The Rot

Chapter 19

Janice led Cynthia and I up to the back of the trailer and opened the doors. The inside was a little nicer than the outside of the structure. As soon as Janice opened the back doors, I half expected to be slapped in the face by an awful, moldy odor, but it smelled okay. At the end of the trailer was Janice's bedding: a blue sleeping bag and that was it. She had set up a small wooden crate in the center of the trailer with the stubs of a few worn down candles on the center of it.

"Nice place you have here," I told Janice. "Reminds me of my first bachelor pad."

"Thanks," Janice replied, giggling.

"Yeah, it's kind of rustic if I do say so myself," Cynthia added.

"Go ahead, make yourselves at home," Janice told me and Cyn.

It was nice setting down the heavy bag of cans. The food was really doing a number on my back. Cynthia and I had to figure out a way to grow our own crops, and fast. This lugging around food bullcrap just isn't going to cut it.

"It's just you here, Janice?" Cynthia asked.

"Yeah. Just me," Janice answered. She took off her black hoodie. She was wearing a dark purple v-neck t shirt underneath the jacket. "Sorry I don't have anything for you guys to sit on."

"Quite all right," I said.

I took off my camo jacket to try and cool off as best I could. Cynthia sat across from me and pulled out a cigarette. Before she lit it, she looked at Janice, "Do you mind?"

"Not at all. Can I have one?" Janice asked.

"Piss," I sighed.

"What?" Janice asked me.

"Another smoker. Wonderful."

"It's been kind of a hectic day, Reid. Leave us gals alone," said Cynthia.

With the two lovely ladies smoking away, I slid closer to the entrance of the trailer in an effort to get away from the smoke cloud. "Where'd you find this place, Janice?" I asked.

"When my truck broke down a few blocks away from here, I had to set out on foot. Well, it didn't really break down," Janice replied.

"What happened to it?"

"I had to ram into a whole group of stenches."

Cynthia and I looked at one another. "Now that's a good damn name for them," Cynthia told me.

"Yeah it is," I replied.

"They really don't smell all that great, do they?" Janice said.

"We've been calling them 'eaters' or 'chompers'," I told Janice.

"I own the copyright for 'chompers.' Just so you know, Janice," said Cyn.

"I'll have to keep that in mind."

"Sometimes, when they really piss me off, I call them 'Undead assholes.' Or if I'm in a real bad mood, 'Dead fuckers," I said.

Janice laughed. "Those are good names for them too. So, you said you were back in that Target store?"

"Yeah."

"What was it like in there?"

"Full of the eaters. I managed to lure them out, but that mob came shambling down the road and a smaller group got back inside of the store."

"We were actually looking for my mom," Cynthia added.

"Was she in there?" Janice asked Cyn.

Cynthia's expression turned sorrowful. She hung her head, "Yeah."