The majority of the group decided to take the truck with the trailer. Rosemarie didn’t want to have to go out too much to retrieve things if they could do one big shopping trip.
She and Alex were still leery about getting out of the treehouse. With a lot of encouragement, they ran down the stairs and jumped in the truck. Georgi, Alex, and Rosemarie with a wriggly dog rode in the front. Neil and Randy took up position in the bed of the truck.
Georgi drove about twenty minutes away from their comfortable little treehouse.
“Why are we driving so far from the cabin?” asked Rosemarie.
“I don’t want to make it easy for someone to follow us back,” said Georgi.
She means something, thought Rosemarie. She shivered.
Eventually she turned the truck into a yard. They could see the house from the road and it looked very abandoned.
“Hello, there!” called Neil.
Rosemarie turned in her seat to look at the back of the truck. Randy was pointing his gun where he was looking. Neil was just holding his pointed downward.
Randy is probably hoping someone will stumble out, Rosemarie thought. She jerked around and shook her head. She didn’t want to think about it.
No one answered Neil’s call. Rosemarie shivered when she heard him call out again with no reply.
Georgi reached over Alex and patted the other woman on the shoulder. She pulled her gun out and pointed away from the house.
“Randy, go clear the house,” she called out of the window.
Rosemarie felt his weight leave the truck.
“Watch him,” said Georgi. “I am goin’ to make sure nobody sneaks up on us.”
“Roger that,” Rosemarie said.
Randy slowly walked towards the house then around it. He looked happy and that bothered Rosemarie. She felt her hand clench as he approached the front door. He tried opening the door, but the owners had locked it. That was very normal. So far so good.
He looked back at the truck then started kicking the door. It wasn’t a very sturdy door since it didn’t take much time for him to kick it in. He disappeared into the house. Rosemarie didn’t realize that she was holding her breath till he returned and motioned that everything was clear.
Rosemarie’s throat was tightening. I really hated this, she thought. It felt like stealing, because it was. But they needed the food.
Georgi started to get out of the truck.
“Hold on a second,” said Rosemarie. “Please don’t leave yet. I want to write them a note.”
She pulled her notepad out. She wrote a note to the owner that they needed items to survive. She promised that they would try to pay them back as soon as this epidemic was over. Her hands were shaking by the time she was done writing. She hoped if anyone needed something from her house that they would just take it.
No comments:
Post a Comment