Shopping Day

Dawn comes in rude.

The penthouses still smell like cardboard and warm beer. Somebody is snoring in the second unit. The sectional has Willa’s blanket on it and Noor’s fridge note staring across the room like a disappointed parent. Grant wakes up with one shoe on the nightstand and Ashlyn’s hair on his arm. She is still naked. Asleep with an innocent expression hiding that she will do whatever he asks and more.

Mary is already standing at the glass with coffee that looks like home. Something normal in this apocalyptic world.

“Party’s over,” she says, not looking at him yet. “Store’s sitting on 12th still with food in it and nobody inside. That’s a gift basket for the next guy with a chair.”

Grant sits up. The map flickers on, thirty-seven points, some groggy, some already moving. Jaz in the foyer. Olivia on the stair. Leanne stretching like a coach who slept sitting up.

“Yeah,” he says. “I know.”

They gather in the main room because that is what this place is now: a warehouse that holds meetings. Harlow has last night’s mascara and zero shame. Jaycee is eating dry cereal out of the box. Paige looks like she could run a mile. The seniors cluster until jobs start getting handed out, then they separate fast.

Grant keeps it plain.

“We’re splitting. Some of you fortify the grocery before someone raids it. The rest come with me. We’re not waiting for the next Derek to walk in off the street. If claiming more of them is how this body changes again, I need to know. If it doesn’t change, we still need people before someone else gets them.”

Riley nods immediately.

“Store team,” she says. “I know the aisles.”

Maya lifts the keys.

“I’m store. Pharmacy lock, office, the note for anyone who used to work there. I can make the back look closed and the front look owned.”

Mary does not waste the opening.

“Store team is not a punishment and it is not the leftovers. It’s the building that feeds us.” She starts pointing. “Leanne, you’re in charge there. Olivia, Jaz, Kelsey, Sadie, Emma, Maya, Riley, Willa. You take the Explorer first load. Block the dock for real this time. Move the pallet jack where it helps. Pharmacy stays locked unless one of ours opens it. Two on the roof if you can get there. No wandering the lot looking heroic.”

Leanne claps once, soft.

“You heard her. If you can lift, you lift. If you can watch a door, you watch a door. If you freeze, you say so before you freeze in the soup aisle.”

Harlow makes a face.

“So I don’t get the store?”

“You talk too much for a quiet fortification,” Mary says. “You’re with Grant.”

Harlow toasts her with empty fingers.

“Fair.”

Grant looks at the ones going with him and feels the old ugly math sit down again. Twenty upgraded him. Thirty-seven still has not. The next door might be forty or fifty. It might be something else. Standing still will not tell him and he needs to know. If it makes him stronger, he can’t wait until someone beats him to it.

“With me: Mary, Eve, Paige, Jaycee, Noor, Tessa, Ashlyn, Zoya, Magdalena, Lily, Sarah, Brooke, Chloe, Natalie, Piper, Jordan, Tatum, Grace, Harlow.” He pauses, counting faces, not wanting a name left hanging. “And the rest of the school girls who aren’t on Leanne’s list. We stay in a group. We don’t chase one girl down an alley and lose the pack. Jose drives the bus. Garret stays in the passenger seat and keeps his hands on the dash unless I say otherwise.”

Jose, from the landing, yells up, “The bus? That thing turns like a boat.”

“It holds people,” Grant yells back. “That’s the point.”

Ashlyn is already on her feet.

“I can talk to girls if they’re scared,” she says. “They’ll hear me better than they hear a speech.”

“You can talk,” Grant says. “You don’t run off to be helpful. You stay where I can see you. Oh, and as much as I enjoy the view, please put some clothes on first.”

“Yes sir!” She smiles as she tries to act sexy while retrieving her clothes from the couch and floor.

Eve checks the lot feed on the closet screen.

“Street’s super quiet. No van.”

“Good,” Mary says. “Store team leaves in ten. Collecting team leaves right after. If 12th goes loud, honk. If we go loud, we come back to the store, not here, unless the store is a problem.”

Paige cracks her neck.

“What are we even looking for? A mall? A dorm? Another bus?”

“People,” Grant says. “Unclaimed women in groups if we can help it. One at a time if we can’t. I’m not pretending this is noble. It’s safer if they’re ours and I need to know if the count does anything else.”

Sarah flexes her bandaged arm and winces.

“I can still come.”

“You can come and not be first through a door,” Willa says, then catches herself because Willa is store team. She looks at Grant. “Make her say if it pulls.”

“I’ll say if it pulls,” Sarah says.

They move like they have done this before, which is almost true.

Store team packs the Explorer with tools, a couple extra weapons, water, Maya’s keys, Noor’s extra copy of the list. Olivia takes the rifle without making a speech. Jaz kisses her teeth and goes. Leanne does a headcount out loud so nobody gets romantic about being left out.

Collecting team takes the bus.

It is a terrible command vehicle. It is also a moving room with seats and a door that hisses. Grant stands in the aisle because sitting feels like going on a field trip. Mary takes the seat behind Jose. Ashlyn sits where she can see Grant. Harlow puts her feet on the seat in front of her until Mary looks at her and the feet come down.

Before the doors close, Grant looks back at the penthouses one time. Traps reset. Pans ready to fall. Fridge note still up. Couch still a crime scene under a blanket.

“Leanne,” he calls down to the lot. “You lose that store, I will be very annoyed about it.”

Leanne does not salute.

“Then don’t take all morning. Guard duty gets lonely.”

The Explorer rolls first, toward 12th.

The bus follows, turning like a boat, full of claimed girls and the kind of quiet that happens when a party is over and the next thing is hunting.

Grant feels the map split. Store team peeling toward the grocery. The rest packed around him in vinyl seats. Thirty-seven lights in two directions.

Mary talks without looking at the window.

“You sure you want more today? You could fortify for a week and not lose ground.”

“I’m sure I don’t want to find out somebody else hit a number while I was hanging a list on a fridge.”

Mary nods once.

“Then we do it clean. No chaos in a Target parking lot if we can help it. You claim, we hold, we move. If a man already has them, we decide on the sidewalk whether he’s Derek or a deal.”

Jaycee, from two seats back:

“And if it’s just girls hiding in a bathroom?”

“Then we don’t smash the door,” Grant says. “We talk. Then I do what we came to do.”

Ashlyn watches his face like the words are an order from a god.

The bus hits a dip in the road. Warm beer from last night sloshes in somebody’s stomach. Brooke laughs once, nervous, happy, ready.

Outside, the city is full of unclaimed women and men who may or may not be getting stronger.

Inside, Grant holds the sun-tag bus keys in one pocket and the next number in the other, even though he still does not know what the next number is.

“Jose,” he says. “Take us toward campus first. Dorms, parking decks, the rec center. Places people hid in groups.”

“Copy,” Jose says, and for once does not add a joke.

The grocery shrinks in the side mirror.

The hunt has begun.