Free Offworld by Robin Parrish Page A

than we have to."
    `And what about you?" Owen asked, referring to her remaining
seated in the car.
    "I'm fine here. I'll keep an eye on little miss stowaway."

    The house was just the way Chris remembered it. Everything still
in its place. Not that he'd expected otherwise.
    Before he set foot on the property, his mind tricked him with the
memory of his father's aftershave. Its sweet-but-putrid odor lingered
in his nostrils long after he'd come in view of the house. The smell
was one of many things he didn't miss about growing up here.
    Chris stood out front, taking in the house's lovely red bricks and white wooden highlights. A proud, crisp American flag still caught
the breeze on one of the front porch's posts. A giant oak tree was
stationed to the right of the white front walkway, which led from the
sidewalk straight to the front door.

    It wasn't the oldest or largest house on the street. In fact, it was
probably one of the smallest. But it was home. It was the home he'd
known all his life, until he'd left to join the Air Force at age nineteen.
It was where his father had lived since the mid 1990s, and his mother
as well, until her untimely death when Chris was four. It had been
old even then, when they first moved in.
    Chris' parents had moved here years before Chris was born; it
was his father's obsession with the space program that brought them
to Orlando, and ultimately, Chris had to admit, what propelled him
to apply to NASA.
    But today, none of this mattered. He was here for just one thing,
and the sooner it was done, the better.
    He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and stepped off the front
walkway to venture around to the back of the house.

    "I'm not going to be able to stay in here long, man," Terry called
out, his voice nasal from breathing through his mouth.
    "Neither am I, but since we are here, we should try to find some
edible items," Owen replied.
    They were inside a darkened grocery store at the strip mall Terry
had seen earlier, searching for any supplies that could he added to
their meager stores. Food had been their primary aim, but one step
inside the building-the front doors were still unlocked, though the
auto-opening mechanism didn't work so they had to push them
apart-and that goal became more problematic.
    The store must have lost power sometime shortly after the world's
population had vanished, because all of the meats and dairy products
had gone bad. The milks and cheeses were sour, the bread grew fuzzy blue stuff, and the ham, turkey, chicken, fish, and eggs had all
turned rotten.

    The stench almost pulsated it was so bad.
    To make matters worse, the store showed signs of recent flooding.
The floor was wet, puddles in several places; the ceiling tiles were
soaked and sopping, some still dripping. The drops hitting the floor
were the only ambient sounds in the building.
    "You could have been right before," Owen said.
    "Of course I was right," Terry replied automatically, then stopped
what he was doing. "Wait, about what?"
    "Maybe a hurricane really did pass over Florida. Why else would
the floor be flooded?"
    Terry conceded the point. It made sense. It also made him want to
get out of here all the faster. Who knew what kind of damage could
have been done to the structure of the building in a hurricane?
    Terry and Owen had split up right after entering the store, deciding that it was best to get in and out quickly. They each retrieved a
powerful flashlight from the truck outside, and the waving lights here
and there were the only sources of illumination throughout the store,
apart from the floor to ceiling windows up front.
    "Where'd you get that gun?" Owen shouted.
    "Pardon?"
    "You pulled out a pistol when we encountered the girl. Where
did it come from?"
    "Oh," said Terry. "I kind of ... requisitioned a few items from
Ordnance Storage at Kennedy. After I checked out Security HQ."
    11 see."
    "You think it was a bad idea," said Terry.
    "On the