wish i could

the store and the streets

She stopped and looked at the shop for a few seconds before her brother picked up a piece of wood from the street. He held it like a bat and her attention turned to him as he smiled and swung at the glass door of the small market. The wood hit the glass with a larger boom and a huge crack stretched across the door. He looked at Emma who smiled, and then he hit the door again. This time it shattered. Millions of shares fell to the ground leaving a metal frame that they could step over. They walked In and studied the mostly empty shelves. They stuck together and browsed every row and every display that used to hold food. She looked under one of the shelfs and saw something shiny and bright she reached for it and felt a cold metal can. She smiled and pulled it out a held it up to her brother. "what does it say he asked" he learned everything from his sister. And although she was trying she was having a hard time teaching him to read.

"look at the word and sound it out Noah" she said quietly.

He looked at the can "pee....iii...mm..pp..pp.." he stumbled, trying to make it out the word.

"look that word says pine" she said pointing at the word on the can

"what's that last part" he poked at the brightly colored lettering

"apple... the can say pineapples" she said with a smile peeling across her face.

"that's a fruit right? What does it taste like? He asked eagerly

"you will just have to find out" she giggled and went back under the shelf pulling out another can of pineapples and three cans of spam. She grew happier with each one she pulled out. The color came back in her face and she felt better by the pure sight of food. Noah waited and his eyes followed each one she put on the floor in front of him. He chuckled at the sound of them hitting the floor. She picked up the two cans of pineapple and opened them. She handed one to her brother. He grabbed it and sniffed the yellow inside it. Emma gave a chunk to Morgan who chomped on it happily. He smiled and watched his sister drink the juice and then eat the chunk. He did the same thing. It tasted sweet. He wanted more of it. He loved it and the yellow sticky liquid rolled down his chin and over his neck. He licked the bottom of the can and tossed it to the side. Emma put the spam in her bag and got up. She looked through the resistors. Noah was left to explore the other side of the store. She found money in one and took the lighter out of her pocket. She set the bills on fire, and watched them crumble into ash. She blamed money for the downfall and she lit every bill she came across. She saw It was the murderer of her father. She looked at the last resistor and found a box. She jumped up and down when she read the side of it. "Over here" Emma shouted toward her brother. Noah came running and looked at the box of water on the bottom shelf she was looking at. They both looked at each other and Emma's lips curled as Noah's eyes grew brighter. They needed water and this felt like a gift from god. There were 12 bottles left. They each had two and Morgan had one to herself. They felt full and refreshed and.... Happy. They took the rest and put it in their bags before leaving the shop and walking back out onto the abandoned streets.

They saw a dog run out of the building in front of them. it carried a dead rat in its mouth. The dog was small it looked like it could have been a Boston terrier. It was white with big black blots over its body making it look like a cow. The dog was skinny and it trotted with three small pups running behind it, they were pestering her for the rat, but she held it tight in her mouth. As the dog walked out in front of them she glared at them in a terrified manner before she darted into the building on the other side of the street.

They had run into many dogs before, and most of them were harmful. After the down fall the dogs that were left quickly over took what was left. The breed and some of them even made up strong dangerous packs. The big ones were usually the only ones that survived, and they had to quickly adapt to the new world to stay alive. This made seeing such a small dog hard to believe. Most of the time they ran away from the dogs, but this one had food and was small and so It did not seem like threat, but noah still glared at it. "did you see how small that pooch was?" he asked Emma.

"yea, it was kinda small. Why what was wrong with it?" she said looking toward the hole in the building that it disappeared in.

"nothing is wrong..." he stated, "but if there was bigger dog around here, don't you think they would have ate her by now?" he asked stopping and looking at his sister, waiting for her to catch onto what he was saying. She looked back at him trying to figure out the point he was making. There was silence and she shrugged. He started to walk some more and without looking back, he answered his own question. "if that dog is not dead, then that means there is no more big dogs in this area. And that means that either something bigger drove them out, or we got very lucky"

"you make a good point. What do you think drove them out?" she asked him

He pondered her question before coming to a conclusion. "The only thing that could drive out a pack of dogs is a community of humans" he stated.

"oh shit, you're right." She said perking up. A feeling that someone was watching her grew inside her. "do you think they are koi or do you think they are menders?" she asked Noah.

"I have a feeling they are snakes" he said looking around his shoulder as he picked up his pace a little more.

"we need to get out of here" Emma stated turning towards a parking lot. There were a few cars left, they were all old and badly rusted but a few of them looked intact.

"I like the way you think, but we need to be fast, you can't take forever to fix one up" he started to walk towards the lot she was looking at "pick one and get it running" he said in a rushed tone.

She picked a dark red van. It was rusted and its back window was broken. She knew a lot about cars and quickly got to work. Noah heard her break the window and a car alarm go off. He took the pistol out of his bag and held it at his side. He looked at the tops of the shops and stores for any snakes. he was worried they would have heard the alarm go off and since he knew nothing about cars he took it upon himself to be on the lookout. The fear crept up on him he shook and the gun rattled in his hands. He had seen them before; at borderline, they had caught one and put it in a cage. It was more animal than human. It had black scales running over its whole body and covering its eyes, its pure white fangs hung out of its mouth and it had long black nails as fingers. Its arms and legs were long and it walked like a spider. People had told him that snakes had loved to climb and that the one in the cage was mad because it was stuck on the ground. Noah thought it was just because it knew that it was going to die. He felt bad for the snake in the cage. It was left in the middle of the community in a metal bar cage. It was exposed to everyone who walked by and it rattled and shook the cage all day. He couldn't believe it had once been human.

He kept watch and the car alarm stopped and the car came to life. it was too late though. Three snakes looked down at them from a nearby shop, and they began climbing down the side of the shop. Emma was in the driver's seat and smiling. She was expecting her brother to be proud and happy but when she saw his terrified face her smile faded. He turned toward her. "they heard us, they are coming" he said before running toward the passenger seat. he got in the car and Emma immediately hit the gas, the snakes were at the bottom of the shop and saw them speed of, they seemed to have given up after they saw their prey had a car and they worked their way up the shop they had come down from.