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two or three days, so bring extra water and draw an extra meal.”
    He pointed directly at me in the back, “This is Chuck, he’s our newest member, so keep an eye on him and pass along any tips that you’ve learned in your time here. We don’t need any more dead guys…” he paused to let the words sink in and I half-waved to the group like a frightened schoolgirl on the first day of class while they glared back at me. Unfriendly lot , I thought to myself.
    “Alright, let’s get in the trucks and head over to Taylorville,” Jesse said as he circled an open hand above his head. I was certain I’d seen that move in several action movies and even though I wasn’t certain about its exact meaning, I filed it away as probably meaning to move out or load up.
    I followed everyone out the tent flap and cast a glance over at Rebecca. She was still sitting where I’d left her, talking with another woman. I waved at her but she didn’t see me so I continued on to whatever awaited me through the door.
    We rode in the back of a large rental truck like Mexicans crossing the border. Fuck, there is no border anymore! I reminded myself. The trip only took about ten or fifteen minutes. I’m not entirely sure because I dozed off. That’s another of my peculiarities, anytime I get in a moving vehicle when I’m not driving, I tend to fall asleep. It was a godsend in Chicago. I’d sleep on the El every day to and from work. It allowed me to stay up later at home and read everything I could about the market from the day and the forecasts for the next day. My clients made a lot of money from all my hard work. I made more.
    We dismounted the truck in front of one of those big box stores that were everywhere. I could see why the town wanted to pick this place clean, these places had tons and tons of non-perishable food and all sorts of other useful things throughout the rest of the place. The first thing that Jesse did was set up security teams with walkie talkies around the warehouse and then had a few guys go in and unlock all the doors and search the inside to ensure nobody had moved in since they left yesterday.
    When the coast was clear, we went into the store and began hauling all sorts of shit to the trucks. I spent a good thirty minutes just moving peanut butter and another fifteen moving cooking lard. I met a few guys during the work and found out that the store’s forklift had been irreparably damaged in a fight with some scavengers when the Virden folks came over yesterday and that was why we were moving everything by wheelbarrows and hand trucks found in the warehouse. For the new guys like me who hadn’t earned anyone’s respect, we had to do everything by hand.
    Early in the afternoon, probably around one or so, we had completely cleared the place of food and everyone was given a fifteen minute break as a reward for our hard work before we started on the rest of the goods in the store. I really had to take a shit so I high-tailed it to the restroom, but the place was absolutely disgusting and I closed the door almost as soon as I opened it. The tiny glimpse that I’d seen of the bathroom illuminated in my headlamp told the story of a group of people using the restroom for the last month with no way of flushing the toilets or ventilating the room, added on top of that was the one hundred man work crew from Virden and the place was unsuitable for human beings and a hotbed of disease.
    Several of the other guys may have had actual gas masks that blocked out the smells, but my paper mask sure didn’t. I decided that I’d take my chances pooping in a ditch behind the store. I did the butt-cheek squeeze back to the aisle that held the baby wipes and grabbed a box of them.
    There was a little ditch less than two hundred yards from the back loading dock where I could do my business and have a little bit of privacy while still being within earshot of the store. I headed out the back door and told the security guy that I was