Radioactive

Chapter 7

We walk for what seems like forever until we get to what used to be the epicenter of activity for this suburb. Tall buildings have been reduced to rubble and the once green grass has been replaced by tumbleweeds and dust. The road is cracked severely in many places with cars sitting forever silent on this lifeless street. We've used up two more filters since we left.

"I'm hungry..." Amy says quietly.

"What does your rad meter say? Is the air hospitable?" I ask.

"No. It's almost breathable though. Maybe if we keep walking we'll find a pocket of clean air." Amy says looking down at her meter.

Alex groans.

"What are we gonna eat when we get there? We didn't exactly have time to pack a lunch."

"Well, I'm sure there's got to be a convenient store around here somewhere." I say looking around.

I spot a gas station that seems to have kept together quite well after five years of hell and walk toward it.

"Amy, keep an eye on the rad meter. Let's see if we can't get some munchies."

I push the door to the gas station open, step in and drop the gas mask duffel bag on the ground. Bottles and bags litter the ground and dirt coats nearly everything in the store. Amy steps in and stares at her meter.

"Shut the doors." Amy says.

Alex steps in and closes the doors tight. I see a smile spread across Amy's face.

"We can breath this air in a for a maximum of fifteen minutes." she says removing her gas mask, "Dig in!"

Alex and I remove our masks and scour the store. The air smells musky and tastes like iron. Amy disappears in the back of the store, Alex goes to loot the front desk for anything interesting and I go through the isles snatching up bags of road trip snacks and beef jerky.

I move to the back of the store and find Amy stuffing her face with old candy bars. She looks up at me and smiles.

"I used the rad meter to determine if the food was safe. It's all totally good." Amy says tossing a candy bar at me.

I drop everything I'm carrying and catch the candy bar. I take off the wrapper and bite into it. I'm not sure I've ever eaten anything so fast in my life. The candy bar basically vanished out of my hands.

"Oh my God, Amy....How much time do we have left?" I ask balling up the wrapper and tossing it behind me.

"We have about....seven minutes." she says looking at her watch.

"Awesome."

I pick up most of the stuff I dropped and go up to where I dropped the duffel bag. I sit down and unzip it, and then force everything to fit in the already over stuffed bag. I sigh and then turn around to find myself staring into the barrel of a gun.

"You gotta be kidding me." I say putting my hands up tiredly.

The man holding the gun has a red sweatshirt on with the hood up, covering the edges of their gas mask. Blue paint covers the plastic face guard everywhere but the man's eyes, which are a stormy gray. I look behind him and see another man in a green sweatshirt drags the struggling Alex out from behind the front desk and throw him to the ground. Amy is brought next to Alex at gun point by a woman in a blue sweatshirt. They each have their gas masks painted with different colors.

"Get over with the others. Now!" the man with the blue mask yells at me.

I reluctantly walk over to my friends and sit with them on the floor.