Chapter Nine: La Carretera (pt3)
Mr. Dale had been vigilantly keeping watch the whole time we were out scavenging. Only taking short five-minute breaks when he had to use the bathroom. Poor T-Dog was napping inside one of the smaller RV's, the orangy-brown one.
Mami explained that he'd gotten an infection from the cut on his arm and was now battling a fever as a result... she'd said in a patient but insistent tone, "That's why finding medicine is important, ninos. See, even though I gave T-Dog antibiotics yesterday, he still got sick. Por eso, we have to be careful. A little cut could end up making you very sick and we won't always have the medicine to make it all better."
"You guys have been working mighty hard." Mr. Dale complimented as we started to pass by his RV once more, "It looks like you're more successful than the whole group was yesterday."
My mother's smile looked more like a wince, "Yes. We've been looking very... thoroughly."
It seemed that the group hadn't looked at the cars with dead bodies -the real dead, the ones permanently dead- in them. Mami didn't let us search through those ones... only the trunks. She'd cover the lower half of her face, make sure that the bodies were really dead, before looking through it herself.
He nodded, removing the fisherman hat off his head for a moment to run his fingers through sparse white-grey hair, "I know it's a little farther, but the group didn't really get a chance to look through the cars on the other side of the highway. It might be worth checking out."
Alexander and I shared a look before deciding to put down the heavy basket -more canned food, some batteries, sunscreen, bug repellent, six God-sent inhalers, toilet paper, vitamins and allergy medications- we were carrying since it looked like the adults were going to chat for a while.
Mami hummed, resting her own basket on her hip, not willing to part with it after finding a small portable sewing machine that came with pedals, "I don't know. There was so many of those muertos- uh, what do you call them? Walkers, yesterday."
Mr. Dale rubbed his chin, "It was a pretty massive herd." he acknowledged, "But I did spot one or two trucks with my binoculars that look like they have some good stuff... You might also want to grab one of the gallons of water from the Lipsey truck. We didn't grab all of them yesterday."
The phrase ' massive herd' rang around in my mind for a moment. I'd never thought of it like that before. I knew that animals, usually prey animals, flocked together to form large herds. But that was usually for protection against predators when they traveled... and the muertos were anything but prey... Though, they were kind of stupid -definitely not human anymore- and Papi said that they tended to follow any noise, even if that noise was each other. I guess, calling a group of them a herd isn't too far off in the end. Even if it was weirdly morbid.
"Gallons?" Mami repeated with interest, "Where?"
The man happily pointed them out, "I can keep a look out for you. Whistle if I see any movement so you can hide under the cars. That's how we got by undetected yesterday."
"Okay." Mami agreed, "Gracias, give us a moment to drop this off. Vengan ninos." she turned to us, we quickly picked up the heavy basket once more and followed her, "I want us to do this quickly. We're grabbing all the water jugs first, okay, that's our priority."
"Where we gonna put it... we're running outta space inside." Alexander piped up as we bypassed a snoozing Dottie once more to dump the basket on the floor. The golden had gotten used to us going in and out of the RV already, and instead decided that taking a nap would be a more worthwhile activity since her puppies were also currently napping inside of the shower in the bedroom.
"Put what?" Isabella asked curiously as she poked her head out of the master bedroom where she was watching our younger sisters.
After the second time Alexander had almost toppled over Camila, Mami had herded them all in the bedroom before revealing that there was another TV. Like the overhead bed it appeared out of the ceiling at the push of a button. That time it'd taken Alexander about ten minutes to figure out how to set up a movie, but he did it. Now they were watching one of the 'Lion King' movies for entertainment.
"Water jugs." I offered when it looked like our cousin wouldn't answer.
"We'll put them in the outside storage and leave one or two of them in the hallway shower." Mami said decisively, "Come on. Let's do this quickly."
Getting the water jugs out of the truck was not easy. Nor was carrying them to the RV. In the end, Alexander and I ended up rolling the jugs on the grass and pavement so that we wouldn't strain our backs. Once Mami had removed the blue crate-like packaging, another four full rows of jugs were revealed... making the jugs now in our possession around eighteen.
By the time we stored ten underneath in one of the storage compartments, we'd run out of room. Mami managed to cram three of them inside the shower, the other three she decided to pack away in the other group's RV, the one that was our RV's blue twin. But we weren't done there. More investigation of the Lipsey truck revealed another sixteen jugs behind the ones we'd just cleared.
I'm not going to lie, I almost cried. Heck, so did Alexander. Still, we rolled the jugs on the ground like pros under Mr. Dale's careful watch and loaded them up into the blue RV... all except for one that Mr. Dale requested be brought into his Winnebago.
Once we were done with the water jugs I almost broke out into a little jig since it meant we could go back to searching through the cars. Mami quickly herded us over to the tucks Mr. Dale had pointed out... and he'd been right. There were some pretty awesome stuff inside the pickup trucks.
Mami found two more first aid kits, more medicine, feminine hygiene products, and a box of these really cool reusable matches in one of the glove compartments. Alexander was pretty impressed by the machete and weird fold-able shovel that also had a blade... that is until I'd found two boxes of arrows and a weird-looking crossbow under the seat. Mami said that it was a good find since arrows are silent and could be reused... something that guns and bullets weren't, which made them a safer weapon to use in the long run.
The crossbow was pretty heavy though... Mami said that she'd see if she could convince Daryl, that was the archer with the motorcycle, to show her how to use it in exchange for one of the boxes of bolts.
In the same truck where I'd found the crossbow under the seat, we'd found a small cache of weapons in the truck bed. They weren't real guns like the ones the sheriff and other men toted around, but BB or pellet guns like the ones Mr. Anderson had. Just because they weren't real ones didn't mean they weren't useful. They're good for killing small game, I'd seen that in action... they could also accidentally kill or badly injure someone if they weren't handled properly either.
The only reason I'd recognized them at first glance was because Mr. Anderson had taken me, Isabella and my dad out hunting with him for rabbits and birds during the fall and late spring. Papi had gone with him before in the past, but it was the first time the invitation had been extended to us too. Mostly Mr. Anderson had taught Isabella and I how to aim and shoot cans from a distance. It'd been a lot of fun... even if Isabella did cry a little bit when Papi and Mr. Anderson did manage to shoot a couple of rabbits. To be fair... I'd gone a little misty too.
Mami made sure to carefully zip them back up in their tote bag, checking the other two bags to confirm there were more of them and an abundance of pellets, before declaring that we weren't allowed to touch them. In fact, she made us all march back to our RV -not that our hands were empty, no Alexander and I were both carrying crates with more supplies- so that she could hide them in the storage compartment with the camping gear.
We'd only searched two more cars on the other side of the highway when we heard a distinctive boom come from somewhere in the direction the group had gone off deep in the forest. My mother made us grab our half-filled baskets before sprinting back to our RV.
Sweat dripped freely down my face as she pushed us towards the door, "Get inside, now. I'll only be a second." before going towards Mr. Dale.
Said man was scrambling down the ladder of his Winnebago. I only hesitated for a second when I saw T-Dog stumble out of his RV, curiosity temporarily clouding my judgment, before fear once more took ahold of me and the drive to follow my mother's instructions returned.
Alexander locked the door behind me after I climbed in before sitting on the steps, "I'll wait for her to come back."
I dumped my crate onto the floor before plopping down. All of my muscles ached, and I felt so freaking gross... I could kill for a shower. My t-shirt clung to my skin and the jeans I'd pulled on this morning were visibly filthy as I stretched out my legs. Dottie got up from where she'd been napping under the booth and leaned against me with a huff before she started nosing my hands for pets. I gave in after she nudged me impatiently a second time, letting my fingers run through the soft fur of her face.
"You're back." Isabella whispered as she slipped out of the bedroom and shut the door behind her, "They fell asleep like half an hour ago, so we gotta be quiet." she explained before plopping down on the floor next to me, "Are you guys done?"
"Yup." I replied, popping the 'p' without looking at her.
"You look tired." she said after a moment.
Alexander sighed loudly, "Obviamente Izzie. We've barely stopped working."
Her nose wrinkled in annoyance as her cheeks pinked, "Well you don't need to be rude, Xander. I was just saying-"
Thankfully my mother's arrival back stemmed that argument... which was awesome because I was honestly too tired to deal with it. Alexander jumped up to unlock the door before leaning against the kitchen counter, "So what was it? A gunshot? "
Mami ran a hand through her hair, "I don't know, Xander... but we're not going out anymore today. It's not safe anymore."
"Gunshot?" Isabella squeaked as she began wringing her hands, "I didn't hear no gunshots."
"Doesn't matter," Mami waved her off, "Maybe it was something else, we're still not going out for the rest of the day." Her face was serious and hard. The expression she always had when she wouldn't budge for nothing. It was a good thing that I'd taken Dottie out to pee an hour ago when Mr. Dale was using the bathroom…
Words 2006
(Seriously sorry. I'm a freaking mess and I forgot to post the update on .)