Free From Within by Brian Delaney

driveway. Will and Alejandro kept having to remind Juana and Lea that a lot of the basics would be at the other house already. It wasn’t like they were taking some tents out to the middle of nowhere and everything needed to live for a long period of time would need to be brought. Will said they should definitely take heirlooms and valuables too. If need be, they could always make a trip back to their house. Lea made sure that all their food, including the jerky they had just made the day before, was packed in the car.
    Juana was in tears as she got into the car. Will and Alejandro had been discussing a lot of different scenarios as they packed up the vehicles. They hoped for the best but planned for the worst. All the talk of worst case scenarios made Juana quite upset. Discussion on strategies for a stop at the grocery store is what had finally brought the tears. She couldn’t believe that they wanted to bring guns to the grocery store. They had also talked about scoping out the parking lot before entering it and once there having two people guard the vehicles while the other two went in armed. Alejandro had to remind her what they had seen on the news that morning and had said that the evening before no one could have imagined what would happen through the night and this morning. They had watched suburban America turn into what looked like a war-torn middle-Eastern country in only a few hours.
     
    *****
     
    Wanting to get a look at the situation before entering the parking lot, their two-vehicle convoy slowly passed the first entrance into the grocery store parking lot and turned onto the side street to enter from the next parking lot access. Will had only seen a couple of people rushing into the store as he drove into town that morning, but now it looked as if half the town had arrived. It didn’t look quite like the chaos the big city stores were seeing. There was a little more order to things.
    Will thought to himself it must be the slower small town life and the fact that most of these people know each other.
    Will pulled into the parking lot and turned around and pulled his Jeep into a spot that was facing out towards the entrance they just drove in. He motioned for Alejandro to pull next to him facing the same direction. Will wanted a quick route out of the parking lot if the people began rioting. He was anticipating with the amount of people rushing to the store due to the news that some of the basics people like to keep on hand might already be out of stock. If that was the case, Will figured people might turn to violence like crowds would do on Black Friday, regardless of whether or not they knew the people around them. They all got out of the vehicles and grouped together in between the two.
    “Alejandro, I think you and Juana should stay out here while Lea and I go in and get whatever we can off of our list,” Will said as he held up a piece of paper.
    Alejandro glanced over to the store entrance and then back to Will and Lea, “Are you sure it’s going to be safe in there for her?”
    “It looks a little crazy in there but it doesn’t look like people are being violent. I think it gets worse on Black Friday. We’ll stay together and move quickly. Plus, I have my pistol.” Will pointed to the weapon holstered at his side, “I don’t think anyone will mess with us.”
    “Okay,” Alejandro said reluctantly but still nodded his head in agreement.
    “I think you two should just stay in your car for now and keep a hold on your shotgun. I can give you my shotgun to have in your car too.” Will opened up the passenger door and grabbed the shotgun and handed it to Alejandro.
    Juana gasped and threw her hands up to her face. She was beginning to tear up again.
    “This is too much. How could things be like this!” She cried out hysterically.
    “Juana, it’ll be alright. We are just trying to anticipate the worst case scenario. We don’t really think we’ll need to use these guns but we want to be