Well tunnel dug: Part 2

Somewhere outside of Charleston, they parked in a parking lot beside an ancient store that said Bodean’s on an old rusty sign.

‘Amazing how quickly nature takes over again,’ said Darryl.

‘You know how many time’s I’ve heard that in the last year?’ Juan said.

‘Well, hopefully, your bro or cousin or whatever shows up soon. We gotta start digging if we’re going to get this stuff planted, right?’ said Sandra. She was sitting on the hot hood, kicking her feet.

Darryl watched Carl’s hand on her thigh for a moment. It seemed like such an odd thing to do. There was no reason Carl should feel like the other two needed to be reminded that she was his. She wasn’t his. She could never again find a use to be anybody’s, not for long, not like it used to be.

They needed re-population with as much genetic diversity as possible. If everybody didn’t know that yet, then they were going to be getting into a lot of trouble. Could have been just a dudes hand on a hot chick’s thigh, he reminded himself.

They waited in the parking lot for an hour and a half before Darryl’s Ex-wife’s brother, Cory, showed. They didn’t seem him walk up, since they were standing at the bottom of the hill he walked over. They were hungry, thirsty, tired, and cold, and they had about enough gas to roll the Nissan down to the declivity between two mountains Cory had fortified his trailer.

‘Originally, trailer was 20 miles further back into the holler. I had to haul that shit up myself. Ain’t too many people starved around here, so there was some who died a cancer, but not too many, like I said, not too many,’ said Cory, who was pressed against Carl in the back seat.

‘Into the what?’ said Juan.

‘The holler, my holler,’ said Cory.

‘That's what they call this sorta narrow valley between two mountains. Kinda like a neighborhood in other states,’ said Darryl.

‘So you hauled you're trailer? You got a truck at still works?’ said Juan.

‘Nope. Don’t you think I’d be driving it? Your friend here smells like a bad night in a cheap bar.’

Carl looked up from his bag at the large bald man sitting next to him, and said, ‘So how’d you ‘haul’ it, like you said, without a truck, man?’

‘It doesn’t take too much to convince a bunch a people to do something when you got the only easy food in miles,’ Cory said.

‘You think this one was raided?’ Darryl asked.

‘It’s been over a year, Darryl, yeah, I think it’s been raided. In fact, that was my easy source of food. That and the fields we harvested, before it got too cold.’

‘Well it's time to get to planning,’ said Darryl.

They all filed in through the sliding back door to the modified trailer. It led into a steel foyer that had eye slits, and holes to slide a gun barrel through. Then up some stairs, and into the actual trailer. They could hardly fit standing up.

>>Well tunnel dug: Part 3