CHAPTER 9: Scavenging
As Glen and T-Dog patrolled the perimeter of the weedy yard, the others rummaged through the house for anything that might be useful. They had done this often enough that everyone got to work quickly without any discussion, grabbing what empty bags they had and heading inside with weapons at the ready. They had found that if they chose a remote house, and most of its doors and windows were still intact, there were usually very few walkers inside – but everyone listened carefully for a whistle that could signal trouble.
Maggie and Carol cleared the first floor of walkers, while Rick and Carl took the upstairs. Daryl headed straight to the garage, and Hershel went into the shed in the back yard. Fortunately, this house had only 1 walker, a middle-aged man hanging from the rafters in the garage. A photo of two smiling children lay on the floor below his writhing feet. Daryl spat in contempt at yet another "piñata" walker, then quickly shot an arrow through its head. He searched for a ladder to retrieve his arrow and the rope, but had to make do with a stool from the kitchen.
This house had been picked clean of food, but still held a lot of other useful items. Lori and Carol found a half-full box of trash bags on the floor of the pantry, pulled one out, and started loading it up. The first thing to go in was, of course, the box of trash bags, followed by half a box of Ziploc bags, an unopened roll of cling wrap, and two partial rolls of aluminum foil. They had lost a lot of their kitchen utensils when they had to abandon the last camp, so they packed a few pots & pans, wooden spoons, etc. and every water bottle and empty plastic container with a lid that they could find. Carol was delighted to find an unopened bottle of dishsoap under the sink when Maggie crawled under there to disconnect the water filter. Lori wrapped a handful of kitchen knives in towels and stuffed them into her leather satchel, careful to point the blades down in case she fell. She then raided the laundry room cabinets for bleach, finding just one small bottle with a few ounces left. She dumped the laundry baskets and searched for anything useful among the dirty clothes. Luckily, the laundry room was also used as a "mud room" so she was able to add a couple pairs of boots and some ugly purple tennis shoes to the laundry basket she was rapidly filling.
Meanwhile, upstairs: Rick found several duffel bags & suitcases, and stuffed them with as many socks & underwear, tank tops & T-shirts as he could from the dressers in each bedroom, not bothering about sizes or genders. Carl found 3 sleeping bags in the linen closet, and stuffed them with spare sheets, blankets, and a few towels, then started helping his dad carry everything out to the waiting vehicles. Beth grabbed a pillowcase and started to fill it with toothpaste, soap, shampoo, and all first aid supplies, medications, and feminine hygiene products she could find in the 2 bathrooms. She made her way to the closets in each bedroom, filling 2 more pillowcases and the backpack she carried with shirts & pants that she guesstimated would be about the right size for someone in their group. Rick found a bottle of Xanax on the nightstand in the master bedroom, and tucked that into his pocket, grimly thinking that one of the women would get hysterical about something eventually.
In the shed, Hershel found a few shovels & hoes that might make good weapons, and a full one gallon can of gasoline behind the lawn mower. He also grabbed a ball of twine and a dirty rope that was coiled up on a hook, along with the bag of clothespins it was covering. He smiled, thinking that Carol would be happy to have more clothespins to keep their laundry from flying off the makeshift clotheslines they set up whenever they could. He was even more delighted with his score of a 10x10 plastic tarp, still in its Home Depot wrapper. But his heart really soared when he found a few packets of vegetable seeds. He hoped that they would soon find a place where they could settle down for the winter, and start a garden in the spring.
In the garage, Daryl deftly sorted through the toolboxes for the socket & wrench sizes he knew were missing from the 2 toolboxes he had stashed behind the seat of his pickup. He found a plastic storage bin marked "SPORTS" and dumped out the various dirty balls, rackets, and snorkels. When a baseball rolled away, followed by the thump of a mitt, he quickly threw those 2 items back into the bin, thinking that Carl deserved some sort of normalcy in his life. Sweeping all the tools into the bin, he scanned the workbench for duct tape, electrical tape, bungee cords, and zip ties – you never know when those things will come in handy!
In about 30 minutes, they had loaded their vehicles and were on their way to search for another house to scavenge, and a building with few windows where they could hole up for a while.
The second house of the day lacked a garage, but held 2 teenage boy walkers, which Rick and Daryl quickly dispatched and dragged out the back door before Beth and Maggie came in. As Daryl kicked some entrails under the couch, Rick's keen eye spotted the water bong and empty bags of greenish powder on the living room table – he didn't even need to sniff the bag to know that it has once been full of marijuana. He sighed, hoping that the teens were still stoned when they had been bitten – at least the pot might have blunted some of the pain.
Carol quickly swept all the spices above the stove into one of her re-usable canvas shopping bags, and smiled when she found 3 boxes of herbal teas. A nearly empty jar of instant coffee was on the dusty counter, along with empty cereal boxes and a trail of rat turds. Empty cans of food were piled in a corner, with a dirty can opener beside. Carol wiped the can opener on her shirt-tail and put it into her purse.
Lori found a larger bottle of bleach, this time with about 2 cups of the precious liquid inside. She also found a box of Brita water filters to add to the makeshift water purification setup which Hershel had cobbled together a few weeks ago. She felt her best score of the day was two 4-packs of toilet paper tucked in behind the big box of laundry detergent.
In the small basement, Daryl found mostly useless clutter. On a narrow shelf opposite the water heater he found 4 large cans of bulk rice and 2 of dehydrated potato flakes, and 3 dusty glass jars of home-made canned pickles. In the shadows under the stairs there was a large plastic box marked "winter" which he soon found contained coats, hats, and gloves, alongside a box of stuffed animals, which he promptly dumped out. He grabbed a small teddy bear from the pile, jammed it into the first box with the clothes, and piled the canned goods into the second box. Scanning the room once more, he noticed a yellow flashlight on top of the fuse box, and stuffed that into one of the boxes as well, not even checking to see if the batteries worked. He put the plastic bins into the back of his pickup, securing the tops with bungee cords. Glen motioned him over, and Daryl came at a jog.
"Walkers comin'?" he asked the young man, straining to see into the trees beyond the overgrown yard.
"Nah, just wondering if I could maybe go in this time…" Glen replied. Daryl just snorted, rolled his eyes, and nodded toward the house, taking Glen's crowbar from him.
When Glen entered the small house, Maggie gave him a quick kiss, then handed him several boxes & bags to carry out to the vehicles. As they passed through the living room, he grabbed a handful of thin paperback novels from a bookshelf and balanced them atop his stack. "Good idea!" she said to him appreciatively. Everyone was desperate for some entertainment, when they had time to rest from camp chores and patrols.
There were several scented candles on the window-ledge near the bathtub, and with a smile Beth added these to her pillowcase of toiletries. While looking at the assortment of grungy jeans in the boys' closets, she stuffed a handful of wire hangers into her bag as well. Their mom's closet had nicer things, but Beth didn't have much time to admire the silky blouses and skirts – she looked up sheepishly when Carl snarled, "Let's get a move on!" Beth shook her head in exasperation; Carl was becoming more like his father every day. She laughed when she saw some comic books fall out of the sack he was carrying. Carl stuffed them back into the bag and disappeared without comment.
They drove down the road a ways and found a very small brick house, the kind with one large picture window in the living room, and only small windows in the bedrooms. After doing a sweep for Walkers, Rick announced that they would stay here overnight. They brought all their newly collected supplies inside, dumped them onto the living room floor, and began to sort things out.
That night, wearing clean new (used) lacy undies & a lace-edged tanktop, Carol settled down in her new sleeping bag in the tiny laundry room. Daryl, having taken first watch again, returned to a house full of snores, with no real place for him to sleep. Strategically, he preferred to sleep near an exit, so he settled down by the back door, which meant he was between the laundry room and the kitchen. At dawn, Carol got up to get a drink from the jugs in the kitchen, and carefully stepped over Daryl's sleeping form. She didn't realize that her rustling blankets had woken him, and he got a great look at her ass and her new underwear as she went by. His eyebrows perked up and he smirked behind her back, mentally doing a wolf-whistle. As Carol stood over the sink, the rising sun gently lit her face, and he suddenly realized that her ass isn't the only fine part, she has a lovely profile, with a delicate facial structure. He suddenly felt a wave of protectiveness sweep over him. His eyes swept along the curve of her neck, down to her small pert breasts – and then he felt something else, a twitch in his pants, and he quickly rolled away from her, making sure that his poncho was covering his crotch.