Read Dead Highways (Book 2): Passage for Free Online

dumbass.
    “Sometime we’ll have to go out and shoot. Find a nice open area where you can practice. I’d say we could shoot out back, but we don’t want any unwanted visitors coming by.”
    From inside the house, Olivia started to cry.
    “Sounds like somebody else woke up,” Peaches said. “She’s probably hungry. You gonna be in here for a while?”
    “No, not really. I’ll get some supplies together and start putting them in the Jeep.”
    After Peaches left the garage, I loaded up a few magazines for her 1911 and then sorted through some of the other less deadly items. I found an empty box and filled it with a variety of things, including flashlights, batteries, knives, light sticks, and a first aid kit. Then I carried it outside to the Jeep.
    As I set the box down in the back, I thought I heard a sound coming from the woods across the street. I turned and scanned the tree line, my right hand resting on Sally secured to my hip. The woods by Ted’s house wasn’t nearly as dense as those we had camped in off the highway. It would be hard to go unnoticed in the brush unless you were a small animal. And that’s probably what had made the sound. Some kind of small animal, a rabbit maybe.
    I stood beside the Jeep for over a minute, scanning the woods, but all I heard were birds chirping. So I headed back inside.
    I walked by Peaches on the way back to the garage. She was feeding Olivia.
    “I can help you carry stuff in a minute,” she said.
    “There shouldn’t be much more.”
    Back in the garage, I sifted through more boxes, seeking out only the most useful stuff. For once, I wished I had my grandma’s old lady car, as there was very limited space in the back of the Jeep. Ted would probably kill me if he knew I was condensing down some of the boxes, but Ted wasn’t here, and it was unlikely he’d ever return.
    I stopped sorting, looked around. It hadn’t really kicked in yet until that moment. All of this was mine now; all the supplies, the guns, the ammo, the green Jeep, the house with the dead animals mounted on the wall, the fish I could barely see through the dirty water. All of it—mine, mine, mine. Though I didn’t want any of it.
    I checked the time.
    3:37 p.m.
    In two and a half hours, Robinson and friends would be leaving the Walgreens, on the move again. I wanted the time to go faster, wanted it to hurry up and be six already. So I could start to move on. So I could get them out of my mind.
    I stuffed the second box full of MRE’s and bottled water. The MRE’s might not offer much in the way of flavor, except bad flavor, but they’d keep us nourished for a week or so if needed—until we could hunt down something better. If I had to eat them any longer than that, I may as well be dead.
    I carried the second box out to the Jeep and set it down in the backseat. Not much room left. I could squeeze a rifle or two between the boxes and the seats, but that was about it.
    Peaches joined me outside. “We’re done now,” she said, holding and burping Olivia.
    “I’m almost done too,” I said. “Just gotta grab a few guns.”
    “Before you do that.” Peaches handed Olivia over to me. “She wants to say hi to you.”
    I took Olivia in my arms and smiled down at her. She didn’t smile back. She had a serious look on her face, like she was concentrating very hard on something. Filling her diaper with green mush, perhaps. Once I began making silly faces at her, she finally flashed me her pretty smile.
    How things change.
    I had never imagined having children of my own. Just having sex seemed a lofty enough goal. But there I was, smiling down at a beautiful baby in my arms who was smiling up at me, and it felt right. We were doing this all for her, staying for her. And although I wasn’t her birthfather, maybe someday she’d call me dad.
    “Isn’t it funny how everyone always thinks their baby is cute, even when they’re not? And of course all their family and friends are too nice to tell them