Chapter Eight: La Carretera (pt2)


My mother and I both woke up super early in the morning so that we could let Dottie out to do her business without the others noticing. We'd had to do the same thing last evening, when it was dark and only the old man had been on watch.

Thankfully Dottie was a good dog, with her leash and harness on, it was almost like I'd been transported back to the past when I'd walk her around our neighborhood twice a day... she didn't put up a fuss when I hurried her back inside either. Probably because the stench of death still clung onto the highway long after the mass of muertos had passed through yesterday. While Dottie had her cup of dog food, our breakfast was a mixture of dried fruit and granola bars, my mother opened two of the water bottles and split it up evenly for all of us.

Not long after we finished eating, Mr. Dale -the man whose RV broke down yesterday- came by to ask my mother if she could check up on T-Dog's arm. Mami agreed but was once more firm in her belief that us kids needed to stay inside. Not that any of us had any real protest... except Olivia, who was having Mami-withdrawal and just wanted to cling to her.

Needless to say, she threw a temper tantrum. Not even the puppies helped keep her quiet. Thankfully the RV was relatively soundproof and Alexander figured out how to work the small flat-screen TV next to the pullout sofa-bed where the car seats were strapped.

In the end, I buckled Olivia into her seat and my cousin put in one of the 'Dora' movies... which was a lot more effective in shutting her up than all of our empty platitudes combined. The TV effectively entertained Camila as well, even if she did insist that 'Go Diego Go!' was better than 'Dora'. With Eva taking a nap in her crib, we could relax a bit. I spent the next half an hour grooming Dottie -getting all the tangles and twigs out of her fur with her brush- while Isabella watched Alexander fail at 'Mario Cart' on the DS.

"Ninos!" my mother called as she climbed up the stairs, Dottie jumped to her feet and greeted Mami with wet kisses, "The others are going to go search for Sophia now. I'm going to search through the cars to see if I can find some more medicine."

"Can I help?" Alexander asked as he put down the DS.

Her face crumbled in rejection, but she didn't speak for a moment, "It's not safe. You know what happened yesterday."

"I know." he nodded before adding cautiously, "But... I'm kinda dying to get outta this RV. We can help you sort through 'em and bring things inside."

She sighed, "Girls do you want to come too?"

"Yes!" I jumped up. This could be my chance to prove myself to my mother and show her that she could trust me.

Isabella hesitated before looking at Camila and Olivia, "No... I'll stay here and watch the babies. I- um, I don't really wanna go out there."

"Okay, mi amor. Thank you for volunteering, Izzie." Mami smiled at her reassuringly before looking at me and Alexander seriously, "I want you two by my side at all times. If I tell you to hide, you hide. If I tell you stop talking, you zip your lips. Got it?"

We bobbed our heads simultaneously before following her out. Dottie whined a bit when she realized that she couldn't come out with me, but Isabella distracted the golden by calling her name. The sun was scorching hot overhead, and the smell hadn't gotten any better. Mr. Dale and T-Dog were the only other two that stayed behind on the highway, even the sheriff's son had gone with the group to search for Sophia.

Yesterday, after the girl had gone missing, the group had started to clear a path on the highway so that it would be easier to maneuver through. The cars closest to our vehicles had already been searched... but there were so many others that hadn't even been touched. We went through them methodically, not a compartment of the cars or bags went unchecked.

One car had belonged to a family with young children and a baby. In it we'd found formula, clothes for a baby around nine months old, pureed baby food in tiny jars, cereals, a washable changing pad, cloth diapers that Mami swore would be godsend, and some 'interactive' toys. Mami was thrilled that there were some infant-safe medications in one of the abandoned bags and a pair of chargeable walkie-talkies.

In another car, Alexander was thrilled to find a jacket for the winter that was more his size and some sturdy waterproof boots. Finding sealed pre-packaged water bottles and Gatorade was amazing... One car even had a box of unopened Snapple iced tea and snack foods, like the double-stuffed oreos and pringles, they were like finding buried treasures. Isabella downright squealed when I brought the cookies in, before promising that she would hide them carefully.

Though my mother was more thrilled with the toothpaste and hygiene products she found than our snacks. She practically danced around when she found these new special 'cups' -they looked nothing like cups and more like half of a destroyed handball- but she said that they'd be helpful when I got older and started PMS-ing like her... it only made me wrinkle my nose in distaste.

My parents had sat me down for the -rightfully- dreaded 'talk' sometime in March... mostly because one of the boys in my class brought a nudie magazine - which was freaking gross- to school before loudly talking to his friends about a video he found in his older brother's room. It's needless to say that I couldn't look either of my parents in the eye for a good month after getting the tortuously in-depth lecture on sex and how that leads to, well, babies.

I'd definitely blocked a good proportion of it from my mind. I'm not stupid. I have four younger sisters and we're always at home... my parents ever rarely went on date nights or vacations that weren't family ones.. which meant that my parents had done things while we were all at home- the very thought of it made me want to barf.

We'd found two multi-tools, a map of Georgia, a hunting knife, compass, batteries and flashlights in one vehicle that had fishing equipment tied to the roof of the car. But we really hit the mother-load when we pulled off the green trap from a pickup truck.

There, tucked underneath some camping gear -that we ended up packing away in the outside storage of our RV since there wasn't any more space for it inside... and my mother said it would be extremely foolish to leave behind a cold weather tent, tiny portable stove with the containers of tightly sealed propane, the tarps, and even the hammock since we could use in a pinch to sleep high above in the trees- and heavy blankets, were five heavily packed plastic bins with food. Unopened sacks of rice, powdered milk, oatmeal, dried fruit and beans, jerky, granola, crackers, nuts, sunflower seeds, protein bars, pasta... heck, even couscous! There were cans of tuna, peaches, beans of all colors, canned chicken and vienna sausages, spam, corn... one of the bins had a bunch of different types of harina de Goya ...

They were by far the heaviest things we had to drag into the RV. It wasn't just the food we found in the truck that was useful... there was this small bulky portable solar charger, three manuals of edible and medicinal plants, a sack of water purification tablets and a mini-water filter in the back seat. Mami was the one to inspect the front seats of the truck -the doors had been left open and the driver's side was drenched with old brown crusty blood- and she was down-right giddy to pull out a heavily packed first aid kit and sewing kit.

We'd taken a break around then... mostly because Eva had started crying and needed to be fed. Still, it had been nice since we ate real food for lunch. The stove in our new mobile home was electric, so Mami said we wouldn't need to worry about gas- something I'd never thought about before then. She made mac'n'cheese, to my sisters' delight, and opened one of the cans of vienna sausages and chopped them up into little pieces before mixing it in.

The portions were still smaller than they had been pre-apocalypse -because there's no use denying it anymore, not even mentally, the apocalypse had happened, I was freaking living it- but it was surprisingly filling compared to the meager meals we'd had the last two days... It wasn't long after we finished waiting before we went back out there to continue looting the cars. Not when we were all high off our successful finds.

We'd only been out less than ten minutes before my cousin called me over from where I'd been searching through the small trunk of the blue car we were picking apart.

"Mira!" Alexander gasped as he pulled out a tiny guitar-shaped instrument from the passenger seat of the ford.

It only had four strings like Papi's cautro, but it was a bit smaller. The very thought of my missing father was enough to make my eyes sting... we'd left the majority of his things back home, including Papi's cuatro and guitar. I wished we'd been able to bring it with us... that I'd thought of at least grabbing the cuatro from his room. He'd been teaching me to play it for over two years now, and when he'd break out the guitar he'd hand me the cautro so that we could play duets while Mami and Isabella sang.

"I think it's a ukulele." my cousin murmured thoughtfully as he ran his hands over the wood, "Francisco's sister has one."

"Can I see it?" I asked.

He didn't even blink before handing it over. It was light, with the strap thrown over my head it was even lighter. My fingers ran along the strings before curling up between the frets in the shape of a chord, my right hand lightly strummed it out. The sound was similar... yet different from the cuatro, but it was similar enough.

I hummed, "I think I'm gonna keep it ."

No one said anything. I think Mami must've known what'd gone through my mind when Alexander presented me the ukulele so she didn't protest.

Alexander eyed me for a second, "Kay." he grunted before reaching back into the car to pull out a tiny case, "Here, Pili. It's not as cool as the binoculars I found." he teased while gesturing to the cool black binoculars hanging around his neck.

"Thanks." I quickly put the instrument away, more than happy to run it to the RV with the other stuff we'd found. Isabella promised to store it on the top bunk so that the little ones -dogs included- couldn't reach it.

Even though they aren't too useful, we even grabbed the few novels, sketchbooks, occasional coloring book and crayons, and even the travel-sized games we'd found... if anything they would help alleviate our boredom when we'd eventually be stuck inside the RV all day. One car had belonged to a dog owner. Alexander and I used a discarded plastic laundry basket to dump all the canned dog food, toys and medicine before covering it with a blanket and sneaking it by Mr. Dale's RV.

After Mami 'okayed it', we went back and forth twice so that we could grab the two huge -and so heavy- bags of dried food too, while she searched another pickup truck that had been avoided yesterday because of all the dried blood coating the outside of it.


Words 2075


(Hello all, this was something of a filler chapter... LOL. Sorry, not sorry. *shrugs* Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed the update, and hopefully it won't take me months to update the next chapter... Seriously, I promise it won't be that long. I'm almost done editing chapter 9.

I know I've been sort of AWOL, even with my other fics as well... the truth is I've been struggling a bit with my mental health and I haven't been feeling very motivated to write or even read. I'm doing better now, meds and therapy are a godsend, and I hope to slowly return back to all my other stories really soon as I balance college and work-this was just the first fic of all of them to be updated first because the chapter was already written and just needed to be edited... although, if I'm being totally honest, I wasn't all that happy with how this chapter turned out... LOL. I just knew that if I didn't post it immediately it would never happen. So. *jazz hands* Here it is.)


Translations:

Ninos - Children (usually refers to male children, but when there is a mix of male and female kids 'ninos' is the plurality for both)

Mi amor - My love

Harina de Goya - Goya flour (brand of flour that most Latinos use, usually refers to corn flour)


(Beachgirl25: Thank you! We'll see, no spoilers ;) I hope you enjoyed the update!)

(Kyr: Thanks for commenting! We've fully recovered from COVID since then, now there are other things in my life driving me bonkers. Like the construction on our house that my dad is confident he can do on his own without professional help-I swear he's going to give me an actual heart attack and I'm only 25. I'm too young to die because of him and his freaking ladder shenanigans. Squishing people with my fingers doesn't work much when I have to watch him and make sure the whole thing doesn't tip over. *sighs* LOL.)

(israelsanchez2021: You got lucky my friend~ Only a three-day wait for the next update!)