Journey Into The Aftermath |✔

Chapter six: Mountain Pass

'Welcome to Virginia' it read on a completely run down and filth-covered sign as we drove past it. After a half hour crash course on how to drive a car again, Noah caught on to how this model worked and remembered from his past life. I was staring out of the passenger window while leaning on the door. The roof was enclosed above us to block out the morning cold and I was wrapped in the same blanket Noah 'borrowed' from the village before we took off. The truck's hydraulics did an amazing job of diluting the hard thump of the truck running over potholes and after about a full twenty-four hours of going over them, we couldn't even tell if we were hitting them or not.

"I don't know about you, but I'm starving," Noah yawned. "The bear meat could only last so long."

"Then pull off on the next exit," I shrugged, the blur of passing trees still captivating my gaze. "Maybe we can find a convenience store that hasn't gone to hell."

Convenience stores haven't changed much since the early 2000's. The major difference being that gas has now become illegal to use in cars because of the dangers they possess. Now, gas stations are just the stores with a rather large parking lot.

After another quarter mile, an exit swung off to the right and Noah tried his best to ease into it. He made the turn quite well considering the exit off was barely a slant before it became an actual turn that went into what used to be society. Cars were scattered in the street a bit more heavily than the highway, but there was more than enough room for us to maneuver.

There were restaurants and stores lined up down the major road that I could imagine once being incredibly busy. We drove across the viaduct leading away from the highway into the city of Noirwind, Virginia. Noah pulled up in front of the store and we both hopped out in hopes that we could find something.

The truck doors clicked shut behind us as we made our way to the run down Speedway. Walking inside after busting the electronic glass doors with a nearby brick, we saw that the place was completely ransacked and not even a bag of chips was spared as the smell of vastly spoiled products washed over our senses. After seeing this, we decided that we would split up and search every one of the stores and restaurants and even cars for food and maybe some supplies and then meet up back at the truck in about an hour.

I checked a few more stores and found a thin, but massive duffel bag in one of them and with that, I collected everything I saw. From Chap Stick to tic tacks, I tried my best to make good use of that hour. When it was finally up, I saw Noah waiting at the front of the car and waved on my arrival.

"Wow," he exclaimed. "Quite the shopping list you go there."

"Let's see what we got." I told him as I dumped my contents into the back seat where I saw that he did the same. There were multiple sets of expensive tooth brushes and toothpaste and I held up one of the bars of toothpaste to Noah, questioning his choice.

His hand whipped in front of his nose as if to imitate brushing away a putrid smell from his nostrils. "Your breath be kicking"

I mocked a laugh as I threw the tube at him. He reacted by ducking with his hands sticking out and I returned to the pile. There was at least ten pounds of food between the both of us. A phone charger, posh headphones, cologne and air freshener, tablets that needed charge, pillows and more blankets, useless jewelry--my bad--, and like five cases of damn expensive liquor. I'm guessing Noah saw an ABC down the road and found their secret stash or something.

There were all sorts of skin and body products too like lotion, chap stick, deodorant, and etc. I grabbed a kit of make up for reasons I know not while Noah grabbed two Album Seekers. My eyes lit up.

Cd's don't really exist anymore because Blu-ray, of all people, invented a device where instead of a disk, it gives a thick plastic card that is the size of a typical driver's license and has a code on the back. It's then scanned into the device (called the Album Seeker) that would then play the content on whatever it is connected to, like a TV. It can be played on a phone or tablet too after scanning the code on the card if the Seeker App is download. There are two different types of cards, the black cards can be a movie or a music album(hence the name), but on the white ones, content is placed onto the card like personal videos or any type of data, like a flash drive. It's like thinking of the black ones as DVD's with content already on it and the white ones as CD's, a blank space ready to be filled.