Apokalypsis | Book 6 | Apokalypsis 6 Morris, Kate (cheapest way to read ebooks TXT) 📖

However, it might prove useful, so he picked it up and hung it through his belt.

“Good find,” he commented.

She chuckled briefly and said, “Yeah, I guess I should run into stuff and kick things on the floor more often.”

“Exactly.”

Elijah also found a couple of fishing poles and a tackle box, a handful of lighters that someone must’ve knocked to the floor from their display, and a box of canning jars. Wren told him that she didn’t have a clue when it came to canning or fishing, but he also knew that it might come to that. Thus, he put it all in the cart where her items were resting, too. The next aisle held electrical supplies, but Wren didn’t think they’d have a use for any of it. Elijah wasn’t so sure, so he took some coils of wiring just in case any of them needed it for a future project. Wren told him that Jamie knew all about home improvement projects, and she’d helped him a lot

“That didn’t make me an expert,” she said, speaking softly. Elijah knew talking about Jamie was nearly impossible for her. “Tearing out old, nasty carpeting or handing Jamie a pipe wrench certainly didn’t make me a journeyman.”

“No, but you helped and probably learned more than you think,” he offered. “Plus, you know more about other stuff like shooting and survival. More than I did.”

“Probably not anymore,” she reminded him. “I’d say we’re pretty equally matched now.”

He wasn’t so sure about that and offered a shrug before saying, “Almost ready?”

“We should get that drum full of dog…”

Roman appeared and interrupted to say, “We already got it. I found some big bags of dog food, too. Guess we’re all gonna need some of that now. Eight bags. That ought to last a while, right?”

“Good,” she replied as he looked over her cart full of supplies.

“You guys found a lot,” Roman remarked and picked up the tackle box and then closed it again. “Let’s get out of here. We still need to hit the semi. Tristan said to hit other places if we see anything worth stopping at.”

Abraham came over and said, “Roman’s just excited ‘cuz he found coffee filters and a bunch of coffee cans behind the front counter. Guess they used to brew it for customers here.”

“Cool,” she said. “Get what you need for gas?”

Roman answered this time, “We think so. Not sure. Abraham’s kind of a whiz, so I think he’s got it figured out.”

“Good, gas is going to become very important soon.”

“Or we’d better all learn how to ride a horse, right?”

She smirked and followed him to the truck with their looted goods. Elijah brought up the rear, as was his preference. He had this strange and uncanny desire to be the last one out if Wren was ahead of him. It had nothing to do with staring at her behind, although that wasn’t so bad, either. He just didn’t like the idea of her exiting anywhere last because something could snatch her, and she’d be gone in a flash, gone forever. It was stupid, but it was still this overly protective thought processing that was taking up residence in his brain now.

When they got lined up to the semi-truck a half-hour later, it was immediately clear that someone had beaten them to it. The trailer’s rear doors were open, and the inside picked clean. The others proved the same.

“Great,” Elijah complained.

“Know anywhere else we could hit?” Roman immediately asked Abraham.

“There’s a feed mill in town. I know Tristan was curious if we could find anything there. Books or…I’m not sure.”

“Tell me where to go,” Roman said from the driver’s seat.

The feed mill was small, old, and had faded red paint lingering on the exterior. The inside was picked clean of everything but birdseed and a few bags of dog food, which they took. He didn’t think horses and cows could eat birdseed, but Abraham grabbed it for his brother’s bird, Mr. Grey. Elijah wasn’t sure what birds would eat if they ran out of bagged seed to feed it. The dogs were simpler and could just eat human food. Horses, he also had no clue. Cows, definitely just hay, grass, and grain if they had it. He was certainly no farmer, not like his uncle.

He also found a few books he thought might be helpful, and Wren found some rubber buckets for the barn. Other than that, the feed mill proved useless. This was a farming community, according to what his uncle had led him to understand years ago, so naturally, everything farm-related was going to be looted first.

“Any other ideas?” Elijah asked when they were back in the truck.

“Probably nothing that hasn’t already been robbed,” Roman remarked.

Abraham, who was typically quiet, said, “We should go back to the Chinese food restaurant. Where they had those girls? Tristan said there was a pizza shop next to it. He thought he saw another generator there. We were too busy to bother with it.”

“Good idea,” Roman said and pulled out onto the road again.

They did find a generator in the alley behind the pizza shop, which led Elijah to believe maybe it had more to do with Jeff’s people than the pizza shop. They loaded it anyway while she canvassed the restaurant after Elijah broke the lock on the door for her first.

“I’ll be along in a sec, okay?” he said.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

She was technically fine, but it didn’t mean the restaurant wasn’t kind of spooky anyway and he wouldn’t worry.

But he helped get the generator loaded along with the extension cords near it, gas cans nearby and inside the backdoor, and the key, which he wasn’t even aware that a generator needed. Then they all headed inside, where they quickly located Wren setting supplies in a cardboard box. He left her with Roman and Abraham and kept going.

It was dark, but as he made his way to the actual food prep and then the small seating area of the place, it grew