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I found myself awaken by thirst later that night. I often woke up parched during the night, I never really knew why, just one of those things I guess. I unzipped my sleeping bag and reached into my backpack for my canteen. After a bit of groping and fighting the cap which was twisted on way too tightly. I took a big gulp of the water, capped the canteen and shoved it back in my pack before pulling my sleeping bag back over me. It was chilly inside the tent and was a bit sharp even underneath Long-johns and flannel night ware, but eventually, sleep found me again.

I woke hours later to the morning sun piercing the blue walls of the tent. The air was still rather sharp and my body was tense from he cold, even inside the sleeping bag. Gathering up a little strength, I pushed off my sleeping bag and as I had been doing for a long while, forced myself to dress in the sharp air. I quietly unzipped the tent and stepped outside. The sky was a bright, cloudless blue. What little snow there was had receded overnight and the ground was dry.

I got a fire going in the hole I'd dug last night and then hauled the tripod and the Dutch Oven. I poured oil into it and left it to boil as I rolled the last of our chicken in breadcrumbs and spices. I also set some water to boil for Mac'n Cheese in a pot over a second fire, since we were running out of propane for the stove. It was so close to lunch time, that I decided to just go ahead and make lunch instead of breakfast.

I couldn't really help but think that we should take some time out of driving so I could teach Raf some survival skills. If something happened to me, which was a distinct possibility, Raf would need to know how to keep going until he could either find another group of survivors or just make it on his own. He was only nine, but he was a fast learner and things stuck with him. I had just dunked the last of the chicken in the oil when Raf emerged from the tent. His hair was a mess and his shirt was undone, exposing his skinny body. We both need to eat more. Maniac laughter threatened to set in at my thoughts of more salty MRE's and snack foods.

"Morning bed head", I said stirring the macaroni.

"What time is it?", Raf asked changing into jeans and a white T-Shirt.

"'Bout ten in the morning", I replied sitting back.

"A full twelve hours for the first time in a month", Raf said, "there's a twist."

"Yeah really", I said as Raf sat next to me.

"Think we can make it out of state today?", Raf asked.

"Maybe if I drive like a maniac", I said laughing.

"Maniac's don't drive", Raf said, "they run around with knives."

I laughed again. Raf was referring to Call Of Duty Ghosts, a video game we'd once both been helplessly addicted too. We used to play it together whenever I would come home from work and we always ended our 1-1 matches in a draw.

"I miss Call Of Duty Ghosts", Raf said.

"Yeah", I replied stirring the macaroni some more, "I do too."

"Hopefully Silverton has power", Raf said, "otherwise I brought our system for nothing."

I looked at him, "you brought the Xbox with you?"

"And Ghosts and our controllers", Raf replied.

"Just couldn't leave it behind huh?"

"Nope, had too many good times on that game to just leave it."

I smiled. I wondered how we always seemed to be able to distract ourselves from the decaying world around us. How we were able to put Agent Six in the back of our heads and talk about video games, which we'd probably never play again.

"Where'd you even put it?", I asked withdrawing the cooked chicken from the oil and putting the last of it in.

"Underneath the back seat", Raf said, "it all fit into the middle compartment."

"I never used that one anyway", I said.

Raf and I ate our lunch underneath the shade of the trees that surrounded our camp while listening to a blare of Magnum 1's redo of Blake Shelton's song Boys 'Round Here. After we were done eating we cleaned out the Dutch Oven and the stove pots and packed it all away. Raf got dressed and climbed in the truck as I walked down to the lake with our water containers. I filled the three empty ones and dropped water purification tablets into them, gave it a shake, sealed them up and then took them back to the truck. I threw them in and climbed in. Raf was playing Borderlands 2 on my PS Vita.

"Quit playing my Vita", I said starting the truck and engaging my drivelines.

"Make me" Raf said.

I reached over and took it from him, "just did."

"Pff", Raf said, "I was done anyways."

I laughed and handed it back to him, "your easy you know that?"

"What ever", Raf said resuming his game.

I drove through the woods surrounding our campground and then got back onto the road. I retraced my route through the forest and the small town until I was back on I81 South. The sun rose over the black asphalt, taunting us in it's brilliant promise for life. I don't know. My hopes seemed to rise and fall with the sun. Everyday I'd hoped to find someone else who had survived this, someone who hadn't been driven insane by desperation. Only person I've seen wasn't insane, just needed someone to help him out. Each night I'd come to terms with the possibility that we'd never see another human again. But nonetheless I soldiered on, had too, I was Delta Force. We never quit.

The radio was blaring Magnum 1's Radioactive Paradise as we drove along. The Interstate snaked along with long, straight sections with light turns every so often. The hours wound on with uneventful travel. It was about 1 in the afternoon when a black cloud began to loom over us. I couldn't tell what it was, but didn't look friendly.

"What the hell?" I said.

"Is it smoke?", Raf asked leaning forward.

"No", I said, "it's not smoke, moving around too much."

"Birds?", Raf asked.

I observed the cloud a minute.

"No", I said, "too small, I can't see a single wing outline."

Raf looked at the cloud a minute, "are those bugs?"

Oh shit.

"Those are bugs", Raf grinned.

I could tell he was torn between being the gross boy he used to be and being scared shitless. I'd heard predictions in the first days of the Pandemic about potential increases in bugs that ate carrion and used it for breeding, I'd seen it in Iraq and I'd seen it in Marid.

"Looking like flies", I said turning on the windshield wipers and all sixteen of my truck's lights to help me see through the wall of iridescent black

"Are they coming his way?"

"Uh-huh."

"We going to drive through them?"

"I don't think we can go around them", I said.

The fly cloud seemed to stretch from one side of the landscape to the other.

"This is going to be disgusting isn't it?", Raf asked nearly clapping his hands.

With the ping of large raindrops, thousands of flies began smacking into my truck. I hope we can find a working car wash, this is fuckin' nasty. Raf's giggles and laughs had me loosening my grip on the steering wheel.

"New at Disney Land", Raf laughed, "The Bug Splat. The ride guaranteed to have you laughing your guts out."

My brother's sense of humor was so intact and so like our Dad's that he sometimes surprised even me.

"Now you know what maggots become", I said as I shifted into sixth gear in an attempt to get out of the cloud as fast as I could.

"You know this is the single most disgusting thing I've ever seen", Raf said.

"Why do I care?", I asked.

Raf shrugged, "just putting it out there."

The cloud of flies disappeared after a few minutes. Other than where the wipers had banished them, my windshield was covered in green and yellow fly splat and the truck had gone from blue to an ugly brown color.

"I take it back", Raf said, "that is the most disgusting thing I've ever seen."

"Hope we can find an automated car wash", I stated, "if not we'll have to find a lot of Turtle Wax."

"I'm not cleaning that", Raf said, "I'm not even helping you."

"You will if I tell you to", I said, "I will not drive around with a dead bug paint job."

Raf laughed, "so let's hope for a car wash."

We soon spotted a sign that read "Next Exit, Food, Gas, Lodging." I changed lanes and soon we came upon Exit 63. I cruised down the ramp and onto Highway 357 and soon I was in a small, town like area. I could see several hotels, a Wendy's, Subway and Cracker Barrel restaurant and an Exxon gas station as well as a Shell-Clean Diesel that was next to a Roadrunner Market. I pulled from Highway 357 onto Flagship Drive from which I was able to turn onto Hospitality Drive, creepy, and then into the Shell station and killed my truck next to the diesel pump. The prices on the sign read $1.32 regular unleaded and $0.99 for a gallon of diesel. Agent Six killed everyone so quickly there wasn't even time for gas to go up.

There were several small cars lining the parking lot which were either empty, our housed shadowy remains. I wanted to cover Raf's eyes like Mom used to do when we watched old horror movies. There was also an older semi trailer with a large tanker on the back of it and there was a care wash in the back that also had a station where you could vacuum it out. Need to make use of that, my truck is disgusting. I started gassing up the truck as Raf spoke up.

"You know", he said, "it feels almost like were being watched."

"You think?", I asked. How come he feels it and you don't?

"Probably just my mind playing tricks on me", Raf said, "I'mma go look around."

"Stay close by", I said, "and take your AK."

Raf grabbed his rifle out of the backseat and went off. I finished fueling my truck and then I idled over to the car wash station. The station was running back up generators, so "The Wash", was still working. I payed for the $5 car wash with the extra bills and quarters I always kept in the center console and then drove the truck through the wash. Five huge rollers armed with hundreds of bristles the size of kitchen knives, combined with the jets of water and soap made it seem like I was in the middle of a Category Five hurricane. What book was that when that big ass hurricane came outta space and ruined Earth? After passing through the brushes, soap and wax, I idled my truck to the vacuum station.

The inside of my truck, carpets, seats, everything, were covered in ground in dirt and food that was just nasty. I opened all the doors, pulled out and shook off my carpets before feeding the vacuum three quarters and sucking all of the dirt and bits of snack food out of the floor carpets, in, on and underneath the seats. I vacuumed off the removable carpets and placed them back in and then popped the hood. I was checking the fluid levels when Raf came around, he had a few small bags of chips and a few small microwaveable cans of Beefaroni.

"This is what I found in the cars", Raf said, "I haven't gotten around to the store yet."

I shut the hood and grabbed my M4 from the backseat, "well the truck is no longer painted with the essence of fly, so let's search the store how about?"

"Come on", Raf said, "a fly paint job would be cool."

"Yeah", I said, "if it wasn't made from actual flies."

"Getting your truck painted by flies?", Raf said imitating a Capital One commercial, "priceless."

"No", I said, "it's worth a five dollar and seventy five cent car wash."

Raf laughed as we entered the store. Most of the shelves were over turned, the freezers were smashed out and several of the store's window's were broken, slabs of ply wood covered them. There were a few bags of chips and a couple of individually wrapped snack cakes on the ground, with the occasional sports drink that was laying beside one of the shelves. As I had suspected, the food and water was in shorter supply as we got further south.

"Food riots?", Raf asked shouldering his AK.

"Looking' like bad ones too", I stated picking up a Chocolate Chip Cupcake, "let's just grab what we can and hit the road."

Raf and I grabbed what little we could and walked out the back of the store. We loaded the stuff into the food duffel and then climbed into the truck. I depressed the clutch, put the truck in neutral and gave a flick of my wrist to bring my Chevy to life. I engaged Front Wheel Drive to save gas and pulled out of the station parking lot and retraced my entrance route. I cruised up the ramp and soon I was back on I81 South.

The sun's arms lengthened in orange and golden glows as our hours wound on with blaring Magnum 1 and vacant Interstate travel. We only passed a few old cars on the side of the road that looked as if they were unoccupied, but you never really know. The terrain around us changed as I drove. Sometimes we lazed through grassy areas with views as far as the eye could see, other times we through relatively forested areas and still other times we snaked through hills. Now we were on a long stretch of road that ran along a semi-forested area which I guessed was a state park.

The afternoon and evening wound down and slowly left my truck enshrouded in the cold darkness of night. I could feel my eyes beginning to strain with headlights, I needed to stop soon. Raf had long since fallen asleep in the back and it was just me up now. I had Dark Matter's Desert Wind playing in an attempt to keep me awake, and so far it seemed to be working. I saw an exit sign that read "Next Exit, Lodging, Super 8 I81, Gas, Texaco Diesel." I changed lanes and soon I was on the down ramp that lead into the small town of Spokane. The gas station was right on the off ramp and the lights in the place were dark, only the light of my headlights lit the place. Even back up generator's give out eventually.

I pulled into the station and grabbed my flashlight from the glove box. I exited the truck and shone my light into the darkness. The entire station was trashed. Windows were broken out, the pumps were destroyed and many of the cars in the parking lot had been burned. I could also see spent .223 and .308 cases littering the ground. Must have been some bad riots out here. I bagged up as much of he brass as I could and then continued down the street to the Super 8 Motel.

It was a two story hotel with the rooms situated in a fashion you'd see at a strip mall. I could see a few cars in the parking lot and the large yellow sign still had it's light on. I guessed that backup generator's weren't all the same and that they would fail at different times, but I didn't know, I was too tired to form coherent thought. I pulled into a parking spot and killed the engine, shaking Raf awake.

"Hmm?", he asked waking up, we stopping?"

"Yeah", I said, "just grab something small to eat and a change of clothes, I'm to tired to haul anything out of this truck tonight, I just want sleep."

Raf opened the door and slid out. The truck began to emit a low pitched and quiet beeping noise as I opened my door and slid out. I could hear the wind blowing high in he night sky and the sharp air stung at my cramped and tense body underneath my clothes.

"Feels like it's gonna be cold tonight", Raf said.

"Sure does", I yawned as I went into the main office and grabbed the key to room 30.

Room 30 was the first room on the top floor. It had two queen beds with night stand between them. In the corner next to the door was a large window unit and a small table with three chairs. There was a tube TV on a stand in front of the bed and there was a mini fridge to the right and a desk to the left of the TV.

"You shower first", Raf said.

"Thanks", I replied.

I went into the bathroom and stripped off my clothes and put myself in a cold shower. The water ran over my tense body and helped to undo a lot of the pains I'd been having from sitting for so long. After my shower I changed into blue underwear and boxer shorts with a white T-shirt and then locked up the door, shoving a chair against it. I fell into bed, so exhausted I was asleep the second I was comfortable.