A Life Sentence

July 24, 2026

July 24th, 2026

We finally went out into the world after being holed up at my parents' house, well I guess it's our house now, for so long. I am not sure about Lucas, but I was a little nervous, both about leaving the house unattended and just what we would find, but we couldn't very well go alone. Generators can be heavy.

We decided to go at least 5 miles or so away from the house before we picked the first place to enter. We wanted to make sure we were far enough away that someone wouldn't just stumble on our place in revenge if we happened to go into a house that wasn't as empty as we thought.

Personally I wanted to go further away, but Lucas didn't want to burn the gas. I guess I can understand that, but I think we should have gone further, but oh well, can't do anything about it now.

The first place we picked was a ranch house that a tree had fallen on. I assume it happened during a spring storm. Surprisingly other than the damage to the roof the rest of the house looked to be in good shape. There was a huge crack down the outside wall where the tree landed, but we gambled it wouldn't fall in on our heads while we were in there.

It was also a good bet that no one was living there. We both thought it would be nuts to stay in a house with that kind of damage; there were plenty of empty houses that were still in good condition. You could pretty much live anywhere you wanted as long as you were the first one there.

Once we were inside we actually did find a few things. Whoever these people were, they must have had some bad issues with headaches. We found enough tylenol to kill 30 people. The other thing we noticed was the place reeked of stale smoke. It didn't take long for Lucas to find several cartons of cigarettes stashed in a closet. We decided to take those. Neither of us smoked, but we thought we might be able to trade them. I will always believe you will never go wrong betting on the vices of others.

We also found some small propane cans and propane camping lanterns, these were good finds. We had one at home, but it never hurts to have more. An added bonus is these things actually throw off decent heat. We also found a few small LED lanterns, also useful.

There were a few canned food items and several large bags of dog food. I hoped whenever they left they took the dogs with them and just didn't throw them out into the cold. We decided to take the dog food. I am not really sure why and neither is Lucas, but it seemed like a good idea. Maybe we can trade it too.

We got skunked on finding any generators or larger propane tanks. We also didn't find any weapons, but we did find an empty gun cabinet. I guess maybe the guns were more important than the dog food.

All in all we didn't find anything too earth shattering, but at least it helped to ease our nerves to have some additional supplies to add to our horde. 

As funny as it sounds, despite the fact that most people on the planet were dead it somehow still felt like breaking and entering even though those laws were all but pointless now.

We checked a couple of cars that were wrecked along the road and didn't find crap. Well, that's not entirely true I guess. We did find a 5 gallon can of gas, so that's something that will replace what we used to today.

Then we decided to go a little ways down this offroad. There were not hardly any houses at all, the one we did find seemed like it was in good shape, too good. When we pulled in we were worried that someone was living here. Afterall we didn't want to steal from someone who was just trying to survive. We weren't that desperate, yet. Still, it was too good to pass up.

When we got out of the truck we kept our guns pointed at the ground. Lucas even called out to the house several times. We hoped we wouldn't be shot outright. Obviously we weren't