The Risks

June: Chapter 12

In the morning, Parker and I grabbed a couple granola bars and headed to the car. The plan was to head to the nearest large town where we could search a store and some surrounding houses. 

We double checked the location on our map, spreading it out over the hood of the Jeep after we'd said our goodbyes to Oakley and promised her we wouldn't be gone long. She didn't even really blink at the idea of us leaving anymore, and she'd been smart enough not to ask to come with us. We'd have to discuss it more in depth at some point, but I wanted to let it settle a while longer.

"Know what you're looking at there?" Parker teased from across the hood.

I could admit that it had taken me a bit to get my bearings, but I scoffed. "I managed to get from Pennsylvania to Iowa. I think I can read a map."

"Just checking," he said with a shrug.

As I verbally walked through our best route to the town, I could feel his eyes on me. It wasn't the first time I'd noticed it –him just quietly watching me- and part of me hoped it wouldn't be the last. But another part of me wondered... what did he see when he looked at me? Did he see some sad, broken girl- a victim? Did he pity me? Did he feel like he needed to save me? Was that why he'd stuck around so long? Or did he see something else entirely?

I entertained the idea just briefly that maybe he liked what he saw, but that felt like nothing more than a fantasy, and I was too afraid to address it –to even look up and meet his gaze, to look into his eyes to see if there were any answers there. So I did the same thing I always did; I pretended like I didn't notice, pretended like his hovering gaze didn't make me anxious in a way that wasn't entirely bad. 

It didn't take us more than half an hour to get there. The highway was quiet for the most part. We only saw a couple of Ferals gnawing on a dead corpse as we passed a small pile up. I wondered if the pile up had happened when things first started to get bad or if it had happened recently, but I realized that the body looked fairly fresh; maybe a few days old. There were no other bodies near him so if anyone had been with him, they had got away. So then I tried to decide if he were a looter or if he were a normal person. Either way, he used to be a normal human being with a job, a house, maybe even a family. It didn't matter now though. He was dead.

As we drove the main road through the closest town, I watched the houses pass us. Most of them were very nice with two stories and large porches. The sound of a gunshot pulled me from my distraction and our jeep shifted its weight as a tire went flat. Parker pulled to the side of the road and turned the car off. To my right, I saw a man jump down from a tree.

He came up to my window, pointing his sniper at us still. "Get out of the car!"

I looked at Parker for an answer, completely surprised and shocked. We could just kill him now and not have to worry about it, but I knew Parker would want to try to talk it out first.

"Get out of the fucking car!" The man shouted again.

He had camo pants on, a dirty, white wife beater and several dog tags around his neck. With that assessment, I assumed he was military. Or had been and was still stuck in his ways. He sure looked it. He was shorter than average, maybe the same height as me, but he was built more than what was necessary. Either way, I knew he wouldn't hesitate to kill us, especially if we didn't listen to his commands.

I slowly opened the car door and stepped out with my hands up. Parker did the same.

"What in the hell are you doing in my town?" He barked in a raspy voice that could only be from too many years of smoking. "You think you can just roll in here and loot my stuff?"

"We're not looters." I tried not to sound as impatient as I was.

"Yeah." He said it like he didn't believe me, then he held his weapon a little tighter and started coming at me fast. I drew my pistol.