The Outbreak Chronicles Book One Survival Ties

Chapter 5

Aaron slept on the couch and was up before any of us making breakfast. The smell woke me up and I followed my nose out to the kitchen and sat down at the dining room table watching Aaron. He had shrimp cooking in a skillet as he chopped up mini sweet peppers. He had supplies sitting on the counter next to him. He had a bottle of ranch, a bottle of Tabasco sauce, bacon, eggs, and a bag of shredded mozzarella cheese.

"Good morning." He greeted me as I watched him.

"Morning what are you making?" I asked him watching as he cracked eggs open and poured them into another skillet.

"I'm making Cajun eggs and bacon for everyone's breakfast as a thank you for letting me stay with you guys." Aaron answered as he started to mix in the mozzarella, and the mini peppers into the skillet with the eggs. After stirring he added in the shrimp, some ranch, and some tabasco sauce then he covered the skillet. He threw the bacon on to the skillet he'd used for the shrimp.

"It smells great." I told him as Sawyer, Daisy, and Sydney joined us in the kitchen.

"I'll say it does." Sydney agreed.

"It's nothing. I just want to be useful." Aaron answered.

"What if you don't like spicy stuff?" Axel asked from behind Sydney. Angela and Thomas were standing with him as he eyeballed the tabasco sauce.

"Don't you worry; I didn't add enough in to make it spicy. Put in just enough to give it the flavor." Aaron answered as he started dishing out plates to everyone before getting his own plate. He even brought Sam and Tone plates in the front of the bus. No one spoke much as they ate which says a lot about what everyone thought of Aaron's cooking. He was right that the eggs were not spicy at all but had all the flavor of being so.

Sydney cleaned up the kitchen when everyone was done eating. Aaron sat down on the living room floor to play Life with Axel and Angela while Thomas watched. Sam had decided to take the wheel since he wanted to get a move on. We were driving down the road again. The ride was going smooth for about half an hour before Sam stopped.

"Damn it." Was all he said.

"What's going on?" Sydney asked as she made her way to the front of the bus.

We all looked outside wondering what was going on now. In front of us on the road were a bunch of abandoned cars. A couple buses, an RV, a moving truck, and a semi-truck completely blocking the road.

"Shit. What do we do?" Sydney asked.

"I could back up and try another way or we could go out and see if we can move them out of the way." Sam responded as he turned the bus off and just sat staring at the mess in front of us.

"Hey I don't know if this helps or not, but Wayne's group and I had a system we were using when we went out for supplies. We'd spray paint a green x on doors of buildings that were clear and a red x on buildings that had Red Eyes in them. I could go through and start marking the cars that are clear or ones that have bodies in them." Aaron suggested.

"We don't have paint." Sam said.

"I have cans in my bag." Aaron responded.

"You know it's not a bad idea. That way if the kids go out they know which cars to stay away from." Sydney agreed patting Aaron on the shoulder.

I followed Aaron outside and watched as he started going from vehicle to vehicle. He was putting x's on the windows. After I'd been watching him for a while he came back over to the bus.

"Do you want to help me with this?" he asked, I noticed at least a couple cars have keys in them we can mark those cars with two x's."

"Yeah I'll help." I agreed and he handed me two cans of spray paint.