Page 114 of The Last Sanctuary
Each store had been thoroughly pilfered. No movement anywhere, no sounds. No signs of life—or danger.
Next to the grocery store was a pre-owned clothing store. Unlike the other businesses, the store had been ransacked but wasn’t completely emptied.
Sweaters and hoodies had been yanked from the shelves. Racks of pants and dresses were knocked over. Clothing spilled in puddles of colorful fabric mixed with crushed cardboard boxes and other detritus.
Raven scavenged an oversizedBeastie Boyshoodie, a wool vest to wear beneath her raincoat, a knit navy cap, and a pair of oversized gloves, as well as a few pairs of dingy socks.
She wouldn’t be winning any fashion shows, but she’d be warmer at night.
Shadow sniffed disdainfully at everything she touched.
She rolled her eyes. “Tough crowd tonight. Like you care what I look like. I bet you like my smelly breath about as much as I like yours.”
Shadow turned his butt toward her and pawed at a pair of blue rubber-ducky swim shorts on the floor next to a torn sleeping bag. Someone had been hiding out here recently.
The final stop was the grocery store. The parking lot overflowed with vehicles parked haphazardly, as if in great haste. Cars were parked on the overgrown grassy berm. Near the front entrance, a dusty gray hatchback had crashed into the passenger side of a black sedan. Shards of glass and chunks of twisted metal and plastic littered the walkway.
Raven skirted the crashed vehicles and slipped through the double front doors, bending to enter through the shattered glass. The doors had once been barred with wooden boards. The two-by-fours remained stacked in a pile next to the entrance.
Someone had attempted to protect the contents of this place, or perhaps they’d tried to hoard the food from other survivors. Someone else had forced their way inside anyway.
Inside the entrance, Raven halted, blinking to allow her eyes to adjust. With few windows, the darkness huddled deeper, the shadows stretched darker beyond the row of cash registers to her left.
The smell hit her first. The stench of death. Of coppery blood and rotting gristle, of putrid, bloated flesh and feces.
Covering her mouth and nose with the hem of her new hoodie, she kept both hands on the rifle as she stepped further into the grocery store. Shadow padded reluctantly at her side, his hackles bristling, teeth bared.
She could see enough to discern the rows of barren shelves. Opened cans and crushed empty packages and split bags of rice and beans scattered across the floors, each grain of rice and individual bean long since scavenged.
The bodies lay side by side in what used to be the deli and bakery aisle. At least twenty of them. Men, women, and a few teenagers. One kid around ten years old.
Rust-colored stains marred the tile floor beneath them. The same rust-brown blotches spread across the N95 masks covering their mouths. Dried blood leaked from their eyes. The bodies were bloated and discolored, their swollen limbs locked in rigid agony even in death.
Raven jerked back, breathing hard. This was how her father had died. How ninety-five percent of the world had died. Probably her mother, too, though she didn’t know that, not for certain.
Raven hadn’t gotten sick like this. She’d been spared the Hydra Virus. Was she immune, or had she simply gotten lucky?
Right now, it didn’t matter. She longed for the protection of the trees, the comfort of the woods. Anything to escape all this death.
She imagined every town and city in America like this. Every city in the world. Ravaged by the virus. And those who hadn’t been ravaged by the virus had been left to fight over what little remained.
She saw then what she hadn’t noticed at first. Each of the diseased corpses was riddled with holes. A tiny round hole wasdrilled into each forehead. They’d been lined up and shot to death.
Raven backed up a step. Then another. “I think I’ve seen enough. How about you, pal?”
Shadow growled in agreement.
She desperately wanted to skirt any other towns and highways, but the vast sprawling metropolis of Atlanta loomed to the west, and the sizable city of Athens lay somewhere directly to the north, with a population of 100,000, at least. Augusta was 80 or 90 miles to the east.
To get to the mountains and the Chattahoochee National Forest, she’d have to approach several population zones. There was no other option.
Plus, soon she would need more supplies, more food. And she couldn’t wander aimlessly forever. She needed a specific destination.
Raven retreated from the gruesome scene within the grocery store and headed back down Main Street. The beginnings of an idea needled at the back of her mind, but she ignored it. For now.
“Let’s go,” she said. “There’s nothing for us here.”
The wolf loped at her side. Together, they left Shady Dale behind.
