Apartment 905, Sahin, Ned [black female authors .TXT] 📗

back right away or they do a trade later. Honey, alcohol, and medicine seem to be the most valuable items to trade. They don’t mind if you don’t have anything to trade, though. The entire town helps each other and survives as a community.

Sunshine takes us to her friend’s accessories shop. The entire place is filled with handmade bandanas, hats, bracelets, cards, candles, mugs, t-shirts, and many more items from floor to ceiling. I wish I had a phone to take a photo in this little shop with four of us.

Luckily, her friend offers to draw a painting of us. She uses colorful markers to paint our new clothes and accessories. We finally had a clean pair of jeans and t-shirts. Kathleen has been making fun of our dad-jeans since the morning.

Sunshine gives me a handmade Bohemian style wristband with blue, yellow, green, and purple beads on it as a gift. She says the blue is for the Pacific Ocean we will see once we arrive at San Francisco. Yellow is for the sun to brighten our days on the way. Green is for nature to provide us food, water, and shelter along our trip. And purple is for me to return Purple Haze soon. I will keep this wristband forever. If there is a reason this world is spinning, it’s thanks to sincere and lovely people like her.

After leaving the shop, Toshi starts coughing. It’s a dry cough that could ring alarm bells for everyone around. We run back to the house, trying not to be noticed.

Chapter 25

I was able to convince Toshi to continue the trip with us. We will face whatever might be coming to his way together. We won’t leave him behind. If he gets sicker, he will have his two best friends around to do everything to help him.

We had breakfast with the family before we hit the road. Rowan was so generous to find a car for us. He asked one of his farmer friends to give away his car that nobody has been using for a long time. Their tractor is all they need to grow and distribute their crops.

It’s a 1997 model Ford Taurus wagon. It’s old but the farmer said that it’s robust enough to help us finish the remaining part of the trip. The only problem is finding gas on the way. The full tank will only take us about 200 miles. The gas cans he filled up from their storage tank on his farm should help us drive another 200 miles. We still need 5 times more of the gas to get to San Francisco.

Rowan mentioned an oil refinery around a city called Colby. It’s on the way to Denver. If we drive on the highway, we have to take Exit 47 to find this refinery.

It was an emotional moment saying goodbye to Rowan, Harmony, and Sunshine. I saw tears in Sunshine’s eyes when she hugged me. I want to think that this was less of a goodbye and more of a see you later. I promised her to come back to their town. It wasn’t an empty promise. I am seriously thinking about coming back here with my family.

Finding a community like Purple Haze feels like winning the lottery. I feel lucky to have come across people like them who I can rely on. They helped us without expecting anything in return. I am hopeful about the future of humanity after seeing good people like them still exist.

We are on our way to the West.

“You think it’s a good idea, Matt?” Kathleen breaks an hour of silence after we left Purple Haze. It takes me a few seconds to get my thoughts together to respond to her.

“I hope it is… I think the country roads are as dangerous as highways,” I say. We debated about using the highway or country roads before getting into the car. I’ve been driving on the highway so far. Our speed is around 50 mph. With this speed, we should be at the refinery before it gets dark.

Rowan told us that Herington Rebels control Kansas and some parts of Colorado, which is the next state we will drive through. He said it’s unlikely to see checkpoints on the way since rebels are not obsessed with patrolling their land.

If we come across one, we will let the guard know about our connection to Rowan and our purpose to find gas for the farm trucks. All rebels should know Purple Haze is one of the towns that is crucial for their food supply. I don’t think they will give us any trouble if we stick with this story.

“Would you like to switch?” Toshi asks. He is in the passenger seat. We’ve been on the road for several hours. Even though I don’t feel tired yet, I want to get some rest before we arrive at the refinery. In a post-apocalyptic world, things can get hectic in a matter of seconds. I should have the energy and mindset to face any challenges.

Toshi gets in the driver seat while I fill up the tank from the gas can. Kathleen takes a few steps into the dead wheat field.

I put myself in her shoes. An accountant working at corporate America for years and a daughter of loving parents. Now running for her life knowing she will never see her family, including her dog again. Despite what she went through, she’s stayed positive, but I know she has her moments of thinking about the past and worrying about the future.

“Anything to eat there?” I ask Kathleen sarcastically.

“Yeah, wanna have a dead grain salad mix topped with dirt, and who knows what these bugs are?” She never fails to play along.

I go to the trunk and pick up three of the sandwiches Sunshine made for us. We have about a week of food and water in the car.

“In case you want something more nutritional, I have a roast beef sandwich with spinach and avocado,” I say.