THE TRASHMAN by Terry McDonald Read Free Book Online Page A

loose, but most of it in boxes.”
    “That’s good, because they sure had a mix of weapons.”
    “Yeah, I see that. I want the Bushmaster.”
    “It’s yours. Come on, let’s get the bags of food, and get out of here.”
    “What about the generator and the kids?”
    “That’s what I mean. We need to take care of business and get back to your place. We’ve been gone too long already.”
    “I meant, what are we going to do about the children?” he asked, tagging my heels back to the doors.
    “We’re taking them with us,” I answered.
    “What if they’re carrying the plague?”
    “Grab a mask from the plastic bag and try not to breathe too much after we pick them up. By the way, mister, ‘I don’t want to shoot people’. What the hell’s gotten into you?
    “God, I don’t know. When you declared him guilty, my finger twitched and the shotgun went off. I wasn’t even thinking about shooting him, it just happened.”
    “Next time, think. You scared the shit out of me.”
    I bent to look inside a bag before lifting it and the one next to it. Both were full of cans.
    Sam looked into a bag. “This one’s full of money and jewelry. A lot of gold chains, too. I hope they took this from dead peoples’ homes.”
    “Grab it. Is there any more food?”
    “One more bag.” He scooped the two bags from the floor and followed me out.
    I wasn’t sure how much good it would do, but before we left the building I had us scrub our hands with water just in case there were plague viruses on the guns and bags we’d handled.
     
    *****
     
    Jessica and Jerold heard my Durango arrive and came out of the supply store to greet us. I pulled to the curb close to where they stood. Jerold came to my side of the vehicle. I let the window down part way to hear him.
    “You may as well drive around back to the loading dock. We found a few generators. Some were huge, but we put one on a cart that might fit in this van.”
    Jessica was standing on the loading dock at an open bay. Jerold joined her as I backed the Durango up, leaving enough room to open the rear hatch. Sam and I muscled our way onto the elevated loading platform and bent to examine the generator they’d chosen.
    “I’m sure this will fit.”
    Sam said, “It’s a diesel. I can smell the fumes. Probably a rental since it’s fueled. Five thousand watts will just about run everything in the house.”
    I eyeballed the dimensions of the machine. “Turned sideways, we could fit two of these in the rear compartment. Was there another one like this?” I asked, turning to speak to the youngsters.
    “Two more,” Jessica said. “That thing’s heavy. Jerold and I had a hard time getting it onto the cart. It’ll take all of us to load it off this edge.”
    I nodded in response, and tugged one of the lifting handles. “I’d say at least two hundred pounds. We’ll load it in a couple minutes. I need to tell you and your brother what we found at the rest area and I need to ask some questions.”
    I tackled the rough part first. They accepted the news that their parents were definitely dead with such calm that I had to comment on it. Jerold responded.
    “Dad gave us a talk before we left the basement, actually several talks. He told us there’d be a good chance we’d all get killed once we left, but we had to leave. Mom did, too, and she told us if something happened, if trouble found us and she said ‘run’, we’d better be running. She told us the future was with us, with young people.”
    “We knew they were probably dead. I did hope Mother was able to kill all of them and still be alive, but Jessica told me the sounds from the guns meant she was dead.”
    “It never hurts to hope,” I said, nearer to tears than they were. “You told us you all hid in the basement. Other than the bast—. Other than the men back at the rest area, how long has it been since you were around another person?”
    “A long time. Dad was always watching the news, drove Mother