After another hour, Cal pulls into a small three-pump gas station. They peel off the bottle-cap-looking metal plates in the station lot and send one of the tubes down until it meets resistance.
Rocky Horror—having learned how the pump worked at the last stop—hooks up the hand pump while another Nomad puts a second tube coming out of the hand pump into a five-gallon gas can.
We listen, at first hearing only the wind whistling through the tube in the can.
Then what sounds like bubbling.
“We mighta got some here, boss,” one of the guys says. And soon the gurgles grow louder and the sound of fuel splashes into the metal canister. We cheer, and even Cara looks excited.
“Okay,” Cal says, pointing to Cara, Rocky Horror, and one of the Nomad men. “You three, stay here, fill up as many tanks as you can. Make sure the truck gets some, too.”
Then he points at me and two other Nomads. “You three are with me; let’s head into that town about a mile down the road and see what we can find.”
We nod and I go back to the truck to grab Andrew’s and my packs, as well as Rocky Horror’s and Cara’s.
“Once it’s empty or the cans are full, come find us,” Cal says.
And we head down the road on foot.
The town is Grand Lemfort, Florida, and the rusted and dusty sign welcoming us on the side of the road says it’s home to the oldest living person in the Florida panhandle. Which—judging by the age of the sign—may not have been true even when the superflu hit.
There are no houses or buildings, but dead palm fronds rustle across the road, fallen from the trees on either side. Farther down,something moves, crossing from one side to the other. It’s a gray fox. A skinny one that gives us a quick glance, then runs off into the overgrown grass on the left side of the road.
After about a half mile, we come to what looks like quaint downtown Grand Lemfort. There’s a public library, a “multiuse” center that looks like a sad little empty storefront, and something called G&F Supermarket, where the wordsupermarketis doing a lot of heavy lifting.
It’s a one-story peeling white shiplap building a little larger than the library, which itself looks no bigger than four rooms. The front door to G&F is dusty and unbroken, but around it—at about knee height—are scratch marks in the peeling paint. Probably the fox. If it was pawing around the door, maybe there’s food in there.
“How about over there?” I ask Cal. He nods and we walk over. The doors are locked. “Maybe a back entrance?” I try.
But Cal takes the rifle off his shoulder and uses the butt to smash open the glass. He reaches through and unlocks the door.
The grocery store is warm and musty, and smells a bit rotten. The shelves are pretty empty but some still have items on them.
“Check the dry goods,” Cal tells the others, then he turns to me. “Let’s check out the canned stuff and also see if there’s any more med supplies.”
I go up an aisle with canned food, but most of the cans on the shelves have exploded, their contents splattered across the ceiling or spilling down the shelf and dried out. The ones that haven’t exploded are bulging.
Cal nods, picking up a seemingly fine can, but its bottom sticks to the shelf, and whatever was inside has turned to a putrid brown sludge. “This was the issue in some of the desert states, too. WithoutAC, this place probably gets to around a hundred by noon. Canned stuff spoils and explodes.”
“Have you thought about heading north?” I ask. I’m sure there are still plenty of places there that didn’t get so hot inside. At least I hope there are.
“We were thinking of heading that way next. You’re all from the Keys, so it’s not like there’d be anything down there for us to find.”
We move over to the medical section and grab boxes of gauze, antibiotic ointment, painkillers, and bandages. There are also several bottles of multivitamins and chewable kids’ vitamins—all the gummy vitamins have melted into one large blob at the bottom of the plastic bottle.
“Yeah,” I say, trying to avoid talking too much about the Keys. “And I heard a bit about your last settlement. I’m sorry.” Andrew told me what happened with them, but he said he didn’t think he had the whole story. He also reminded me to be careful with what I said about the Keys around the Nomads. We don’t need any more people trying to turn us over to Fort Caroline.
Cal doesn’t say anything as he stares at the almost-empty fridges lining the wall. The milk section is empty—thankfully. I’m not sure I’d want to smell rotten, exploded milk. But some of the soft drinks and cheeses are still there. The cheeses are a beautiful shade of fuzzy blue green.
“Let’s check if there’s a basement,” he says, nodding to the back of the store. I follow him as he calls out to the others, “How’s it going over there?”
“Got some pasta that’s not ruined,” says a woman whose name I haven’t gotten yet. “And there’s some nuts and cookies.”
Cal pushes the back door open, and I take the flashlight from my bag. It’s a battery-less flashlight that has a little hand pump on it, so I pump it to give it some juice. It’s dim, but it does the job. There are various sizes of cardboard boxes stacked up against a wall.
“More back here!” Cal yells back.
“Heard!” comes a reply.
