The Plague pt2

As Lucas left the store and made his way down the street, he passed a shop with tools. They were something useful but he weighed the backpack thrown over his shoulder, it was heavy enough as it is. Lucas thought back to the rules he had in place that kept him alive for such a long time, one of them was “Never take something you will find where you’re heading.”. An electric drill or a grinder were exactly the things he could find useful but at the same time, there were hardware stores where he was heading. He continued along the street, looking around, taking in the post-apocalyptic scenery, crashed cars, broken windows, a deflated football jammed between a cars wheel and the curb. There was something peaceful about this new world, it was the silence, after so many years, decades even, Lucas was finally able to have a moment where he could process his thoughts without being interrupted.

Sadly, something did interrupt his peaceful walk, a sound that he knew meant things could turn bad in a moment’s notice. Quiet, angry, canine growling made him look around until he saw a wild mutt. It was a normal, unspecified breed of a dog that stared at Lucas from above a dead, mangled carcass of what appeared to have been a squirrel. Lucas knew two things can happen, the dog will attack and he will have to stab it with his knife, possibly at the neck, to make it a quick and painful death or the dog would ignore him if he simply walked away. He decided to take a bit from both options, holding a hand on the grip of his knife, he slowly continued forward, shuffling sideways so he could see the alley where the dog was. The growling died down after a moment and Lucas sighed a little relieved, killing an animal was always a difficult thing for him, well maybe not deer, those he found quite useful when he was out of food. Taking a dogs or wolves life however always felt wrong to him, they were innocent he thought, it wasn’t their fault that the world went down the drain. Lucas sighed and looked ahead.

Man this is going to be one hell of a trip. Wish I could just get into a car and drive off, the roads aren’t that clogged up and with no one else driving. – Lucas said to himself, giving an old BMW a quick glance.

Traveling by car would be a godsend, he’d have room for supplies, a place to hide from the rain and somewhere to sleep, the problem however, was finding a working car. Generally, as the virus spread over the whole world and killed people off the chaos might’ve grew but it couldn’t keep up with the plague itself. It was another thing that the movies Lucas had seen got wrong, lack of society made car travel quite appealing to survivors, especially that it meant uninterrupted and fast travel. Not to mention he would not have to worry about bandits, if there even were any. The man decided to try his luck with the next car he saw, a nice looking Opel, nothing fancy but times like these, it was more than perfect. Lucas walked up to it and simply pulled on the door handle.

Come on, be open, please. – He whispered to himself.

Unfortunately, the door didn’t budge so he nearly pressed his face against the glass, blocking off sunlight with his hands as he peered inside the car, hoping to see keys in the ignition. That also turned out to be a bust, no keys in sight, door closed and he had no clue how to hot-wire a car, that wasn’t something that he spent time learning during his life. Lucas gave up on this one and leaned against it, thinking.

How the hell could I get a car that’s running, has fuel and doesn’t need hot-wiring… - He tapped fingers against the window, trying to come up with a plan.

I guess I could find a dealership but man those things probably have alarms and everything. Wait, oh man I’m genius, time to celebrate with a beer. – Lucas smiled to himself and resumed his slow walk through the small town.

He fished out one of the beer cans and opened it, sipping the cold beverage as he looked around, eyes open for an apartment building. His plan was quite simple and through that rather brilliant, all he had to do is find an apartment building, break into flats and loot car keys off the counter or corpse. As gruesome as it seemed to be, Lucas wasn’t worried about germs or angry residents, first of all he realized long ago he was immune and there seemed to be no other people in this town, which made it even easier. A handful of car keys, street side parking, a couple of minutes checking the cars, easiest plan he could come up with on such short notice. The only dent in the armor of his idea was actually finding an apartment building in this place, it all seemed to be rows of small buildings and way too many cars to play the guessing game with. What he needed was a typical building, ten apartments, cars lined up and ready to be inspected, preferably a station wagon so he could load it up full of supplies and perhaps even a sleeping bag.

Lucas wasn’t that lucky though, there were no tall buildings on the horizon, no big parking lot that he could check. His plan bursting like a soap bubble and causing him to sigh and throw the empty beer can away. If he was to get a car, he would need to take a different approach to his idea, rather than aim to find an apartment building, Lucas decided to try his luck at finding single family houses along his way, perhaps one of them would have a car parked by the front door. As long as he continued north along the main roads he would eventually reach his hometown and that meant quite a lot of cities still ahead of him, both small and big, there was bound to be a way for him to turn his journey less annoying at some point. There was no point rushing, he had his whole life ahead of him and the knowledge that he was one of the few people left alive in the country, to most people it would be a wonderful reason to commit suicide. Lucas however found himself quite at home in this new reality, until he either found a settlement or civilization began rebuilding, he had everything at his disposal, be it food, water or tools.