7
I SAT IN the car watching the front of the store from across the street. I had been there for almost fifteen minutes watching for any signs of life. The last attempt had taught me to be extra cautious this time.
The thought of anything happening to me and Rosa being left alone in the house to starve made me feel sick. I needed to get food and from what I had seen so far I’d made the right decision leaving her at home.
Once I was confident that the place was deserted, I got out of the car and moved over to the opposite side of the street. Moving along only in the shadows cast by the side of the building I reached the front entrance. There was much less damage here. It wasn’t exactly what you would call an upmarket place. I suppose that it made sense that if you were going to be looting, you would hit the best stores first. I wasn’t fussy, and at this point as long as I wasn’t eating cat food from a tin I would be happy to take anything edible home. Providing I got there in one piece.
The door was smashed, but I could see from here that there was much more on the store’s shelves than in the previous one. I moved towards the back. I figured that way if I heard anyone coming in again, I could avoid bumping into them by dashing down an aisle and get back out into the street. I grabbed up a roll of heavy duty bin liners from a shelf on the far right, pulled one out and moved along tossing things in. When I reached the nappies, I could have wept with joy.
I had run out of nappies around the middle of week three after the explosion. Wipes a little after that. Potty training a child under two years old is hard work. Never mind one who was only just one year. It was messy. It stunk. We had not been having the best time toilet wise. I took out two more of the bin bags, filled them up and dragged them along behind me to the front entrance of the store to take outside later.
Not wanting to miss anything it took me a little while to find the canned food section. What was left of it. I was shocked to find half a tray of tinned fruit. In disbelief, I bent over to get a closer look at the label. Careful to keep the beam of my torchlight down.
“Prunes!” Well, no wonder. “Bloody typical.” The one fruit that would make my child poop even more than she already did. That’s fabulous.
Reluctantly I picked them up and moved over the rest of the shelf. In the end I had another two bags full of food ranging from crackers to corned beef and some sort of chunky vegetable stew. I was particularly pleased with the armful of tinned carrots I had managed to find in the back of the store. They had been Rosa’s favourite when we were weaning her. At least I knew she’d be happy to eat something I brought home.
I dragged the bags one at a time along the floor and out into the street. I looked around and decided to hide them behind a thick bushy plant about three metres away from the entrance. Going back inside, I needed to pick up some water before I could go home but still hadn’t managed to find any.
“OK, this is a problem. Where would you find water?” Thinking on my feet out of the corner of my eye I spied a ‘no entry’ sign on a door beside the freezer section and pushed my way through. Inside I flicked on my flashlight to see what was on the other side. There was two doors infant of me. One which read ‘STAFF’ and another which had a ‘WC’ sign. I chose the option closest to me.
The moment I opened the door to the staff room I heard a high pitched whine coming from the far end of the black space. It sounded like a child crying, but the foul smell of the room led me to think that whatever was making the noise was not human. The beam of my torch swung over the room, and the whine became a bark. Crap. The sound of a chain clinking reached my ears, and I directed my light over to the side of the room where the barking was coming from.
In front of me cowering at the side of a battered sofa was a very unhappy dog. I was surprised that in the light it didn’t seem to be vicious. It had its hindquarters pressed against the wall behind it and had used the arm of the sofa as a barrier between us. Someone must have tied him up in here thinking he would be useful, guarding something perhaps? If that was true then whoever it was would be coming back here and would not be too pleased to see me here. Feeling the pressure of time on my back, I had to get moving.
Searching for something of value I looked around me. There it was, just within reach of the dog and furthest from the door, staring everyone right in the face. A water cooler, complete with a huge bottle of water on top and no-one had touched it. I bet that somewhere in here if I looked hard enough, there would also be a refill. Probably close to where the dog was chained up. Sure enough, as I once again passed the light over the room, behind the sofa was a storage cupboard.
“I will give you 3 guesses what’s in there buddy.” I needed to give something to this dog in order to befriend it.
I ran back out into the main store and found the pet food section. Grabbing the nearest can of dog food with a ring pull, I returned to the staffroom and opened the tin. I propped up the torch on the wall so that it shone a dim light across the whole room. Giving the dog a better view of what I was doing. “Hi buddy, I think you might be hungry. Would you like some food?” Kneeling down I unsheathed the fishing knife from my belt and began to break up the dog food and scooped it out onto the floor in front of me. Picking up a few chunks in my hand I crawled over towards the dog.
I knew it was a German Shepherd by the shape of him. The tell tail ears standing to attention and the thick bushy coat. As I inched closer, I saw that he was jet black from his nose down to his paws. His eyes shining back at me reflected the little light in the room just enough to give him a sinister profile. Feeling brave I held out my hand in front of me and offered the dog some of the food.
“Here you go. Good boy.” The dog stopped whimpering and pricked up his ears, his nose rising up at the scent of the meal before him. I just had to hope that he knew the meal wasn’t me.
Never taking his eyes off me or the food held outstretched in my hand he moved closer to nuzzle my hand and lick up the food. “Good boy.” From where I knelt I saw that the chain was restricting his movement. The dog whimpered as the chain pulled tighter. From his reaction, I guessed that the chain had begun to cut into his neck. He was leaning slightly to one side as if to elevate some of the pressure of the collar on his throat. The stench coming from the floor in this part of the room was revolting, it must have been weeks since this animal was let outside. I shook my head, disgusted at the cruelty of my fellow humans.
I took the time to establish myself as a friend and brought more of the tinned food over for him to eat. While he was busy eating, I walked behind him to get a better look at the contents of the storage cupboard. Opening the door was simple, and there was no lock. Scanning the inside with my torchlight, there was one full refill bottle for the water cooler. Tucked behind that in the corner there was also a stack of multipack cans of iced tea! Jackpot! This was amazing. Now I just needed to get it all out to the car.
I felt the dog join me by sticking his head into the cupboard at my side, which meant that the food I had used as a distraction had run out. I was nervous but tried not to show it as I spoke to the animal.
“Hello buddy, how are you?” I knelt down beside him, picked up the chain and looked at how it was attached to the wall. As I did so as if he understood what I was thinking the dog began to wag his tail and barked his encouragement. “Whoah. Shhh! I can help you, but you need to be quiet. There’s a good boy.” I reached up and scratched under his chin. I became more confident that he knew what I was trying to do and started to worry a little less about him snapping at me.