A New Pair of Boots

I was walking up the off ramp that used to allow vehicles to exit the Interstate bypass onto Minnesota Route seventy-seven, when I heard the gunshot. I hadn’t heard a gunshot in…at least six months. Knowing that bullets wouldn’t be manufactured again anytime soon I had quickly found alternative armaments. Specifically a crossbow and a machete. 

At the top of the ramp I could see my destination. The Mall of America. I really needed a new pair of boots. My current pair had seen better days and were literally being held together with duct tape. The shoe store I looked at yesterday didn’t have anything in my size. At this point I’d take a pair of flip-flops that fit. 

In the empty parking lot I could see a lone pickup that was in as good a shape as my current foot wear. In the bed of the vehicle was a person jabbing at a pack of wild dogs with what looked like a stick. It seemed that a few had already being disabled. Their corpses littering the weed infested blacktop. Two were still alive and seemed determine to take on the human. 

“Man’s best friend my ass,” I grumbled.

My right boot made a clopping sound and I paused to examine it. The heel was coming loose. I had to walk with a bit of a limp, careful to not drag the loose heel and loose it completely.

“Great, just freakin’ great.”

With the noise it was making the hungry mongrels would certainly notice me. Attention I didn’t need. The mother of all pandemics, as one newscaster put it, had wiped out much of the population inside a year. No one even knew of its existence until half the world had been infected. It would sit dormant for a month. Then all of those people started dropping dead. By the time the CDC figured out there was a problem, it was too late.

I chewed on my lip as I decided on my options. Neither the dogs or the human had seen me yet. I could continue on, hoping my boots would last until I could make it to an outlet mall, or even a Walmart. Though those were picked clean early on. The one up in Fergus Falls certainly had been. Somebody even removed the florescent lights from the ceiling. Kind of pointless since the grid had fallen more than two years ago. 

“One problem at a time,” I reminded myself. “First the canines, then we’ll deal with the human.”

clop, clop, clop.

I readied a bolt in my crossbow. I was still about fifty yards out. While I had managed to take out a white tailed deer at this range, it was a lucky shot. Not to mention it had a much larger surface area than the Rottweiler that was currently chewing on the butt end of a rifle.

clop, clop, clop.

All three of them, the Rottweiler, a German shepherd, and…a girl. Calling her a girl would be unfair since she was clearly in her twenties with shoulder length blonde hair in a braid. She looked a bit worn out and underfed. The dogs didn’t look in much better shape. When the wind blew, I knew why the dogs were so interested in getting into the bed of the truck. I could smell meat. The dogs were most likely out of their minds with starvation. The shepherd let out a low growl. 

The woman took advantage of the distraction to reload her rifle. I lifted my crossbow to my shoulder turned off the safety and took aim a couple feet in front of the shepherd. If it decided—it charged. I squeezed the trigger. The bow twanged. The bolt struck the animal in the chest. It let out a yelp and skidded to the ground on its side.

The Rottweiler watched me a moment, glanced at the woman who was now pointing her now loaded gun at it. The dog decided that it had better things to do and ran off. The girl followed it with her rifle. When I came clopping up to retrieve my bolt the weapon was pointed in my direction. 

“Who are you?” she demanded.

Instead of answering her question I reached down and pulled out my bolt. I had to brace my foot against the carcass as it seemed to be wedged in against something. Once extracted I wiped the blood off on its coat. Then returned it to the side mount quiver. I only had three and couldn’t afford to loose them. 

Standing I started to walk past her.

“Hey!” she said sternly. “I’m talking to you.”

I turned to look up at her. The barrel of her rifle was pointed right at me. 

“Name’s Henry Preston. Now if you don’t mind, I’ve had a shit day.” I gestured down to my mostly silver colored boot. “If you're going to shoot me, just do it. Otherwise I’m going to find a new pair of boots.” I turned to leave. As I past I caught the glimpse of the deer the woman and the dogs were fighting over. My stomach gave a grumble of protest. I ignored it and clopped away. 

“Wait!” she shouted after me. I didn’t bother to acknowledge that I even heard her. I had been alone for a year. It was easier that way. Once you get involved, you start to care. Then get attached. Then they die. It was easier to just be alone, emotionless. 

Clop, clop, clop.

I heard the motor of the pickup turn over. I listened to it rumble as I walked. It certainly wasn’t gasoline. Any still around would have gone bad months ago and I knew the refineries weren’t making more. The sound wasn’t low enough pitched to be diesel. It had the high pitched sound of a weed whacker, which meant alcohol. I was in the heartland so grain alcohol would be relatively easy to produce, I mused.

I was just a stones throw from the shattered glass entrance when the rumble of the pickup approached to my rear. 

“Hey, Hank!” I heard the girl call out to me. 

“Annoyingly persistent,” I said to myself, as I carefully stepped through the remnants of the safety glass. 

My clopping footsteps echoed in the cathedral that was once dedicated to consumerism. Glancing at the directory I made my way to the store that I’d hoped would have my salvation. When I reached it a wash of disappointment went through me. Like everywhere else I’d been the store had been ransacked. 

“It’s a shame isn’t it?” A feminine voice said from behind me. 

I turned to look to see the young woman standing there with the butt of her rifle propped on her thigh. 

“It is,” I reluctantly agreed. Rather than engage in further conversation I entered the store and began searching for my prize. She followed.

“Where you comin’ from?” she asked.

I looked in a box only to find it empty. “Valdez.”

“Is that like Mexico?”

“Alaska.”

“You walked all the way here from Alaska?”

Checking another box only to find the wrong size in it. “Only as far as Lethbridge. My truck ran out of gas there and the power was off by then,” I admitted. 

“I’m Angela Lundström by the way.”

“Well that explains it,” I said more to myself. This box had the right size only they were used and not much better than the pair I had on. I moved in the direction of the stock room.

“Explains what?”

“The accent.”

“I don’t have an accent,” she protested.

I chuckled. She harrumphed. The way she said ‘don’t’ reminded me of a Newfoundlander that I used to work with. Then my heart saddened. Yet another friend I’d lost to that stupid virus.

“I have a deer I just killed, and was planning to have a steak and some wine tonight.”

“That’s nice,” I said. More out of politeness, but still not showing any interest. 

“I was hoping that…well maybe…maybe you’d like to join me?”

“Like a date?”

“Well…sure.”

“I’m old enough to be your father young lady.”

“I doubt that.”

“I’m forty.”

“And I’m twenty-eight, but I really don’t think it matters anymore. I haven’t even talked to another human being since my pa died this last winter.”

I reached for another box. “I’m sorry to hear that, but I’m not interested.”

“Why not?”

I opened the box. A new pair of Doc Martens lay inside and best of all they were my size. 

“Look, Angela,” I said setting the box on the floor. “I’m just here for these,” I nodded to the open box. “As soon as I have them on, I’ll be on my way.”

“I’ll come with you,” she said desperately. 

I studied her as I removed my old boots. “Sounds like you have everything you need here. You have one of the few working vehicles I’ve seen in a long while. A rifle—

She interrupted me. “I’m on my last box of bullets, the still that makes the alcohol for the truck sprung a leak, the axe handle I use for chopping fire wood snapped…” she trailed off, softly sobbing. When she got a hold of herself she added, “I…I…just don’t want to be alone anymore.”

I said nothing as I put on the new pair of boots, laced them up and tested them for fit by flexing my feet. Satisfied I stood. Looked at the woman who still looked like a girl to my eyes. I asked, “What kind of wine do you have?”