Apocalypsis 01 - Kahayatle

sleeping bag with the other.   The bag slowly came out of its rolled-up form to spread out behind him.
    “You’re sponge is unrolling.”
    “Whatever.”
    He got to the door ahead of me because I was trying to carry the suitcase without leaving tracks that were too obvious in the weeds.   I didn’t want to leave any sign for anyone about what I was doing or who was doing it with me.   Trails of heavy things being dragged only awakened curiosity - and when someone was really hungry, the curiosity almost always assumed there was food involved.   And in this case, they’d be right.
    We got to the back door and I let Peter in.   For some reason he’d stopped and waited for me, as if we lived in a world where you didn’t just walk into someone’s house when you felt like it.   It was strange, but nice in a way.
    “Here it is.   Home sweet home.”
    He went in ahead of me and I followed with the purple brick.
    “Wow.   This looks nothing like my place.”
    “Yeah, well, my dad was kind of hardcore about preparing me for the end of the world.”   He was staring at the gear I had set up that made my family room look like a camp site.   There was only one piece of furniture in the place - a couch.
    “It wasn’t the end of the world,” clarified Peter, “just a restructuring of the world order.”   He walked over to the table that used to have a TV on it to lift up the picture that was in a frame there.   It was taken of my dad and me three years ago, when we took a trip out to the Everglades together.  
    “Is this your father?”
    “Yeah.”   I pulled Peter’s suitcase to the middle of the floor.   “Can I open this?”
    Peter shrugged, moving on to look at other things in the room.   “Sure.”
    I opened up the case and pulled things out, one by one.   There were glass jars of spaghetti sauce stuffed around books and shoes - two pairs of sneakers and a pair of pointy-toed dress shoes - all of them completely useless for any kind of travel.   I threw them over my shoulder into a messy pile.
    “Hey!   Those are my shoes!”  
    “Garbage.   You can’t use these to walk any distance in.”
    “They’re all I have.”
    “You have what’s on your feet.   We’ll find you something else.”
    “Where?”
    “I’m not sure yet.”   I glanced at his feet.   “My dad’s feet were bigger than yours, so you can’t use his old ones.   But we’re going to have to leave here soon, so wherever we go, we’ll find something on the way.”
    “Why do you think we have to leave?”
    I stopped my unpacking and looked up at him.   “Why do you ask like that?   As if I have to have a different reason than you?”
    “Because you don’t know or care about the canners, so you must have other reasons.”
    I shook my head.   Again with the canners thing.   “We have to leave because the natives are getting restless.”
    He looked at me, confused.
    I went back to the suitcase, pulling out some heavy books and stacking them on the floor.   “The gangs.   They’re starting to get hungrier.   Bolder.   Eventually they’re going to ignore the fact that I have sign on my door saying to stay the hell away, and they’re going to come in and steal my stuff.   Plus, I’m almost out of food, so I have to go find more anyway.”
    “You’re right.   About the gangs getting hungrier,” said Peter, softly.
    I looked at him because his tone was kind of freaking me out, and the expression on his face only made me feel more uncomfortable.   I stood up, feeling a little pulse of adrenaline enter my system.  
    I’d learned to be hyper-aware of my body’s responses, ready to tune in and use my natural chemicals to enhance my reflexes.   At this point I was ready to take Peter down if he so much as made a single move in my direction.
    But instead, he started to cry.
    ***
    I didn’t know what to do with that.   I was prepared for a sneak attack, but one of a different kind.   Anger, I could deal with.   Madness?   I could take it out in two seconds flat.   But tears?   I had no clue what to do with those.
    “I’m not from here,” he explained, swiping at the tears with the back of his hand.   “I snuck down here from Sanford three weeks ago.”
    “Wow.   That’s a long distance to walk.”
    “I didn’t walk.   I rode my bike.”
    “Still…”
    “I know.   But I needed to get away from there.   It was life or death.”
    It seemed like he was being a bit dramatic, but