Back From The Dead: My Apocalypse Level-up System novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Receipt

Devon cashes out and buys her first load at the farm store with a mechanic named Hattie, and gives Brent back his key at the register, until his phone lights with a text from Lacey.

I cashed out everything I had before the bank opened its second window.

Thirty-eight thousand dollars, most of it my father's life insurance, which I had been too sad to spend for four years.

The teller asked if I was buying a house.

"A farm," I said. "It's already mine. I'm just stocking it."

I drove to Miller Feed and Farm with the cash in a gym bag on the passenger seat.

I had a list in my head from the six days on the road.

Water barrels.

Propane.

Seed.

Antibiotics for animals, which work on people if you're desperate.

Rope, tarps, wire, fuel cans, work gloves, boots in four sizes.

I filled two flatbed carts before nine o'clock, and a man in a feed-store vest stopped to stare at my third.

"You starting a war, ma'am?"

"Winter's going to be bad," I said.

"Forecast says mild."

"Then I'll have extra."

A woman in oil-black coveralls came around the end of the aisle with a generator on a dolly.

She was tall and solid, with a gray-streaked ponytail and a mouth that looked used to arguing.

She read the stacked cans on my cart.

"Forty gallons of fuel stabilizer," she said. "You know that stuff expires?"

"Not in the next year it doesn't."

"No," she said. "It doesn't. You're the Pendelton girl. The farm's daughter."

I stopped.

"You knew my dad?"

"I rebuilt his tractor twice and he paid me in pie." She stuck out a hand. "Hattie Boone. Diesel shop on Route 9. Two miles from your gate."

I shook it.

She was real, and she was alive, and in thirty days she would be dead in a ditch by her own front door.

I knew that because I had driven past it.

"Hattie," I said. "How would you feel about a job?"

"Depends."

"Moving this lot to the farm today. Then keeping it running. I'll pay double what the shop makes."

Her face went still, and I saw her do the math on something she wasn't telling me.

"My shop's about to go to the bank," she said. "Why me?"

"Because my dad trusted you with the tractor."

She looked at me for a long moment.

"All right," Hattie said. "Let me get a second dolly."

We were at the register with the third cart when I heard my name.

"Devon."

I knew who it was before I turned.

Brent stood at the end of the aisle with his car keys in his hand and his best worried face on.

He had found my car in the lot.

He had probably tracked my phone before I turned it off.

"I've been calling you since last night," he said. "Lacey drove by your place. She said you weren't there."

"I was busy."

"Busy buying a war?" He looked at the carts and tried a laugh. "Babe. What is all this?"

The line behind us had stopped moving.

Hattie, beside me, folded her arms.

"It's farm supplies," I said.

"It's forty thousand dollars of farm supplies." He lowered his voice. "Let's go talk. Whatever's wrong, we can fix it."

I knew that voice.

It had told six strangers I was bitten.

I took the spare key to my apartment off my ring, the one he had made himself, and I set it on the counter between the register and the gum.

"I'm done, Brent."

He stared at it.

"You're what?"

"Done. Please give me back mine."

Somebody in the line said, "Oh."

Brent's face went white, then pink.

"This is about the farm question," he said. "Devon, come on. I was making conversation."

"You asked about the cellar twice in one day."

"That's insane."

"Maybe," I said. "Hattie, can you carry the barrels?"

"Happy to," Hattie said, and moved one hand to the biggest barrel in a way that made everybody nearby take a step back.

[Level 2. Skill unlocked: Appraise.]

The purple letters hung in front of my eyes.

I looked at Brent, and a thin line of text drew itself beside his head.

Carrying: phone, car key, a folded receipt.

Intent: pleading.

"You're really doing this," he said. "In public."

"You know all about public," I said.

He didn't understand that, and I didn't explain it.

He grabbed for my sleeve.

Hattie's hand closed on his wrist before he reached it.

"Sir," she said, "she said she's done."

He yanked free and backed up, looking around at all the faces.

Then he turned and went out through the sliding doors.

My knees were shaking.

I had spent six days in the dead world and never once felt my legs go like this.

"Ex?" Hattie asked.

"Ex."

"Good," she said. "I didn't like him. He priced your cart out loud."

I laughed, shaky and short.

Brent's phone was still on the counter by the gum.

He had put it down to grab at me, and he had left it.

It lit up while we both looked.

A text from Lacey, with a little heart after her name.

"Is she gone yet?"

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