The China Pandemic by A R Shaw

Author:A R Shaw [Shaw, A R]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction & Fantasy, Science Fiction, Dystopian, Post-Apocalyptic
Amazon: B00H06NGFS
Published: 2013-11-08T06:00:00+00:00

29 Scavenger Hunt

The next morning, Ennis waved goodbye as the rest left him and Sheriff behind. Sheriff moaned a little at their departure, clearly wanting to go with them. “What’s the matter with you? I’m not good company?” he asked the dog.

Sheriff stomped his front paws, agitated that he wasn’t invited on the ride.

“It’s all right, we’ll go get us some fish,” Ennis said, and they wandered off down the trail with Sheriff casting a look back to where the others had gone, clearly worried.

He had already pulled in two trout when he saw the canoe. Like any old man who’d made it this far even without an apocalypse to contend with, his eyes weren’t too good. So he figured it’d been there for a while before he’d even noticed the thing, breaking its way across the far end of the lake. There were two fellas paddling. Both appeared bearded, which wasn’t unusual these days but they also looked fat, which was unusual these days. Not only that, something about them triggered Ennis’s long buried cop intuition. That was a bad thing.

Sheriff came up beside him and stared out into the distance as he tried to smell them. As if he sensed Ennis’s apprehension, the dog’s hackles rose and though he didn’t bark, he growled low and ominously.

Sheriff looked up questioningly at Ennis, and Ennis knew he wanted an answer. “Those some bad guys.” As if they’d heard his conversation with the dog, one of the two occupants of the canoe raised his hand in recognition, like one would do in the old days. Ennis did not raise his hand back, hoping they’d get the message that they were unwelcome. He was uneasy about them but couldn’t say just why. They continued on their route to the other end of the lake, but Ennis thought it wasn’t good, those guys knowing he and the rest were there. Still, he continued to bait his line and cast it out from his spot on the shore, tossing a too small trout back into the water while Sheriff waded out to watch it squiggle under the water until it faded into the murky depths.

~ ~ ~

Meanwhile, Graham stopped the Scout outside the post office and checked for predators before he got out. The door jingled from a bell attached to the handle, now a bygone symbol, alerting those no longer in the back to customers waiting for service. It sounded strangely out of place here in this time. Somehow, he still expected to hear a disembodied voice call out, “I’ll be right there.”

His boots made a foreign sound now on the tiled flooring. He looked at the wall of tiny gilded mailbox doors and knew all the previous owners were gone now. He stood still and listened for a minute but heard nothing and smelled only a musty odor. He looked around for any sign of the Carnation boy but found none. The main door to the postmaster’s counter was locked and Graham didn’t see any reason to break it open.

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