Hunger by Jill Williamson

Author:Jill Williamson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: hunger, jill williamson, fiction, books for boys, young adult, apocalyptic, thirst, thirst duology
Publisher: Jill Williamson
Published: 2021-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

18

ELI

We took off, back toward the pizza place and our friends, who were still standing in a circle on the sidewalk. It took the others a few seconds to catch on, then they, too, turned and ran, Zach in the lead. He darted into Mountaintop Sports. Cristobal, Antônia, Krista, and Jaylee kept running, but Lizzie, Hannah, and I followed Zach into the store where we all ducked behind various circular clothing racks. From where I crouched, I could just see out the wall of windows that faced the road. The first Jeep rolled past, gunmen spraying both sides of the street with bullets. Glass shattered. I ducked down and squeezed my eyes shut, praying someone would stop these madmen and that no one would die.

I counted the roar of four different engines pass by. Only after a long stretch of silence did I risk a peek.

Jagged shards of glass rimmed the store’s window frames. Outside, an army van had rolled to a stop. The back doors sprang open, and a dozen men poured out, each carrying what looked like Smith & Wesson M&P sport rifles. Most of them scattered, but two entered our store. The first walked right behind the counter. His rifle was a Colt, not a Smith & Wesson like his buddy carried. What a stupid thing to notice. It made me miss my gun.

“You!” the Colt guy yelled, looking down near the floor. “Come out of there.”

A middle-aged man with thick black hair stood, hands raised above his head, and walked out to the front of the store.

Colt followed. “Load all this in the van.” He waved his gun at the racks of clothing.

The clerk grabbed an armful of North Face jackets off a rack and carried them out the door. The Smith & Wesson gunman followed him to the back of the van, where two other armed men stood guard.

Who were these guys?

Nearby, muffled gunfire and screams rang out. I felt naked and vulnerable without a weapon. The clerk came back for a second armload of coats. Colt shouldered his gun and started filling a backpack with candy bars from the front counter.

I tried to make eye contact with Zach but didn’t see where he’d hidden himself. Hannah was the only person I could see, and her eyes were fixed on Colt. The clerk came back for trip number three. He’d cleared the first rack and headed toward a rounder of T-shirts.

“Hey!” Colt gestured to a rack with Patagonia coats. “This one.”

The clerk grabbed an armful of coats and carried them out, leaving a gap in the rack that exposed Lizzie, crouched and wide-eyed in the center.

I reached through the shirts on my rack and waved at my sister, but she didn’t see me. She stood, still hunched and staring at Colt’s back. The guy had resumed filling his backpack with junk food. Lizzie lifted one leg over the metal bar on the bottom circle of the rack and lowered her foot to the floor, shifted her weight and lifted her other leg.

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