THE ROMANTICIST | C. GRIMES

05 | CHAPTER TEN

When Mollie woke up, the first thing she heard was distant birds calling. For a second, she thought was back in the Kingdom. That the last few months had been nothing but a bad nightmare. And then, she cracked open her eyes. Instead of being met with the white ceiling of her bedroom in the Kingdom, she was met with the dusty, grey ceiling of the food bank. She sighed, sitting up as the memories of the nights before flooded back. As she swung her legs over the side of the couch, she looked up, and met eyes with Carl. He was eating something for breakfast, she couldn't tell what.

"Morning." She mumbled, rubbing her eyes. His mouth full, he hummed a hello instead of speaking. The next fifteen minutes were completely silent as they both ate their fills and packed up their things.

"You wanna try the front door or take the window out?" Carl eventually broke the silence as the pair came to stand idly in the main room.

"Might as well go out the front." She shrugged. "I can just get whatever's in the way out." He stood back, letting her pull open the front door. Just like the rest of the building, the doorway was covered in overgrowth. It only took her a few seconds to clear them a path. "Let's go." She moved through the small tunnel that she'd carved out for them, coming out of the greenery and into a parking lot. Carl wasn't far behind her.

"I knew it." He said, seeing what sat in front of them. "I knew we had to be close to something." A burned out, abandoned town sat in front of them. Most of the buildings on the opposite side of the street, as well as a large chunk of woods behind them, were completely razed. However, a few in-tact looking cars were dotted around the food bank parking lot.

"We should see if we can get any of these to work." She said, starting out into the parking lot. "The faster we can get out of here and figure out where we are the better." They split off, Mollie heading for a small pickup truck while Carl went for a Jeep on the other end of the lot. Luckily the pickup's doors were unlocked, and there weren't any walkers inside. It was dusty, but Mollie climbed inside anyway and began digging around. She wasn't confident there would just be keys sitting around, but she could hope.

After sifting through the jackets on the passengers seat and coming up with nothing, she turned her attention to the glove box. At first it just looked like it was full of papers and the truck's manual, but as soon as she'd stuck her hand inside, she felt the cool metal of a gun. Whoever had owned the truck had been stupid enough to leave a loaded revolver in the glove box, but it benefited Mollie so she didn't waste time wondering why someone would've needed a gun in their car before the apocalypse.

"I got nothing!" She called out as she climbed out of the truck, swinging her backpack around to put the extra gun inside. "Except a loaded revolver, but that's it." Carl was still inside his car. She sighed, peaking up at the parting clouds overhead before making her way over to him. "Hey, did you hear me?" When she rounded the side, she realized he was hot-wiring the car. "I didn't know you could do that."

"Yeah, it's not hard." His voice was slightly muffled. "Glenn taught me how." One more spark of the wires he was holding, and the Jeep came to life. "Sweet." He climbed back out, grabbing his hat off the drivers seat and putting it back on. "What were you yelling about?"

"I wasn't yelling." She huffed. "And I found a loaded revolver in the glove box, but nothing else. Tons of bullshit and garbage, no map or anything."

"I haven't even searched this one yet." He chuckled. "You can check the glove box while I get us on the road. Like you said, faster the better, right?"

"Alright." They both tossed their bags into the back seat after climbing in, and they were off. Carl chose left randomly, and after pulling everything out of the glove box Mollie still didn't find anything useful. So, with a nearly full tank and no clue where they were, the pair resigned themselves to driving until they found anything that they knew.