Guests, problems, problems with guests... But mostly just arguing over the damn moat.
"So how do we prevent another asshole situation?" Elyza asked over their meal.
"What?" Raven looked up confused.
"That guy, this morning at the bookstore, he just walked in and took over and there wasn't a fucking thing we could do." Elyza looked around at the kitchen they were sitting in, "How do we prevent that shit from happening again."
"Okay, well it starts with locking the goddamn door." Raven shoveled more noodles in her mouth.
"Yeah cause that totally made things difficult for you." Elyza snarked.
She spread her arms, "Not everyone is going to be awesome! You didn't even let me finish." Raven gestured wildly with her fork, "I think we need to board up all of this glass shit, and then we put spikes on everything. Maybe a moat. I think we really need a moat. I vote we turn this bitch into a fucking castle."
Elyza's eyes has gotten big at the mention of boarding everything up, but at the moat they practically popped out of her head. "A Moat?" She spluttered.
"Hell yes a moat. A capital 'M' Moat, nobody is going to come walking in here if we have something stopping them from getting to the front door, and it's not like we have the materials to hide the fucking thing. Most people tend to have their doors on the front of the house right where the porch is… So yeah, not hideable."
"Wow. So Insightful," Elyza deadpanned. "I'm more concerned with how we," Elyza paused and looked at Raven's bum leg "are going to dig a damn moat."
"I have it all figured out." Raven grinned, leaning back in her chair. "We passed a Home Depot on our way here right?" She raised her eyebrows, looking almost as terrifying as she did the day… Elyza didn't want to think about that day. Let's just say that Raven is not allowed to touch blenders anymore.. Or vacuums.
"Yeeaaahhh?" Elyza drew it out, afraid of agreeing to something that she would regret in the near future.
"Well the Depot rents out backhoes." Raven's eyes gleamed with intent, "If I can build a rocket, I can figure out how to drive a backhoe."
"Shit, do you know how much I fucking hate Home Depot?" Elyza's shoulders had slumped a bit, she wasn't going to fight Raven's insanity.
"I mean, I can go alone and you can scavenge for fences to board up the windows with," Raven was having far too much fun with this, "Or! We can spend half an hour at the Depot with a truck, grab some plywood and a bobcat and tear this bitch up in an afternoon!" After a moment of Elyza saying nothing, Raven stuck her lip out in a pout and clasped her hands together. "..Please?"
"Fine, get your ass in the car." Elyza sighed in defeat.
The drive to Home Depot was short and uneventful, mostly filled with Elyza whining about the destination and the lack of music.
"First things first, help me get these doors open, I'll push left, you push right." Raven braced herself and wedged her fingers in between the doors that were just slightly ajar. "Put your back into it bitch."
The doors slowly slid open and Raven cackled with glee "Hello beautiful, Mama is here!"
"Can you stop flirting with the store long enough for us to get our stuff and go?" Elyza snapped.
"Oh sweet babies, don't listen to a word she says." Raven reassured the store, grabbing a giant cart on her way past the door. "Let's grab that plywood for you cranky pants, then I'll break into the office for the keys."
Elyza took a deep, dusty breath of musty air, "Why do I even have to be here?"
"So you can drive the car back." Raven sniffed. Enjoying the smell of wood pervading the air, "Duh."
"And what are you driving?"
"I am going to drive the most fundamentally american vehicle known to this earth, a truck." Raven smirked, "I'll hook it up to the trailer for the excavator and we'll be cruising out of here. Help me with this."
She gestured to the large panels of plywood and the two girls loaded up three panels, some hammers, a whole bucket of nails and a handsaw. "Okay, you want to take the little stuff to the car while I break into the rental office?"
Elyza nodded, "Yeah sure, anything to get me out of this godforsaken place."
Raven shook her head, "I love that the Depot is a godforsaken hellmouth, but a mall full of undead cannibals is an exciting afternoon."
Elyza stuck her tongue out, "Oh whatever. It's not like I knew it was full of dead people. You don't exactly expect to find those outside of a freaking cemetery."
"Well apparently the Depot is one of the safest places we've ever been to, because there's nobody here." Raven grinned, "I bet we could turn those diesels on in the back and no one would notice."
"You are probably the only person who would ever want to live out the end of the world in a Home Depot." Elyza called over her shoulder as she veered away out the door to load up the car.
"That's because I'm a genius." Raven mumbled to herself, shoving one of the screwdrivers she picked up into the seam between the door and the frame. She wasn't exactly keen on snapping their only knife just to prevent some damage to a random door.
"Who else would think to dig a moat, and fortify a coffee shop?" Raven nodded in agreement with herself as she started rummaging through the drawers in the desk, "Or using a backhoe to do all the hard work. But am I awesome? No, I'm crazy for liking access to all my favorite toys."
She shook her head and snagged a ring of keys from the bottom of a pile of old receipts, "God damn, these guys need a desk spike or something for these things." She tossed the receipts on the floor, just to make sure there wasn't anything else in there.
"Jackpot!" Raven snagged the Twix with a massive grin, "One point for Reyes, and Lex is at nil." She ripped it open and took a bite out of it while she meandered to the giant wooden case that obviously held the rental keys. "Now which of you bitches is gonna be my new baby?"
She traced a finger over the different labels for the keys and snagged one labeled 'truck' and another labeled 'Kubota 2.5-3t'. "That is my baby." Raven moved to leave and another label caught her eye.
Someone was walking behind her. Elyza probably. "Yo Lyza! These bitches have generators!" Raven shoved every set of keys for all the generators in her backpack and spun around to leave the office.
Elyza was standing right behind her. Raven bumped into her, her candybar falling to the ground. "Aw come on!" She crouched and grabbed it, blowing on the exposed chocolate.
"You found chocolate and you didn't tell me?" Elyza exclaimed, "Gimme that." She snatched the remaining half from Raven.
"Hey! That's mine!" Raven swiped at the chocolate.
"Not anymore it isn't." Elyza took a big bite out of the bar, "Now what were you saying about generators?" She said through a mouthful of chocolate.
Raven pouted, "They have them too, a couple are real decent low power alternatives to the car battery thing."
"If it means you won't blow something up so we can make coffee, I'm all for it." Elyza grinned.
"I haven't blown anything up yet." Raven huffed, "They keep the trucks in the back."
"We should grab all the snack stuff from by the registers before we leave. It may not be cold, but I wouldn't mind a soda." Elyza took the last bite of chocolate.
"Oh shit, I didn't even think of that!" Raven gasped, "Dude, if no one's raided this place we could have a year's supply of chocolate, or like, two weeks knowing you."
"Fair point." Elyza shrugged, "I wonder if there's a break room with a vending machine. You could break into one of those, right?"
"Oh hell yeah, they're the same as the ones in the school."
"We should check before we leave," Elyza followed Raven, "We would be terrible survivors if we left chocolate behind."
"We really would," Raven reached the trucks and tried the keys she had, they fit the second truck and she fired it up. "We need to get this hooked up to a trailer, I'll need you to guide me."
"Uhh, I've never done that before."
"Tab A goes to Slot B, you've done that more than once before, yeah?" Raven smirked.
Elyza blushed, "Okay, sex is a lot easier than getting two multi-ton machines hooked together so they don't fall apart in the middle of the freeway. I don't know about you, but my escapades in this department tend to stay within a ten foot radius of the starting point."
"Boring." Raven scoffed. "You've obviously been doing it wrong, so here's some practice."
"Oh my god." Elyza shook her head, "Whatever, I'm sure I'll figure it out. Just get in the damn truck." Elyza jogged over to the trailer where she could see what was happening.
Raven got herself lined up as best as she could on her own and looked back to where Elyza was standing and began to slowly back up. "Which way do I need to go?" She called back.
"You need to go that way like 3 inches," Elyza gestered left.
Raven made a small adjustment, hoping it was close and kept backing up. "Which way now?"
"Just keep coming, you look really close." Elyza hollered back. "Where do you want the ball thingy?"
"Ball thingy?" Raven laughed "I want it lined up right under the scoop thing." Raven rolled her eyes.
"Ok you've got like 6 more inches and then it's all in." Elyza replied.
"That's what he said." Raven joked.
Elyza snorted, busting into laughter while Raven finished lining up the truck. "Okay! Stop, stop! You're right there!" She giggled harder, "You're good." She shot Raven a thumbs-up, trying to keep herself upright.
Raven put the truck in park and walked back to join Elyza, giggling by the fender while she cranked the trailer hitch down over the ball. "Okay, so you fix it here with this latch, and then we attach the chains, and we don't give a fuck about extended signals." She grinned, "You load up the plywood into the trunk while I find our excavator."
"For my sister, you sure want me to spend a lot of time with your wood." Elyza snickered.
Raven laughed, "For real, I'm pretty sure its your wood at this point."
The girls split up a final time, loading the last of their supplies, and all the junk food they'd bagged from the front end. "Okay, you're good." Elyza gave the side of the truck a double tap, "I'll follow you back in the car."
"Awesome, I'll take her down to the lot exit while I wait."
Their drive home was uneventful, though there were quite a few dead in the streets they had to swing around. It felt like there were way more of them than when everything originally went down, and the noise from the truck drew them out so much more than the little janky car. Overall, they made it back without any followers and only an hour taken from their day.
Raven parked in front of the house and Elyza took the driveway. "Okay, you handle the groceries and windows while I take the moat?"
Elyza shook her head and grabbed a few bags, "I still can't believe you're digging a fucking moat."
"I think what you mean is that you can't believe you didn't think of it first." Raven teased, hopping out of her truck, "Besides, this makes you a real princess."
Elyza glared, "I fucking hate that nickname."
"And yet everyone uses it." Raven grinned, "Maybe you should try cutting off the princess hair and becoming less of a bitch."
"You'd be bored if I was less of a bitch," Elyza taunted, "And I'll cut off my hair the same time you do."
Raven stuck her tongue out and climbed up into the excavator, "Move your ass princess, I'm digging that moat now."
"I'm going, I'll be back in a bit." Elyza headed towards that door with her haul, "What windows do you want done?"
"The whole first floor?" Raven shrugged, "Maybe leave some slots for light or something? Or just the bottom half?"
Elyza nodded and continued into the house.
Raven got to work rather quickly, getting the hang of the controls and over the course of the afternoon she dug a four foot deep moat all around the house, leaving only the driveway untouched. The dirt from the moat was deposited in a rather large mound in front of the driveway, sloping the whole thing so they could use it like a ramp for the truck in a pinch. It also meant that anyone trying to drive in from the street would need to get out of their car, or skinny through the tight space Raven left for the truck to go through normally.
"RAVEN! How the hell am I supposed to get out of here?" Elyza yelled from her side of the moat.
Raven stopped the excavator and turned it off, "What?" She yelled back, her ears still ringing from the noise of the machinery.
"HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO GET TO THE OTHER FUCKING SIDE?"
"Jump!" She joked. Upon seeing the look Elyza shot her, Raven lost the grin. "I left the driveway untouched, you can come out through the garage. I figure that way we'll hear it if another asshole tries to take our shit."
Elyza turned around and went into the garage coming out through the open door. "So I had a thought…" Elyza paused "How are we supposed to fill this moat? There's no running water."
"Okay moat is a strong word, I didn't mean to fill the damn thing with crocodiles and shit, I just don't want some dick walking in our front door again. Now no one can get in without us knowing. We can board up the other doors too and bottleneck it." Raven rolled her eyes at Elyza's ridiculousness. Who the hell fills their moats theses days?
"And what's to prevent someone from jumping in with a ladder or some shit and climbing up the other side." Elyza asked, irritated.
"That's why we board up the doors!" Raven snapped, "Are you listening?"
"I still don't see how that helps. I can literally jump down there, climb out the other side and then walk in the damn front door. How is that helpful? I'm not even athletic!" Elyza argued.
"Clearly you can't because you had to yell at me for help!" Raven glared at Elyza for trying to tear holes in her perfectly good plan.
"I didn't want to get dirty you bitch." Elyza glared right back.
Raven snorted, "And you wonder why people call you a princess, it means we have a warning. The only reason that asshole beat us was because he got the jump on us. If we had known he was coming we could have speared him."
"Uh, Hello?"
"Oh, I'm sorry, you only talk bitch-" Raven's eyes went wide and she spun around, throwing herself into the excavator and turned it on in the time it took to, well… To jump into an excavator and turn it on. "Who the fuck are you?" She snapped, turning the machine towards the pair of invaders.
Elyza moved forward until she had a better view of the approaching pair.
The male of the pair took a step forward, pulling a tween girl behind his back. The very tween that had just spoken. "Hey, we aren't here for a fight, we just heard your-" He gestured at Raven's excavator, "And wanted to check it out."
"Congrats, you have officially checked it out, now check your asses out of my yard." Raven snapped, waving the arm of the bucket loader at them in a shooing motion.
The girl stepped forward from behind the man's back and looked at the two women in front of her "Do you have any food, or water you could share? We haven't been able to stop to eat since yesterday." She asked, "I'm Madi, by the way."
"Madi." The man put his hand on her shoulder, "Come on, we can find somewhere else to go, it's fine."
Raven's glare softened a little bit and she glanced to Elyza. They had a massive pile of snacky shit in the house that they didn't necessarily need all of it. Elyza nodded, "If you wait here, we can get something for you."
Raven turned off the excavator and hopped out of the cab with a wince. She'd spent too many hours sitting down for her hip to not flare up. "I see either of you trying to get into the house, I'll personally kick your asses." She threatened, pointing a finger at the guy and then Madi with raised eyebrows.
The guy nodded, "Of course, we aren't going to pull anything, I promise. I'm just trying to look out for the kid."
Elyza came back out of the house a bag in hand with a few water bottles and some food. "Here, this should get you going." Elyza slowly approached and handed the bag to Madi, keeping an eye on the guy behind her.
"Thank you." He said, "I'm Quint, I uh, I'm sorry for catching you by surprise." Quint seemed rather genuine, and the girl Madi nodded her agreement, already breaking into one of the chip bags.
"It happens. Thanks for not being an asshole." Raven snarked, her tone still a little sharp. She is not a fan of being caught off guard, not after this morning.
"What are you guys doing?" Madi asked looking around Raven at the moat she had dug.
"I'm making us a moat. I figure if you can't get to the door, you can't break in." She replied, puffing out her chest in pride at her amazingly awesome idea.
"How are you going to fill it in? You can totally jump in and climb out right now and get to the door." Madi looked confused.
"That's what I said!" Elyza exclaimed.
Raven huffed in exasperation, "Oh my god, it's a moat. Not every moat gets filled with water, and it's not any fucking harder to climb out than it is to swim."
"Then why are you doing it?" Quint raised an eyebrow, trying not to further antagonize Raven.
"Fuck you all!" Raven threw her arms up in the air, "It's fucking cool okay? We can put spikes in the bottom, or battery acid or anything we fucking want!"
"You just wanted to play with an excavator." Elyza accused Raven.
"And you just wanted to play with my wood all day." She pointed at Elyza. Quint and Madi got wide eyed. Quint in particular would have never, suspected. I mean, Raven isn't exactly feminine, but he'd never considered that the diminutive.. Uh, person, wasn't exactly the… He stopped that line of thought, realizing he was just digging a deeper hole than this Raven with her.. Their moat.
"I got to manhandle that damn plywood all by myself, trying to hold it up and nail it to the fucking wall. You got to sit out here in your little toy and play by yourself." Elyza jabbed her finger at Raven
Madi turned purple, she wasn't a hundred percent sure what she was hearing, but she was positive her parents would not have approved it. "I thought we were talking about a moat?"
"So did I." Quint mumbled, looking rather alarmed. "You, uh, enjoy your… Whatever you're doing."
"What?" Elyza looked over at the duo she had forgotten were there, "We are talking about the moat."
"Duh," Raven agreed, "What did you think we were talking about?"
"Uh, your...uh," Quint gestures at Ravens...groin, "area."
Raven blinked, "My what now?"
Elyza bust out laughing, cackling hysterically until she fell on the ground. "He thinks!" She couldn't stop laughing.
"He thinks I-!" Raven looked down at herself and then up at Quint and joined Elyza, bending in half and clutching at her sides, "You!" She giggled, "You thought I had a dick!"
Madi looked away from the hysterical girls, distinctly uncomfortable looking. "It kinda sounded like it to me too," she defended Quint.
"No," Raven protested, "No I get it!" She waved her hand at the girl, giggling so hard it hurt, "I just-" She started laughing again, falling to a knee, "That's great!"
Quint looked at Madi and then to the two women on the ground, wondering if they were suffering from a mental break of some kind. Clearly they couldn't even hold a normal conversation without starting a fight, and potentially incapacitating themselves in one form or another. "Do-do you two need help?"
Elyza slowly picked herself up off the ground, wiping the tears that had streamed down her face as she laughed. "We need all sorts of help, but there's never been someone who could help the two of us."
Quint shook his initial reaction out of his head and blamed that particular mental slip on their rather perverted form of conversing. "I was thinking more with this house. It seems like you have a good thing here, and I would like to find a place where we don't have to be on the move all the time." He immediately threw up a hand to defend the idea, "We'll pull our own weight, Madi is really good at finding food and things, and I'm no weakling in a fight."
Elyza and Raven looked at each other, "We are trying to set ourselves up so we don't have to move around," Elyza confirmed.
Raven tilted her head, "I mean, we have the rooms to spare?" She offered. In part because there is a certain bond formed when someone makes you laugh so hard that it's difficult not to pee yourself. This is the kind of bond she shares now with both Madi and Quint.
"You don't have to keep us around long term, this is your place and I respect that." Quint said, "If after a day you want us gone, then so be it."
A short, silent conversation between Raven and Elyza lead them to turn and agree, a day-long trial. It was starting to get dark already anyway. They escorted Madi and Quint into the house showing them where the bedrooms were, offering a separate one to each of them. Raven and Elyza had shared a bedroom before, it was irritating but doable.
Quint was nothing but thankful for their hospitality, and Madi explored the house with pure curiosity. She was too young to really think about herself as a danger to Raven and Elyza, so for the most part, she saw it all like being invited to a friend's house for a sleepover.
A quick meal of canned beans and vegetables and everyone was ready for an early night. None of them had been able to sleep in a real bed for a week and it felt like a luxury.
No one bothered getting up before noon, and it felt amazing. Slowly everyone made their way to the kitchen, following the smell of coffee. Raven hooked up the machine to the small generator she grabbed just long enough to get their water hot and brewed black.
"Welcome to the end of the world." Raven mumbled, passing a mug to each of their newest people. Their awestruck faces were enough to convince her that the sacrifice of coffee was worth it.
Madi took a sip and wrinkled her nose a little bit, "Do we have any milk?" She asked without thinking.
"Fresh out, but I think we still have a thing of creamer." Raven dug through the backpack of miscellaneous food items she'd just thrown into a cabinet yesterday. "Aha!" She pulled out a small container of the stuff, "Don't say I never did anything for you." Raven took her chance to put a solid tablespoon of the stuff into her mug before handing it to Madi.
"You know you're going to have to get used to coffee without the creamer one day?" Elyza asked, sipping on her mug of black coffee.
"Nope, I'm going cold turkey as soon as we're out." Raven replied, humming into her cup, "Coffee without creamer is like cows without udders. Just plain unnatural."
"You mean it's the only way to drink coffee. Why dilute perfection?" Elyza raised her eyebrows.
"I dunno, like udders are freaky but so are cows without them." Raven shrugged, "It's a personal thing."
"See, and I think they'd look more normal without the udders. Like most other animals don't have their nipples hanging out all the time." Elyza considered.
Raven blinked slowly at Elyza, "I mean it depends how cold you are."
"We're in California, it's never that cold unless you are in the mall." Elyza shivered
"And yet," Raven gestured to Elyza and smirked into her coffee.
Quint choked on his coffee and though no one caught him looking, his blush and pointed stare at the counter said otherwise. That or he's actually a thirteen year old boy in a thirty year old man's body.
Elyza gave her a look, "I already warned you how close I am to that time of the month, I get horny."
Madi's eyes got really wide, "I'm still a kid you know," she scolded.
Raven looked at the kid and raised an eyebrow, "I dunno, you got balls."
"No I don't!" Madi protested.
Quint covered his face with his hands, "She means you're brave, why don't you get ready for the day."
"That's a good idea." Elyza nodded, "We should go out and check the nearby stores for food and water before it gets too hot outside."
Quint frowned and waved his hand, "We have plenty for now. You two did a lot of work yesterday, if you're too worried about it, I can check out the houses in the neighborhood this afternoon."
Elyza and Raven exchanged a glance, "Nah, we'll all go." Raven refused his offer. "Meet back here in better clothes."
He nodded, finishing his coffee and went upstairs to change, his steps a little heavier than they were this morning.
"That was...odd," Elyza commented as she listened to Quint walk upstairs.
"Mmmm," Raven nodded in agreement. "Let's get ready to go." She glanced up the stairs again.
A change of clothes and a few packs full of empty bags and they were ready to head out. "Priorities are water, food, meds, first aid stuff, and any weapons." Raven looked around at everyone, "Does anyone need anything specific?"
"Tampons." Elyza piped in.
Madi blushed, but nodded her agreement.
"Uh," Quint shifted in discomfort, "I don't know about Madi, but I could use some different clothes. And shoes, these ones are starting to fall apart."
"You can get those right Lyza?" Raven elbowed her, "You're an expert at gathering clothes right?" She smirked.
"I'm leaving your ass behind, if I get attacked by a group again." Elyza elbowed her back.
Raven snorted, "Fair enough."
"A group?" Madi asked, looking between the two older girls.
"Raven has a big mouth, and sometimes it draws in more of the," She paused, not quite sure how much Madi knew, "The infected. A group of them caught me with my shorts down last week."
"She knows they're dead." Quint added. "I don't really know what to call them though."
"Welp, dead seems like a good start." Raven threw in her two cents, "But honestly I like Ropelings too."
"What's a...Ropeling?" Madi looked confused.
"Long story short, they're sneaky bastards." Raven patted Madi on the head, "And I stab sneaky bastards now."
"Shouldn't we be focused on getting what we need?" Quint asked.
"What are you talking about?" Raven parked the car in the lot of what was a walmart, "This is focused, otherwise I'd be at Denny's. But not this one, this one is janky as fuck, we go to the one on Wallard street."
"You never go to the Denny's in the shitty part of town." Elyza told Madi as though sharing a vital nugget of information.
"Okay." Madi nodded with wide eyes. Elyza and Raven seemed like just the kind of crazy that could thrive in this environment, and while Madi doesn't understand everything they say and do, she gets the feeling they are good people.
"If we see other people in there, you know, living ones, we walk away and avoid them." Elyza instructed, "If someone comes after us we get out of there. Unless they're dead and then we can kill them. Also the rest of us really need weapons. Raven's knife isn't going to do much good."
Quint nodded, "I'm not exactly a fan of beating the dead up with my bare hands." He admitted.
"I don't know if I could kill one of them, even if they are already dead." Madi admitted looking down at her feet.
"You aren't going to." Quint put his hand on her shoulder, "We'll take care of you."
The front doors of the Walmart were wide open, junk and garbage littered the ground, "Yo! Any of you dead assholes in here?" Raven called, "Or living assholes? I'm just not a fan of assholes."
Raven's call was met with silence and the group started picking their way through the junk looking for their supplies. Clothing racks were mostly empty and had been tossed every which way. Shelves had been overturned, their contents tossed, damaged and outright destroyed.
"There's nothing here that we can use." Elyza kicked at an empty shelf. "Should we go check out the hunting section for weapons?"
"Why bother, all that's gonna be left are BB guns if we're lucky." Raven grouched, picking her way through the mess carefully, one wrong step and her ass would be stuck on the couch for another weak.
"Maybe there's some stuff in the pharmacy?" Madi offered, pointing to the clearly labeled section. "Most people would go for the behind the counter stuff right?"
"There might be a few things, we can check but the Pharmacy would've been the second thing people raided, right after the cash registers." Quint grouched.
"They don't put everything out right? Maybe there's a back with stuff in it?" Madi asked.
"Not with drugs." Raven pursed her lips, "But I'll bet a hundred bucks they have stuff from all the other sections of the store." She grinned.
"So we need to find the back and break in, yeah?" Elyza asked glancing around.
"Photo center back by the electronics." Quint pointed, "There's always a bunch of employees going in and out of there."
"Lead the way." Elyza gestured, a little surprised by him having something helpful to say. So far his commentary had left her with a lackluster impression of his abilities.
Quint nodded, straightened his back and led the way. He took them through the photo center and to beige double doors. Instead of bothering to let Raven unlock them, he just planted a kick below the handles, denting the door and knocking them open.
The girls followed him into the back a large open space that was almost as messy as the front clothing. "Well, there's clothes here, but good luck finding your size and shit."
"Grab what you need, I'm going to look over this way for other stuff." Elyza gestured.
The group separated, Quint and Madi sorting through the clothes piled haphazardly, Raven explored beyond the messy rectangle of clothing to the left. "Elyza," She said in a hushed tone, looking through a pair of double doors.
"Yeah?" Elyza asked, a little concerned.
"Get the truck." Raven grinned, opening the doors further so that Elyza could see the massive shelves of food, "We're gonna be eating cereal for a month."
"And beans and rice for the next decade after that." Elyza griped, before turning around and heading back out to the parking lot.
Raven turned back to the otherside of the walk, and found all sorts of merchandise. "I mean, did you want a treadmill?" Raven gestured, "Or a fucking trampoline? I'm pretty sure there's everything short of the kitchen sink in here." Raven kept sorting, finally finding a bunch of hunting and camping supplies. Using her knife, she tore through shrink wrap and cardboard to find everything they could want, short of a normal fucking world. "Hey Quint! Madi! I need help in here!"
Qunit and Madi came running, panic and fear on their faces. "Where is it? Is there more than one?" Quint yelled searching the space around Raven.
"You bet your ass there is! There must be a million of these things." She showed him the small kerosene tanks for camp stoves, "Somebody grab a pallet, we need to take this shit before someone else gets wise."
Someone knocked on the giant doors in the back by the truck depot, "Open up!" Elyza's muffled voice came from the other side, "I've got the truck!"
Quint jogged over and grabbed the handle, yanking the door up to show Elyza standing there.
"We are going to need something bigger than the truck, we shouldn't leave this stuff behind. Nobodies making new stuff for awhile." Raven called back.
Elyza glanced back over her shoulder, "Well you have to avoid a walking corpse, but if you can hotwire a semi, we've got three options."
"I can probably figure something out," Raven called. "I'll go work on that, why don't you start loading up a few pallets. All the camping supplies you can find, even if it seems stupid. Tools too. And then start in on the food and water. We'll fill the truck and the back of a semi up and we should be set for a while."
"I'll get to work loading up pallets." Quint grabbed a small jack with an empty pallet already on it and jogged over to the camping supplies, "Madi come help me with this, heavy stuff on bottom."
The girl did as she was told, happy to have something to do. Raven flashed Elyza a grin before leaving through the truck gates to find herself a semi-trailer. If this worked, they would be set.
Raven returned with her semi-trailer and red on her hands. It took a solid twenty minutes for her to back it up to the door properly, and she abandoned the attempt after she got it mostly lined up.
An hour later and both the semi and the truck were loaded up and ready to go. The previously loaded warehouse was now much clearer and didn't hold as many useful items for future raiders. It was a bit unfortunate, but they would be well fed for awhile.
Raven did take a few minutes to leave a couple of packs with an assortment of supplies in them, hopefully this time it would go better than Mr. Rope's crackers.
Raven parked the semi across the front driveway and hopped down. Her leg almost buckled when she hit the ground, but she recovered before anyone saw her. It might be a good idea to take a pain pill tonight before bed. Her leg had mostly recovered from the run at the mall, but it was still giving her more issues. This fucking leg was going to be a big problem.
"Hey Rae, are we unloading anything in there? Or just leaving it until we need it?" Elyza called from where she stood by the truck.
"I packed a padlock bigger than Quint so we would only have to unload whatever we needed."
Quint and Madi began hauling their new clothes and shoes into the house, both eager to change into new clothes. "I think we are probably good with what's in the truck for a little while, so why don't you lock that up and we can go in and make dinner." Elyza paused and cocked her head, "After you bring in a camp stove, those battery things freak me the fuck out."
Raven rolled her eyes, "You know they're perfectly safe." She made her way to the back of the truck with just a hint of a limp. She climbed into the back and came back with some canned soup and a camp stove. Raven took a moment longer than usual to decide how to get out of the truck, and that was really all Elyza needed to see.
"You're doing your exercises tonight." Elyza declared.
Raven just glared a bit before nodding. She handed Elyza a few of the cans and they made their way up the drive and into the house.
It had been another slow start morning, slow for everyone but Quint anyway. "What's all of this?" Elyza asked, looking at the massive pile of old pill bottles and prescriptions stacked on the dining room table.
"I did a little bit of scavenging." Quint shrugged, "We didn't find the medical supplies we wanted, so I went looking for them."
Raven came in the room behind Elyza, "What do you mean you went looking for them?"
Quint looked up from the stash, "We didn't get the medicine and first aid supplies we wanted yesterday at Walmart, so I went through a few of the houses on the street. This was what I managed to find."
"You fucking left without saying anything?" Raven demanded.
"Why would I need to say anything?" Quint rolled his eyes.
"Not to quote the obvious, but you could have died! You could have been seen!"
"What are you talking about?" Quint turned away from the protesting girls, "I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself."
"Maybe in a fucking bar fight, but this is people trying to eat you." Raven glared daggers at Quint, "Not to mention that you left us alone, and we don't bar fight. God, you're so fucking stupid, what if instead of fighting you, someone decided to follow you back here and kick in the door while you're off wandering the neighborhood!"
"It's fine, no one followed me and everyone was fine." Quint dismissed them. "You're worrying about nothing."
"Nothing is waking up and everyone is still tucked in their beds." Raven snapped, marching into the kitchen, shaking her head and muttering under her breath.
Elyza sighed, putting her head in her hand, "Just, don't do it again without telling someone."
Quint grumbled under his breath and continued sorting. "What's for breakfast?" He asked.
Elyza looked up, "Whatever the hell you get up and make for yourself."
Raven waited for Elyza to look at her and raised her eyebrows in a silent but somehow screaming, ' Do you believe this guy?' look.
Elyza shook her head, hearing Madi come tromping down the stairs. "Good Morning," Elyza paused, "Or afternoon."
Madi nodded her head and beelined for the coffee pot. She mumbled something unintelligent and poured herself a cup. Raven handed over the container of creamer without even a word.
After Madi was halfway through her cup she finally spoke, "What are we doing today?"
"Resting." Raven grouched, shooting Elyza a dirty look, "It's not good to 'overexert yourself'." She did finger quotes.
"Quit bitching Rae and deal with it." Elyza glared.
"Excuse you, this is me dealing."
"Well deal with less bitching." Elyza poured her own cup of coffee. "We are just chilling around here today, Madi. We've got food, water, clothes." She paused and glanced over at Quint, "And apparently we aren't in urgent need of medical supplies."
"Do whatever you want to today, just don't leave ," Raven glared at Quint at that last.
"Can I explore the backyard?" Madi asked.
"Sure, just don't leave it." Raven agreed.
"I don't think that's such a good idea, you should stay with me," Quint protested.
"Oh and wander the neighborhood?" Elyza snarked, "She's fine, I'll keep an eye out for her."
Quint grunted, "I guess I'll be out there too."
Elyza rolled her eyes, "Let me grab a jacket and we can check it out." She patted Madi's shoulder and went upstairs. "When I come back, you'd better be doing your exercises Raven!"
"Yes mom!"
Elyza sat curled up on the sofa with a cup of tea in her hand. She had found a few bags tucked into the cupboard and it was a bit too late in the evening for coffee. It had been a pretty good day, especially for after the world had gone to hell. She and Madi had explored the back yard and found a small veggie patch. Most of the vegetables looked like they'd been picked or eaten by rabbits, but a garden would be nice. They had also found an avocado tree and an orange tree. Dinner had been fresh fruit and it had tasted amazing.
Elyza took a sip of her tea and looked over to Madi who was curled up and trying to read a book by candlelight. Madi is good people, she is helpful, funny and pleasant to be around. Quint is a pain in the ass. He had spent the day giving orders while he sat on his ass. He had also made more than a few comments about Raven's leg and how 'capable' she is. Elyza had needed to redirect Raven when she heard one of them or the man would have been shown just how capable Raven was of kicking his ass.
"So we have a problem." Raven muttered, sitting beside Elyza and glancing over at Quint who is sorting out his meds by his own confused method. He'd stopped through the whole afternoon to watch Elyza and Madi chat in the backyard, and thus made almost no progress until they came in for dinner.
"Yeah?" Elyza asked quietly.
"Quint." Was all Raven said.
Elyza nodded looking up at the other two people in the room. "We can't do anything about him without it affecting Madi."
Raven nodded her head, "He's an asshole though and I don't like him." Raven sat quietly for a few minutes thinking. "We should keep an eye on him, I don't want to kick Madi out, but I wouldn't mind getting rid of him."
"Okay, he snuck out once and he's a little foggy on the teamwork, but that doesn't mean we toss him out the door Rae." Elyza scolded, trying not to let her personal feelings about his attitude get in the way. "I know you don't like him, but not liking people isn't grounds for getting rid of them."
Raven grunted, "Fine, but if he keeps up with his commentary I'm going to kick his ass."
"Fair enough." Elyza raised her hands, "Just," She couldn't shake that weird feeling around him, "Keep an eye on him yeah?"
They both nodded their agreement, "I'm going to go to bed," Elyza stood up and took her empty cup to the kitchen sink.
"I'm staying up for a bit more," Raven said
"Don't stay up too late," Elyza asked, "You snore like a fucking lumberjack when you stay up too late."
"I won't." Raven rolled her eyes and settled into the couch with her book, she planned to keep an eye on Quint.
Notes: Guys, I am pleased to inform you that crap is about to get real, and we are only a few chapters away from getting the band back together.