My boots crunch over shards of glass on cracked pavement as I scan the deserted street. A couple of rusted cars, trash skipping across the asphalt in the freezing wind that whistles past the abandoned buildings.
Nature is beginning to take over again, creeping up the bricks and through the cracks in the road and sidewalks. It's an amazing thing to see, really. It just proves that we humans were never truly meant to be here.
"Wynne, quit standing around, we're supposed to be scavenging," Izzy grumbles from behind me.
"Okay, I'm coming," I tell her, turning on my heel and following behind her and Seth as we make our way toward the drug store at the end of the street.
It's been about three days since the stranger, Kat, arrived. We're not sure what to do with her. Izzy wants to kill her, but Izzy's nuts, so we're not doing that. And Mara, despite being attacked, has insisted upon feeding Kat. Which makes Izzy want to kill our new guest even more.
We reach the drug store to see its front windows smashed in and the first shelves don't look too promising.
"Well, damn," Izzy says, stepping into the store over the window sill, "should've known this place was worthless."
"Hey, there might still be something worth taking, so just look around," Seth retorts, stepping inside and walking further into the shadowy building.
The sky is clear today, bright blue and the sun painfully bright, so it takes my eyes a moment to adjust to the near darkness after I step inside.
Trash litters the floor, but I look closely at it, anyway. There might be some treasures hidden in there.
"I don't think there's anything salvageable in here, Seth," Izzy grumbles, kicking an empty box across the room.
"God, you're so impatient! We've only been here for a minute, so just keep looking around," Seth tells her, looking annoyed.
Izzy groans, but keeps wandering around, picking through piles of trash. I'm walking around, looking at the disheveled shelves and wishing I could find something useful when my eyes fall upon a long dry tub of baby wipes.
Izzy and Seth start arguing again, but their words are muffled as I stare at the picture of the baby on the package. It's huge eyes crinkled by a smile, little fat legs....and my thoughts start flying.
"Guys," I say, too quietly I guess because they just keep yelling at each other about Kat. "Guys!"
They stop, and I look up to see them glaring at me.
"What?" Izzy asks with an irritated expression.
"What are we gonna do when Mara has her baby?"
Seth pales significantly, but Izzy only shrugs. "I dunno, but I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get there."
"But do either of you know anything about babies?" I ask, glancing back down at the picture of a smiling baby. "Because I certainly don't."
"I don't know," Izzy says, and then she smacks Seth's arm, "but maybe we should ask Kat, you know, since apparently she's gonna be staying with us forever."
Seth rolls his eyes. "Will you just give it a rest already? We're trying to discuss something else."
"No, because we're not at the Mara bridge yet. We're at the Kat bridge, and I'd like to know if we're gonna cross it, or blow it up!"
"What is that even supposed to mean?" Seth yells back at her.
"It's a metaphor, you bonehead!" Izzy shouts, throwing her arms in the air.
With a tired sigh, I move away from them and the picture of the baby and keep looking for anything useable.
I poke around the dark corners at the back of the store, Izzy and Seth's argument growing more heated, but I don't have the energy to break it up. If they hurt each other, that's their problem.
It's when I'm rifling through some old, empty granola bar boxes, looking for any unopened ones, that I hear it. Something. Something so familiar it causes me to jump up from my crouching position and shout at Seth and Izzy to be quiet.
"What?" Izzy demands, her hair whipping around her neck as she turns to me with annoyance.
"Shh! I heard something!" I hiss, hurrying to the front of the store, cautiously peering out the window.
"Heard something? What?" Seth asks, joining me.
"It..." It was probably my imagination. It probably wasn't really.... "it sounded like Pirate's bark."
Izzy groans. "Not again. Wynne, you've got to stop-"
But she trails off when we all hear it. Definitely a dog's bark. Pirate's bark.
"It's probably just any dog," Izzy tells us, but Seth and I are already out the window and heading up the street toward the sound, making sure to keep hidden as well as possible.
She follows us, grumbling to herself. I whisper over my shoulder, "It's Pirate. I know it. His bark is very distinctive." It sounds like something between a roar and a howl.
We hear it again, and this time, it's a lot closer. I peer around the hood of a car we're hidden behind, and gasp.
+++++
Yoho, yoho, a pirate's life for me....