Chapter 14
Sophie’s feet looked worse in the morning light.
The right heel had swollen around the broken blister overnight, and the skin at the edges had turned an angry pink that Rachel didn’t like.
She cleaned it again, applied the last of their antiseptic wipes, and wrapped both feet with strips cut from the spare blouse in her bag.
It wouldn’t hold for a full day of walking, but it was better than nothing.
“Can you walk?” Rachel asked.
“I’m walking,” Sophie said.
They ate the last crackers and shared one water bottle in careful sips.
Rachel knew they’d need more by midday, or Sophie wouldn’t make it through the afternoon.
The road carried a steady stream of people moving both ways, none of them sure which direction was safer.
A woman pushed a shopping cart loaded with bags and a small child.
Its front wheels wobbled over cracks while the child watched the road in silence.
Behind them, an elderly couple sat on matching suitcases beside the ditch, the wife holding a folded newspaper above her flushed husband’s head.
“You there,” the woman called when Rachel passed. “Have you heard anything about emergency services? Any word from the government?”
Rachel stopped. “No. Nothing.”
“Nothing at all? No police, no National Guard?”
“I haven’t seen anything moving. Not engines, not cruisers. Nothing with power.”
The woman had clearly expected the answer.
She thanked Rachel and went back to shading her husband, who stared at the gravel between his shoes.
Three more groups asked the same questions in the next half hour.
Had Rachel seen any official response, working vehicles, or news?
She gave the same answer each time because it was the only one she had.
The country store appeared around a long bend just before noon.
It was a single-story building with a covered porch and two dark gas pumps out front.
The door stood propped open, and at least thirty people crowded the porch and gravel lot.
Rachel left Sophie with their packs near the edge of the lot and went inside.
The store had four short aisles and a glass-front counter at the rear.
The shelves were half empty, with the remaining goods pushed forward in neat rows.
A man in his sixties stood behind the counter with a metal cash box beside the register.
“Cash only. I’m not taking credit, checks, or promises. Limits are posted,” the owner said.
Rachel read the hand-lettered sign taped to the counter. Two items per customer. No exceptions. She counted her cash and selected a can of beans and a room-temperature bottle of water from the dead cooler.
“Six dollars,” the owner said.
She paid and was turning to leave when the shouting started. A man in a work shirt had reached behind the counter and lifted an entire case of canned soup. The owner moved faster than Rachel expected, one hand closing on the man’s wrist while the other reached for the case.
“I said two items. That’s twelve cans,” the owner said.
“I’ve got three kids,” the man said.
“Everyone’s got someone. Put it back.”
Two customers stepped in. One tried to reason with the man holding the case.
The other blocked the door. The man shoved backward, caught an older customer in the chest, and sent him down hard against a display rack.
Rachel was moving before the older customer hit the floor.
She kneeled beside him, one hand on his shoulder, the other checking his pulse at the wrist. His skin was cool and damp, and his breathing came in short, ragged pulls that worried her more than the fall had.
“Can you sit up? Slowly,” Rachel asked.
She helped him sit up and stayed until his breathing steadied.
His glasses had fallen under a shelf. One lens was cracked, but the frame held.
By the time she stood, the argument had moved outside.
The owner had the case back behind the counter, and the man in the work shirt was being escorted through the door by two other customers who seemed to have appointed themselves mediators.
Rachel collected her purchases and went outside to find Sophie.
The girl stood exactly where Rachel had left her, both packs at her feet and her arms folded tightly across her chest.
“Someone took one of the water bottles,” Sophie said.
“Who?” Rachel asked.
“I don’t know. There were people everywhere. One minute, both were there. The next minute, one was gone. I turned around to see what the yelling was about, and when I looked back it was missing.”
Rachel didn’t ask why Sophie hadn’t watched the bag more closely. The girl had been watching the store, the argument, and thirty strangers moving through the lot. In that chaos, a water bottle could vanish in seconds.
“This is exactly what I said would happen. You help some stranger who fell, and while you’re doing that, someone else takes what’s ours. That’s how it works. You care about everyone except the person standing right next to you,” Sophie said.
“That’s not true,” Rachel said.
“It is. You left the bags with me and went inside to help him. I’m thirteen. What was I supposed to do if someone took both packs? Run after them? Fight them?”
Rachel started to answer and stopped. Sophie was right.
Rachel had left their supplies with a child and walked into a confrontation.
Losing only one water bottle was a good thing.
Behind them, the store owner locked the door and slid the bolt into place.
A man with an empty backpack stopped on the porch, said something Rachel couldn’t hear, and slammed both fists against the glass.
The owner didn’t flinch. The man hit the glass twice more, then turned away with the empty backpack swinging at his hip. Rachel picked up both packs and handed Sophie the lighter one. They walked east along the shoulder, putting distance between themselves and the store.