Nathan Jones - Fuel

“You don’t think it was worth it to at least ask and maybe get some food for the trip?” Trev shot back. “Besides, I didn’t say anything they’d have a problem with.”

“You never know these days,” Matt said, but he let the matter drop.

To avoid the flood of refugees coming the other way they walked a hundred feet or so to the right of the beaten path, uncomfortably aware of eyes on them with every step they took. Trev wasn’t happy about the attention, and he became even less happy a little over an hour later when they reached I-80 and he realized the others wanted to go straight south from there rather than following the highway back to I-15 and taking the Interstate all the way down to Spanish Fork.

“We’re not like you guys,” April said firmly when he protested. “We don’t have the strength to go days without food, especially not the boys, and since we won’t be able to manage nearly the same speed as you did coming up we have to find a solution. We talked it over with Matt and agreed it would be better to skirt the suburbs west of the big cities so we can forage: anything left in gardens, animals we might be able to catch, heck, even insects.”

“Also we’ll be near the Jordan River so we can get water more reliably,” Terry added. “We don’t have many bottles so we have to stay closer to whatever water sources we can find.”

Matt nodded. “I told them about your cache along 6, so our priority will be to get there as quickly as possible. But until then we need food so we have to try this.”

Trev didn’t like it but he could see the point they were making. Terry and April had to bring their possessions in an overloaded wagon and small backpacks, they weren’t used to hiking, and they had the children. There was no way they’d be able to race hunger south to the cache. “It’s going to be ten times more dangerous even in the suburbs so we’ll have to be constantly on guard. And we might not even find food,” he warned.

“Then we keep going towards our goal as we look and we travel carefully.” April gave him a patient look. “If you want to split off and rush for home we’ll understand.”

He did his best not to feel insulted by the offer. He’d come all this way to help them… did they honestly think he was going to ditch them now just when things were getting hardest? In answer he started across I-80, motioning. “Let’s go, then. It took us 4 days to get up here, it might take twice that long getting back. The sooner we get started the better.”

The others followed as he led the way east on the Interstate to the first off ramp. Where it reached the first intersection they stood for a long time looking at the street leading south and listening for any sounds of danger.

“Shouldn’t we keep going?” Terry asked.

“Shh,” Trev hissed, starting for the nearest source of cover behind a parked van on the other side of the intersection. “Time to get back to slinking our way through the urban jungle.”

Matt followed, wary and with a hand on his spray, and when they reached the van they stopped and looked around warily as they waited for the others to catch up to them. “What are you doing?” April asked.

Matt turned to her, expression grim. “We’ve seen a lot of chaos on these streets while making our way up here. Some really bad stuff. Luckily we were able to avoid it by being careful, but on our way south we need to do our best to be quiet and not be noticed. So no talking and we keep our ears open.”

“Okay sure,” Terry said. He glanced back at the wagon, which Paul was currently riding on while Aaron walked alongside. “I might have to have you help me with this and carrying the boys as we travel.”

“No problem.” Matt sighed, staring at the street ahead. It was quiet and empty, for now. “I wish I had more cans of bear spray for you guys, just in case. We’ll have to make do with what we have.”

Trev ended up walking about a block ahead of the group to scout for danger. That worked out pretty well because even as slow and careful as he was being he still managed to stay ahead of the others. The Lynn family had their sons to deal with and weren’t used to walking, both of which slowed them down in subtle but noticeable ways.

In spite of his caution he didn’t so much as hear anything to suggest people were around. Either they were lucky or everyone nearby had already evacuated to Antelope Island. Or maybe the looters preferred to do their mischief in the dark with such a strong FETF presence not far away.

In any case the hike went smoothly as the somewhat chilly morning gave way to noon. At about that time Paul and Aaron began complaining about hunger. April explained that since they’d only had two meals in the camp this wasn’t unusual, but Trev was still worried about the noise they were making. Especially when Paul began crying and looked on the verge of a meltdown.

“We need to search for food,” Terry told him when he dropped back to see what the commotion was.

Trev frowned. “Where exactly are we going to find it? Even if we went house to house I guarantee anything in the pantries was eaten weeks ago, probably even before looters came through here looking for scraps.”

“I’m not thinking of pantries,” April said, pointing up at a nearby hill where more upscale houses formed their own little neighborhood. They were set back in large yards. “There’s a good chance we’ll find gardens, fruit trees, or other things there.”

“Decorative plants, maybe,” Trev said doubtfully.

“It’s worth a look.” Terry led the way to the next intersection and started making for the wealthier neighborhood, and Trev once again hurried ahead to resume his scouting: richer houses meant looters were more likely to be sniffing around.

When they reached the neighborhood he searched carefully, but although all the houses had broken windows and a few had furniture and broken dishes strewn across the yards none looked occupied. He dropped back to rejoin the others and see which house they wanted to check out first.

It turned out no searching was required at all. April took one look at the nearest front yard, which was carefully cultivated with rosebushes around the porch and lining the sidewalk leading up to the front door, and grinned. “Jackpot!”

Trev frowned. “How? I’m not seeing any garden or fruit trees.”

Matt’s sister grinned at him. “There’s food right in front of you, Mr. Know-It-All. Sure, people might’ve grabbed every can, box, and tin in the pantry, but they only went for the food they were familiar with.” To demonstrate April walked over to the nearest rosebush and plucked off one of the fat seed pods. “Haven’t you ever heard of rose hips?”

“That’s what those are?” Trev asked, surprised.

“Oh hey, yeah,” Matt said, slapping his forehead. “Man, I’m such an idiot. Now’s just the time when they’re in season, too. Not to mention we’ve been walking past tons of dandelions and other edible weeds.”

Trev stared between the two siblings in blank confusion. “Edible… weeds?”

His friend had already plucked off a rose hip of his own and pulled out his small pocketknife/fingernail clippers, the only thing resembling a weapon the police at the roadblock hadn’t confiscated, so he could cut off the ends and slice it in half. As Trev watched Matt used the knife’s tip to scoop out the seeds, then began carefully scraping the inner wall to remove the small white hairs. After carefully inspecting the inside to make sure it was clean Matt popped it into his mouth, groaning with satisfaction.

Following his friend’s example Trev plucked a rose hip off the bush and used his fingernail to dig out the end, then popped it whole into his mouth. He was used to eating fruit with seeds and planned to just spit them out.