To be Seen or Heard

Chapter Nine: La Carretera (pt3)

Mr. Dale had been vigilantly keeping watch the whole time we were out scavenging. Only taking short five-minute breaks when he had to use the bathroom. Poor T-Dog was napping inside one of the smaller RVs, the orangy-brown one.

Mamí explained that he'd gotten an infection from the cut on his arm and was now battling a fever as a result... she'd said in a patient but insistent tone, "That's why finding medicine is important, niños. See, even though I gave T-Dog antibiotics yesterday, he still got sick. Por eso, we have to be careful. A little cut could end up making you very sick, and we won't always have the right medicine to make it all better."

"You guys have been working mighty hard." Mr. Dale complimented as we started to pass by his RV once more, "It looks like you're more successful than the whole group was yesterday."

My mother's smile looked more like a wince, "Yes. We've been looking very... thoroughly."

It seemed that the group hadn't looked at the cars with dead bodies -the real dead, the ones permanently dead- in them. Mamí didn't let us search through those ones... only the trunks. She'd cover the lower half of her face, make sure that the bodies were really dead, before looking through it herself.

He nodded, removing the fisherman hat off his head for a moment to run his fingers through sparse white-grey hair, "I know it's a little farther, but the group didn't really get a chance to look through the cars on the other side of the highway. It might be worth checking out."

Alexander and I shared a look before deciding to put down the heavy basket -more canned food, some batteries, sunscreen, bug repellent, six God-sent inhalers, toilet paper, vitamins, and allergy medications- we were carrying since it looked like the adults were going to chat for a while. It was like a curse--grownups could never be in the same orbit without stopping to chat; whenever my sisters and I were at a friend's house and my mother would say it was time to leave, we always knew we still had at least another half-hour. It was like that before the world ended and continued to be that way now.

Mamí hummed, resting her own basket on her hip, not willing to part with it after finding a small portable sewing machine that came with pedals, "I don't know. There was so many of those muertos- uh, what do you call them? Walkers, yesterday."

Mr. Dale rubbed his chin, "It was a pretty massive herd." he acknowledged, "But I did spot one or two trucks with my binoculars that look like they have some good stuff... You might also want to grab one of the gallons of water from the Lipsey truck. We didn't grab all of them yesterday."

The phrase 'massive herd' rang around in my mind for a moment. I'd never thought of it like that before. I knew that animals, usually prey animals, flocked together to form very large herds--especially when they were migrating. But that was usually for protection against predators when they traveled... and the muertos were anything but prey... Though, they were kind of stupid -definitely not human anymore- and Papí said that they tended to follow any noise, even if that noise was each other. I guess, calling a group of them a herd isn't too far off in the end... even if it was weirdly morbid.

"Gallons?" Mamí repeated with interest, "Where?"

The man happily pointed out the truck, "I can keep a look out for you. Whistle if I see any movement so you can hide under the cars. That's how we got by undetected yesterday."

"Okay." Mamí agreed after a moment of deliberation, "Gracias, give us a moment to drop this off. Vengan niños." she turned to us, we quickly picked up the heavy basket once more and followed her, "I want us to do this as fast as possible. We're grabbing all the water jugs first, okay? That's our priority."