The Last Boys in Clinton - 3. Riding the Roads

"George, I'm hungry."

"OK, let's go back inside and I'll make us some lunch. Then, I guess we'll head out again and look for more people."

"Thanks."

"It's cool."

"Do you really think we'll find more people? We didn't see anyone else when we were with Marie-Louise."

"I don't want to scare you, Lionel, but I'm not really sure. At least not here in town. Like she said, Clinton's kind of small."

"How are we going to get somewhere else?"

"I guess we gotta ride our bikes. Maybe it won't be so long before we find someone."

"What about food? Are we gonna keep coming back here?"

"No. We'll never get far enough away if we keep coming back. I'll pack some things in my backpack. We'll find other places to get food."

"Just take it, like Marie-Louise said?"

"Yeah. I mean, who's gonna complain?"

"OK, I guess."

"It'll be fine. Once we find enough people to not need to steal food, we'll be able to stop doing it."

"That'd be good."

George microwaved a couple Hot Pockets for them. He figured on the road; they'd probably mostly be eating cold stuff. He packed a few sandwiches and drinks into a cooler bag, then shoved that into his backpack. He added some dry snacks. There were Slim Jims, Pop Tarts, and a bag of chocolate chip cookies in his kitchen. He also put in a bunch of granola bars, so they'd have at least something a little healthier. Hopefully they would find open convenience stores to be able to replenish their supplies.

"Well, I guess that's good enough for now. Whenever we pass an open store, we'll go in and see what else we can add. Which direction should we go? East, to New York?"

"Uh-uh. I think if we find people there, they won't be nice. South? It gets warmer the further south you go, right?"

"Typically, yes. Plus, even though 31 is a highway, there's lots of things right on that road. If we took like 78 or 22, we'd have to keep getting off at exits."

"Can we go back to my house to get a jacket, since it might get colder later?"

"Yeah. That's good thinking. A change of clothes would be good too, so we have fresh clothes tomorrow."

"How long does the battery last in your cell phone?"

"Most of a day unless I use it constantly. I'll get my charger so I can charge it wherever we stop later."

"Do we gotta sleep outside? Maybe we should take blankets and pillows."

"I don't think we want to carry that much. Hopefully we can find an unlocked house to sleep in, if we don't catch up with anyone else today."

So, the boys hit the road, heading south on route 31. They passed a few gas stations in the first fifteen minutes or so but weren't ready to stop yet. After about ninety minutes, they came upon a 7-11 store. They decided it was a good time to take a break, rest, have a snack, and gather more food.

"George?"

"Yeah?"

"How long should we ride today before we find somewhere to sleep?"

"It's 2:30 now. If we keep stopping every 90 minutes or so for a break, maybe two more stops will be like three-and-a-half hours. Six o'clock, we can look for somewhere to get supper and then find a house. I don't think you can ride as long as I could, so if you get tired sooner, just say something. We can stop anywhere to take a rest."

"Yeah, I think this was about as long as I could have gone without stopping. I'm kind of out of breath."

"Yeah, you said earlier that you were kind of sick."

"I get tired easy, and it gets hard to breathe."

"I got asthma, so I use an inhaler when I get like that. Want to try using mine?"

"OK, how do I do it?"

George demonstrated using his inhaler and Lionel copied his action.

"It might take a minute or two before you start feeling better."

"Yeah. It's a little easier to breathe now."

George checked his phone, "There's a pharmacy in the Costco we just passed. We'll head back there first and get you your own inhaler."

"OK. Thanks for taking care of me, George. I don't know what would have happened to me if you didn't go past my house this morning."

"Well, we don't have to worry about that, now. Do we?"

"Nope."

The Costco had already closed when disaster struck the night before. George searched on his phone again and found another pharmacy a little further south that would have been open until 10 PM. They were able to get into that one and took a few inhalers, not knowing when they might be able to find another. They merged onto route 202 shortly thereafter but kept heading south.

At 3:50, they came up to a Mobil station. It said 'Last gas before PA.' They decided it was a good place to take another break, and replace their drinks, which as the afternoon went on, they had stopped for a minute more often to take a drink.

Just over an hour-and-a-half after that, they came upon a small restaurant and decided to try to find something to eat in there. George did an acceptable job cooking hamburgers for the two of them. That, chips, and milk made a pretty good supper in their eyes. They'd made it to Lahaska, Pennsylvania, only around 28 miles from their homes, but for two young boys out on the road alone, they felt they did pretty well and decided to look for a house to sleep in.

Just a few more minutes down the road, they came across a Bed and Breakfast. They checked out the bedrooms, picked one with a king-sized bed, TV, connected bathroom, and settled in for the night. The local TV stations were useless, but they were able to stream a couple movies before they hit the shower and went to bed. They avoided the sitting room. More dead people.

"We'll have to stop at a store tomorrow and get another change of clothes. I hope you're OK just sleeping in your underwear. I didn't even think about grabbing pajamas."

"Yeah, that's OK. We can turn up the heat if it gets chilly without PJ's."

"K. Goodnight, Lionel."

"Goodnight, George."

Thursday

The next morning, Lionel woke first at a little after 9:00 AM and had to use the bathroom. When he came back, he tried to wake up George, "George, wake up."

"Hmmmf?"

"I smell bacon."

"Bac... What the hell? Someone else must be here."

They quickly changed their underpants and put on their change of clothes. They headed downstairs and peeked into the kitchen.

Lionel whispered, "Oh, no."

George was nowhere near as quiet, "What the fuck are you doing here? Did you follow us?"

"Good morning, Georgie, Li-guy. I made breakfast."

"Why are you here?"

"I got lonely. I happened to see you guys leaving town and decided to follow you. Thanks for staying on the main roads for so long. I would have missed you if you changed roads. This is a great place, ain't it?"

"What about never wanting to see us again?"

"I changed my mind. I'm allowed."

"What about what we wanted?"

"It don't matter what you wanted, you're still babies."

"Fuck you! We got down here all by ourselves, without any help from your rotten ass. We're not babies."

"So, you don't want the food?"

"We don't want to have anything to do with you. Why couldn't you just leave us alone?"

"You're too little to be out on the road alone."

"I think we did pretty well yesterday."

"Pfft. Not even thirty miles is pretty well?"

"Come on Lionel, let's get our stuff packed up and get out of here."

"OK. Yeah, we don't need you, Marie the B."

"More food for me then."

After Marie-Louise turned around, George picked up a knife off the table. They went upstairs to pack up their things.

"What do we do with yesterday's clothes?"

"Just leave 'em, Lionel. We'll get more later. We could have washed them here, but I'm not staying any longer now that she's here."

"She'll just follow us again."

"No, she won't."

They left. As they passed Marie-Louise's car, George stuck the knife into the two tires furthest away from the house, leaving the knife in the second.

"See? She's not following us now. Let's go."

They hopped on their bikes and left.

Marie-Louise came running out of the house yelling, "I'll catch up again. Go ahead and run away, you babies. You need me!"

As soon as he knew that she wouldn't be able to see them, George told Lionel to stop.

"I want to see if there's anything around here to get something to eat."

"OK."

About a mile ahead, on a side street, there was a Wawa convenience store.

"Got it, come on."

Once they got there, Lionel made a suggestion, "We forgot toothbrushes and toothpaste. Can we get them in here?"

"We'll look."

They picked up a couple bagel, ham, egg and cheese sandwiches, and put them in the microwave. They went to the cooler and grabbed a couple juices, water for the ride, and sodas for later. George tore open a box of small zip-loc bags and took some ice to put into one, to keep their drinks cool in his cooler bag. The sandwiches finished cooking, they ate and went into the bathroom to pee and brush their teeth.

"We'll grab a few things we can eat on the road for lunch too."

"Can I get a Zinger?"

"Sure, get whatever you want. Although that might get squished in my backpack."

"I was gonna eat it here."

They gathered up some more food and went back outside.

"Are we going back to 202?"

"No, let's stay on this road. She might be able to find a bike up there or steal a car to follow us. I want to get off the same road to try to make sure she can't catch up with us again."

"OK. I don't want her to follow us either."

They stayed on that street for a little over an hour until they passed a diner, with a Giant grocery store across the road. Lionel made a comment about the cross-street's name.

"Street Road? That's silly."

"Yeah, that's weird. Although, Street Street would be worse."

"Hehe, yeah, that would be dumb."

George checked his phone, "There's a Kohl's over there. Maybe we can get in and pick out another outfit or two."

Fortunately, Kohl's closed late enough Tuesday night to still be unlocked. They both grabbed another pair of jeans, a couple T-shirts, socks, underwear, and PJ's. They tried to avoid the few dead people they saw, like they did in the stores the previous day. They also grabbed a smaller backpack, so Lionel could carry some things as well.

Another thirty-five minutes later, the road ended at route 611.

"Where are we now, George?"

Checking his phone, "We're in Willow Grove."

"Still in Pennsylvania?"

"Yeah. We got about an hour or so until we start getting into Philadelphia."

"There might be people there, you think?"

"Hope so."

Forty-five minutes later, they came to an intersection that had a hand-made sign hanging.

"611 South to 1 South. Best Western Concordville. Lobby, 6:00 PM Thursday, May 9. Ryan Becker, 100 York Apartments."

"That's today! How long will it take us to get there, George?"

After searching for the hotel on his phone, "Probably about four hours, maybe a little more. That guy Ryan must have lived right here."

"Can we stop here for a little while, have lunch, maybe?"

"Yeah. Wow, it's a little after noon already. We should be able to make it to that hotel by six."

They stopped, sat down on the curb, and ate some of the food they got at Wawa for lunch. They were both anxious about the next leg of the journey.

Next Up - "More People, Finally"