Free FORSAKEN: THE SYSTEMIC SERIES by K.W. CALLAHAN Page B

amounts of sugar, salt, pepper, flour – which had been invaded by meal bugs, but that were easily sifted out – crackers, dried cereal, grits, oatmeal, potato chips, pickles, olives – both black and green – relish, various condiments and syrups, and cases of sodas. 
    We guessed that much like the corpses that remained in many of the homes, there just hadn’t been time to deal with evacuating these goods, and Mary – or the owner of the establishment if it wasn’t Mary herself – had either died or skipped town, leaving this plethora of supplies behind.  Then, due to the swiftness of the spreading disease and the distance of the town from the highway or any other towns, here the food had remained, graciously untouched by man or animal until our arrival. 
    Whatever the reasons behind its being there, we were ecstatic to find the food, and we hauled the supplies back to the store where we could hide them safely in the cool darkness of our basement.  We collected sealable plastic containers and bags from around town into which we transferred much of the food to help keep it fresh for longer and reduce the chances of bugs getting into it. Most of the time though, since I assisted with or prepared much of the food, I never said anything about the tiny insects that I discovered had also made their way into some of the rice and pasta.  They really didn’t hurt anything, you couldn’t taste them, and people only seemed to get fussy about them when I mentioned their presence or they saw their tiny carcasses.  If anything, I figured the little buggers added some extra protein to our meals whenever they occasionally surfaced.
    We also collected certain medical, sanitary and cleaning supplies from the homes around the town.  With water at a premium, things like hand sanitizer, disinfecting spray, sanitizing wipes, and paper towels all came in handy.  And Ray and I scavenged the bathrooms and closets of the community coming up with things like hand soap, toothpaste, extra toothbrushes, mouthwash, floss, antibiotic ointment, feminine hygiene products, and tons of toilet paper.  We undertook this job ourselves to spare others from the ghastly sights and smells that issued from some of the homes’ previous occupants. 
    We found several cases of hospitality-style toilet paper and paper towel rolls in a back storage room at Mary’s diner, which added nearly 200 rolls of toilet paper to our stocks and probably enough paper towels to stretch from Olsten to Atlanta.  While these paper products were not as cushy and comfortable on the tush as some of the name brands, who were we to be connoisseurs?  We were just thankful to avoid having to use wet cloths as we had back in Tennessee.  We knew that eventually though we’d likely have to revert to that sort of sanitary wipe after we’d exhausted our supplies, which with 13 in our group, wouldn’t take as long as some might think.
    But above all else, the biggest find from inside the diner’s storage area was beer…cases and cases of beer.  I was as surprised by the find as everyone else, but I supposed I shouldn’t have been.  Thinking about it afterwards, if the food was there, why not the beer?  It’s not like the first request of people dying from the flu is for a cold beer. 
    In all, we found 16 cases of assorted beers.  By the looks of it, there hadn’t been much else to do in Olsten before the flu but drink.  In addition to the regular beer, there were two cases of pumpkin spice ale that appeared to have been ordered for the upcoming fall season.
    We shuttled all this across the street to the store and hauled it down into the cool depths of the basement along with the food.  We celebrated our find by powering up the generator, turning on the upstairs apartment’s refrigerator, and sticking half a case of beer and half a case of soda in the freezer to get it cold quick, and putting the other half of each case inside the refrigerator. 
    By the end of the