Quarantine

Quarter.

"You heard me. Didn't you?!?" Jackson raised his voice again.

The gun shifted from me to Charles once more, and then back to me. Rose was still in the pantry, and I didn't know what Jackson was going to do.

I started to think of a way to get a gun. "Who said you had to give us any bullets? Just give us one gun, and we'll leave."

Jackson stared at me for a moment before replying. "Why would I do that? Rose needs one. Besides, I already said that Ethan had a knife."

You've got no brains..

I so desperately wanted to say that, but I said something else in return. "Not if she's sick. Then you'll just be carrying extra weight."

Charles had gotten up, and was looking out the window. The snow had settled down, and the sun was slowly melting it away. My stomach was calling for food, and I tried one more attempt before leaving.

"Jackson." Jackson looked at me again. "If I open the cans for our breakfast from here then we will leave. No more fighting, arguing, or delaying the inevitable. We will walk right out that door."

Jackson lowered the gun while replying. "You've got a deal. Maybe your running isn't all that your good at; you might just have some common sense as well."

Charles let out a slight chuckle at that, and I quickly went into the back room. Rose was sitting in the corner pressed against the wall. She had her arms covering her chest, and she seemed to be crying, but I couldn't tell.

I quickly switched views, and searched for the rest of my pack. I grabbed the partially dried shirt, and felt around it. It was still damp, but was better than freezing outside. Then, I grabbed my shoes, not exactly water proof, but would last for now.

I came back out to see that Charles had opened two cans of what seemed to be hamburger meat.

I called over to his back. "I'm not eating any of that if it's cold meat."

"You will to. It's spam. I was saving it for a special occasion, but decided to enjoy it now for reason unknown to me..." he trailed off in his sentence while passing me one of the tins.

I still had my knife with me, so I wondered how he had opened the cans. He answered my thoughts with his reply. "If your wondering how I opened them it's because they have pull tabs on the top."

I checked the lid on mine, and sure enough there was a tab on it to rip it open. We had no utensils as Charles was just simply shaking it slowly to his mouth, and biting small bits off.

I simply just broke bits off with my hand. I put the first bite in my mouth, and stopped for a moment. It was way to salty for me to enjoy. I took a breath, and kept chewing it. It was smooth on my tongue, but seemed to be melted in salt.

Breakfast continued like that for me, and when I had finished, Charles was waiting on me, I told him, "Next time we eat spam, give me something else."

He just smiled. "It was the salt wasn't it? Don't worry, you'll get over the high intake of it eventually. I practically lived off that stuff when I was smaller. All I wanted was spam because of a stupid commercial about it. Something about it being the invincible liberator of  the hungry, and so on."

I was shocked. "Really? You like it?"

He was eager to talk. "No! No! No! I never said you would LIKE it. Just said you would get used to it."

I was confused now. "Then why did you eat it?

He only blocked me out. "Like I said, because of a stupid commercial."