REPOSTED ON MY PROFILE.
Matthew hears the man's voice on the radio and knows he has to get to that boat. Months out in the wilderness and on the run, he's sure this is his only - and perhaps last - chance. The girl in the mall might change his mind.
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The lake was subpar.
Matthew guessed another person might have thought it impressive, just not him. It was vast, yes, and the surrounding wood forest hugged it edges picturesquely, yes, but it was also green and murky and smelt like hot mud. That wasn't attractive.
Matthew wasn't a lake expert but the ones in the mountains had been crystal clear and cool to the touch. He couldn't think to entertain the idea of sticking his hand into Tempest Water's pride and joy. Occasional clumps of algae floated to the surface with fat bubbles of air and then sunk back to the unseen bottom.
There weren't fish.
Disappointing didn't stop at the lake. The cabins were bare and rotting and it took Matthew falling through the stairs twice in two different buildings for him to give up on them. The city it was.
The whole area was muggy. It was still too cold for Matthew to remove his coat but he began to sweat in the face, around his collar, and where his gloves meet his sleeve.
"Idyllic lakeside community my ass," Matthew muttered when his boot got stuck in a mudhole. "This place is a damn swamp."
Just as Matthew was, even the dead seemed to be infected by the terrible atmosphere. Matthew crossed the distance from the lakeside housing to the city's shopping district without meeting a single one. They were as far away from this place as Matthew wanted to be.
Still, he refused to let his guard down.
Matthew was careful not to make any loud noises as he picked his way through the grocery store, adding items to his handbasket. Carrying the basket made him feel silly but it was the best option for speed. He wouldn't have to carry around his open pack, just in case something happened, or keep bending to open it whenever he grabbed a new item, also just in case something happened. The basket felt dumb but it got the job done so he threw item after item inside as he moved through the shelves.
The label for the tin of peas he just grabbed was so obnoxiously green it called for a pause. The vegetable inside had to be highly processed. Fresh food farms went for a subtler approach, a more expensive approach.
Nostalgia tapped Matthew on the shoulder, a ghost from a past he rarely thought about anymore.
He knew this brand. This was probably the cheapest thing in this store and his mother used to buy them by the case as she adjusted to feeding three mouths with one income instead of four with two.
They were bad, seriously nasty, and Matthew missed his dad so he caused a lot of fuss but his mother refused to let him leave the table until everything on his plate was gone. Every last pea and kernel of corn. His dad wouldn't make him eat this stuff, he'd argue. Maybe he had been right but his dad never showed up to take him for food anywhere so the theory was left forever unproven.
Mixed up with emotion Matthew resisted the urge to chuck the tin away. He put it in his basket instead. Food was food and this was one of the few things left on the shelves that wasn't broken, dented, or rusted.
