“I was hoping to use the battery,” said Max. “And maybe some of the other mechanical pieces. I thought they could be useful in the future. But it looks like it’s all going to stay here. We’ll just have to carry what we can on our backs.”
There were still plenty of supplies loaded in the Jeep, and the SUV.
Max suddenly realized that he’d made a grave error last night—he should have been protecting the gear. But he’d been so fatigued, simply so tired, that they must not have been thinking straight.
But fortunately it seemed as if no one else had come along in the night to rob them.
Max remembered that last night Mandy had said she’d thought she’d seen something, some pair of eyes out in the darkness.
It sent a shiver of terror through him, but Max shook off the thought. It was probably just some animal, or maybe nothing at all.
“So,” said Chad. “I don’t remember much of last night. But it seems like we’re now friends with the people who drove right into us and destroyed the Jeep.”
“Yup,” said Max. “It’s not really their fault, you know.”
“So what’s the plan? We’re going to walk to the farm house?”
“Yeah,” said Max. “If you want to come, that is.”
Chad didn’t say anything for a moment. “I was ready to die,” he said. “I just wanted to enjoy the high for a little while longer. Honestly, my plan was never to come to the farm with you. I figured I would just get out at some point along the road and walk over a cliff or something. Not that I’d really figured much of it out yet… But now that I’m not high, well, things seem a lot different. So yeah, I’d like to come, if you’ll have me. I know I haven’t been a good friend over the years, and I haven’t been much help so far on this trip.”
Max studied him. He knew that sober Chad was a completely different person than high Chad.
“It’ll be good to have you along,” he said. “But it’s going to be a lot of work. We’re going to have to fight for our survival once we get there.”
Chad nodded. “I’m ready for that,” he said. “A fresh start is what I need… Could be the best rehabilitation program ever, really.”
Max chuckled a little. “We all need a fresh start,” he said. “We’ve been living hollow lives for too long, hollow little lives borrowed on credit. We knew deep inside that this day would come…”
Chad nodded slowly.
“So what’s with you and Mandy,” he said. “She’s your girlfriend or something?”
“Wow, you must have been really out of it,” said Max. “No, she was my neighbor. I’d seen her before, but we’d never spoken. I ended up shooting some guys who were trying to rape her. I would have thought that would have been the kind of thing you would have remembered, Chad.”
“Well, I was pretty out of it,” said Chad. “If I’m good at one thing, it’s getting high, really really high, and staying high.”
“You’re strong,” said Max. “You don’t realize it yet, but under that layer of fat you’ve been carrying about for years, there are muscles that want to work, muscles that want to work hard to eke out a living on the land.”
Chad laughed vaguely. “We’ll see about that,” he said. “I can only promise one thing, and that’s that I’ll try.”
“Good,” said Max. “Let’s go wake up the others. We’ve got to get some food and then hit the trail as soon as we can.”
“So the new people are coming with us?” said Chad. “How’s that going to work?”
Max shook his head. “Georgia said she’s taking her kids to some hunting cabin,” he said. “I don’t know where it is, but I imagine we’ll be parting ways today.”
Chad nodded.
Max and Chad made their way back to the campsite, where everyone was slowly waking up.
Mandy was the most awake, and she already had the stove going, preparing some instant coffee as well as two dozen eggs. “I thought they’d just go bad anyway,” she said.
“You’re right,” said Max. “We’ve got to start eating the perishable food as soon as we can. There’s no point in waiting. And we’ve got to remember to eat. We’ve gone too long strung out on hunger. It makes us create errors and problems. We’ve got to stay well rested and well fed, at least as much as possible, from here on out.”
“That sounds nice,” said Mandy. “That was the first time I’ve slept properly since leaving. Oh, and I’ve looked at the maps already.”
Max nodded. He was pleased that she was so useful, and taking so much initiative. It was good that he’d brought her along. He thought back to the time when he was considering whether or not to enter her apartment. Now, he was glad that he’d done it. At the time, it had felt like a terrible, terrible decision.
Mandy served the eggs to everyone. There weren’t any plates, so some ate the eggs off of pages of the atlas map, doing their best to keep the paper flat like a plate.
Max simply took the scrambled eggs in his cupped hands and ate them quickly. He sat on a rock, slightly apart from everyone else, watching them, and considering what would lie in store for them in the days ahead. This was a turning point, with the loss of the Jeep. But maybe it was good. The Jeep had to go sooner or later, considering the gas situation. And it had been a mental crutch for Max, a piece of his old life that he hadn’t wanted to give up. Better to get it over with in a single crash, like pulling a bandage quickly off of a painful wound.
Mandy and Georgia were huddled over the maps, discussing their routes.
Chad was off on his own, a serious expression on his face.
Georgia’s children, James and Sadie, were sitting by their mother.
From where he sat, Max could hear the conversation.
“So I think I know where we are now,” said Mandy. “And it looks like your hunting cabin is on the way to where we’re headed.”
Georgia grinned. “What do you say, Max?” she called out. “Are we coming with you, or are we just going to slow you down?”
“Better if we all go together,” said Max.
Now that they knew where they were headed, and it had been decided that everyone would go together until they reached the hunting cabin, they spent most of their time sorting through all the gear and food.
It was a big job, because in both vehicles, everything had been stuffed together in a very haphazard manner.
Max was dismayed to realize what he’d thrown out when he’d picked up Chad, to make room for him. It had been some food, but that wasn’t the worst of it. He’d inadvertently thrown out a bag full of ammunition, a bag full of medical supplies, and other odds and ends that he’d thought would be useful for surviving.
They had enough food for the hike and even after that. Even though there were a lot of them, the food was plentiful. Georgia had brought along a lot of food as well. For the most part, the parties kept their gear separate from one another. Georgia and her children carried most of their belongings, and Max, Mandy, and Chad carried their own things.
It turned out that Chad’s big frame could carry a huge amount. Of course, he would tire easily, because of his own extra weight that he was carrying, all those pounds of fat. Max warned him of this, and cautioned him to carry less gear. But Chad seemed determined to “pull his weight” among the group as it were, and he loaded himself with many extra things that might be useful.
Max lent Georgia and her children extra hiking backpacks. So they each had a large hiking backpack with gear strapped all over it.
Max carried a lot of weight himself. To repay him for loaning her the packs, Georgia lent Max’s party a rifle.
Initially, Georgia offered the gun to Mandy, but Mandy said she didn’t know how to use it.
“I’ll take it,” Max had said. He was familiar with rifles as well as handguns, even though he didn’t have his own. It was, by his own admission, a huge oversight in his planning.