The glare off the windshield proved to block out anything that was inside. But if an infected were lying low in a hibernated state in there, it would have seen her and come staggering out.
The frigid wind picked up, and the scent of winter in the air slammed into Rebecca. She pulled the coat around her tighter, adjusted her bag and tote on her shoulders, and headed forward. The front window was broken in one spot, and the dirty and foggy-looking glass spoke of age and death.
Rebecca gritted her teeth at the cold weather that was coming on way too fast and moved inside after she once again made sure it was safe. After she was done here, she’d head back to the warehouse and hunker down for a very cold night.
Collin sat back and stared at the woman moving to each store in town. He was currently sitting in one of the beaten-down cars that was close to the grocery store she just entered.
He could see her moving around in there, and although he was tempted to go to her, Collin didn’t want to scare her. He had seen how shifty she had been just scanning the area, and although that was smart, if he made himself known, she’d probably kill him on principle alone because of his gender.
Collin stared through the broken window of the store and saw her picking up some cans and then shoving them in her bag. Staying put was pretty fucking hard. Never in his life had he had to wait for anything he wanted, but for this woman, one who was surprisingly alone and alive, he made sure to take his time.
She had long dark hair, and it looked like it might reach down to her ass, but she had it in a ratty-looking ponytail. He couldn’t see the color of her eyes, or her shape due to the layers upon layers of clothes she had on, but he noticed the wicked-looking blade she held.
It was like something out of the show Oz, except this one was at least ten inches in length and looked like it would fuck an asshole up.
Like an asshole with only one thing on his mind, he grew hard at the images that played through his head. They were ones that didn’t have the bulky clothes covering her body from him or the dirt and grime that covered them both.
They were pictures in his head of them hot and sweaty, alone in this world, but fucking so hard and fast that it was like their last day on earth.
“Damn,” he gritted out, adjusted his dick, and knew he wasn’t going to let her go, not when the obsessive side of him had risen up at the first sight of her.
She would be his.
6
Rebecca walked fully inside and stared at the shelves. Most of the things were scattered along the floor. The lighting hung by a cord from the center of the ceiling, and the florescent bulbs were in shattered remains on the ground.
Some of the shelves were turned over, and empty boxes of food littered the ground, but there were some bent cans with missing labels amidst the rubble. Moving over to the cans, she picked them up, tried to tell what might be inside due to the labels gone, and said fuck it.
If it was edible, it didn’t matter what it was.
She moved over to a rack that had once held those little snack-sized bags of chips and grabbed a few that were on the ground. They were nothing but crushed up crumbs now, but she was fine with that too.
A bottle of water was what she spotted next, along with some hard candy, cough drops, and even a few partially open meat sticks.
She shoved all she could find in her pack, because these days there wasn’t anything edible that she didn’t like. She didn’t have a choice, not if she wanted to survive. She snagged up one melted and partially opened chocolate bar and even a travel-sized bottle of cheap vodka and placed them in her bag. Beggars couldn’t be choosers.
She saw a comb and mirror across the floor by a cardboard cutout of one of the popular teen heartthrobs before all this happened. But the cutout was now leaning to the side, faded from the light that had gotten to it, covered in dirt and grime from the weather, and the smile on his face looked sad now.
Picking up the mirror and comb, she stared at her reflection, at the dirt that covered her face, the bags under her green eyes, and the way she changed so much.
How many young girls had come to this very spot before the contamination, taken a look at the pop star staring back at them with his perfect smile, and looked at themselves in the little colorful mirrors like Rebecca was doing right now?