas station so that we could get to Nevada as quickly as possible. When we hit a stray piece of debris and bounced over it, I had to hold onto the side of the car. "Okay, Dylan, this isn't the Indy 500, please go slower. I know the roads are abandoned and all but I really don't feel like pretending it's a racetrack today." To my relief, Dylan gently let his foot off the gas a little bit, slowing the car down. "Thank you," I muttered and scanned the road for the gas station we were looking for.

"There it is," Charlie spoke up and pointed forwards. I followed the direction of his finger to see a small sign that indicated a Mobil gas station was coming up on our left.

Once we reached the gas station, Dylan pulled to a stop outside the gas station and I quickly got out of the car, Charlie following just behind me. The three of us waited until Fed's van pulled to a stop before going to his van.

"Hey, we ran out of food, we are going to go inside and get some stuff, okay," Charlie said. Fed nodded..

"We're good on food, we can wait here until you guys get out," he replied. We nodded and headed over to the gas station but not before Dylan stopped us in front.

"Okay, just in and out, no stalling," he said, aiming the last part for Charlie. I brushed by him pushing the door open, a small chime ringing through my ears as I entered the small store. Looking around, I noticed that the store didn't look completely full, almost like someone had raided it before them.

"Weird," I muttered, but brushed it off as I followed Charlie who had walked rather briskly to the snack aisle while Dylan ran off somewhere else. As I continued to look around I noticed the cash register trashed and a few racks around the check out desk flipped over.

Suddenly, a small crash sounded from behind the store. I whipped my head in the direction of the noise. It must've come from outside.

I turned back around to see if Charlie had noticed the sound, but he was bent over a stack of pretzel bags, too invested in his snack choices to hear it. Deciding not to interrupt him, I went to check it out myself.