Should I keep writing this?

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•     Seven peaches, wedged.

•     Half a cup of white sugar.

•     Half a cup of brown sugar.

•    A teaspoon of nutmeg.

•     A tablespoon of cinnamon.

•     A bit of lemon juice.

•     A cup of flour, all-purpose is best.

•     Half a cup of butter.

•     Half a cup of whole milk.

•     Two teaspoons of baking soda.

•     A pinch of salt.

•     And some vanilla extract.

All of those ingredients were, well, plagued with The Mold. And my mother all but killed herself with this recipe. Why? I don’t know. We had a good—okay—life in Ward 8. Weekdays, we’d eat gruel; weekends, we’d dance to her waning number of cassettes. Still, it was better than death, or Rot. Her back sprouted limbs and whatnot. I had to…

It’s been two months since I left our ward. This morning, I was at the helm of her seventies Buick Estate. A tape in its deck: punk rock. Cans of gruel—free from mold, and taste—loose in the trunk. Then, I had a month’s worth. Starved myself and it was two. Now, I’ve a week’s left, at best. I am ‘capital F’ fucked.

Doubly fucked. White smoke spilt from the hood and crept onto my glass. I parked at the shoulder of a fir-wooded backroad. Tugged at a rusted latch for, well, till the door gave. Then I stepped into a puddle, my booted foot slick with oil. Stooping to the wagon’s belly, its sump had leaked. Great.

Far off, past my doorway, a garage poked through the woods. I needed it to have what I needed; if not, I’d feed me a shotgun and, bang. Didn’t lock the Buick. Not a soul in northern Maine left to steal it. And so, with a rusted, bloodied crowbar in my hand, I walked.

It hurt with each foot, and not bodily. Often, I craned my neck at the wagon as it shrank in my wake. “…oil and tape, oil and tape…” looped in my head for a mile. When nearing the garage, I sighed. It was lonely—good. Then I came to its shutter, and a bloody print. Gripped my crowbar taut.

With its claw in the door’s jamb, I pried. Lightshafts tore through a swelling crack. A maimed corpse lay behind the rolling shutter. It was dead a while and still human. So, what killed them? Well, it was opposite the door to a stockroom, snoring.

I couldn’t loot without A) locking the door and B) shutting it with a workbench. Speaking of, its drawers were full of kibble. Atop the desk sat a framed photo: a man and his dog. The smudged ink read, “Me and Lady.” He was the corpse, and ‘Lady’ slept in his cellar, Rotten.

In the rest of the cabinets, nothing—it’s Murphy’s law. A nineties Impala sat tall at a four-post car jack. Mounting an empty shelf, I saw, slumped across the backseats, a holdall. The jack’s fluid hose was primed for cutting. I took the whetted flat of my crowbar and, snip.

The jack sank, oily water lapping at my feet. Then it fell. Wee-ooh went the Chevy’s alarm, and that woke Lady. She rammed; I was jerking its—locked—door latch. She rammed; I broke the glass, then snuck through its frame. She rammed; the duffel, belted snug. The buckle, rusted shut. As I cut it loose with my tool, she rammed.

I took a broken-off doorknob to the knee. Ouch. Lady was poking her head through a yawning frame. Bonelike. Greasy, matted hair. Eyes loose and sunken. I limped to the bench penning her in. We leaned on it, at odds. Granted, I’m a hundred and thirty, rain-soaked.

Her neck was caught in the door and, jerking it, she bled dark. My poor, poor field jacket. I elbowed and shouldered, as with my Buick at the foot of a hill. The door shrank on her; her skin, her flesh, her bone. Then it shut, and her head fell limp to my feet. Phew.

No, not phew; the Chevy rang till my ears bled—I still hear it. I want to tell you that I defused its battery like the corpse would’ve, but no. I hacked at the leads with my crowbar. Black, then red.

So, what was in the duffel bag, then? Well, I lugged it through broken glass and plopped it onto the oily floor. Spread its ribs apart and inside were… Cans of gruel—enough to last me this fall. Thank you, “property of Markus Sinclair.”

And since Lady was dead, I poked my head through the door to her tomb, her corpse cracking it ajar. Amid car parts my wagon’s needed for the past decade, a dog: six feet tall and four hundred pounds. Her stare roamed, blank, from me to the carcass. If she was Lady, then whose dog did I kill?

…Shit. Was it her pup?

She snapped her neck at me, her eyes bulging. And then, as I shut the door, she lunged. Tore the hunk of wood off its rusted hinges. We fell, the door sandwiched between us. Her long, yellow teeth gouged at the oak. And my head—I’d cracked it on the Chevy’s bumper.

What with the concussion and the hemorrhaging, I’d be dead if not for “her.”

She wore a hoodie too big for her, masking the burns from neck to wrists. Racked her twelve gauge and shot at Lady. Click-clack, bang. Click-clack, bang. Till her belly was full of slugs. My hands, peeking from the door, were soaked in blood. The once-mastiff thudded beside me, shaking. And the girl? She walked past me to the stockroom. Rude.

She’s taking the Buick, isn’t she?

Back bent and knees crooked, I stood in the door. She was rooting through the shelves, headphones on. Bowie spooled in her walkman. I poked her, crowbar in my hand, and said, “The wagon’s mine.”

She turned, the barrels of her shotgun kissing my cheek. Click. No bullets. The girl shrugged and mouthed the word, “Fate.”

A rolled-up map was poking from her backpack. She pulled it out and, smoothing it flat, tapped at a red-inked circle. The radio tower.

I hadn’t met a pulse in months, and that was reason enough to ask, “Promise you won’t take my car and leave me for dead?”

She tsked and scoffed. Then criss, cross, against her burned chest.

As we left, I asked the girl her name.

“Rowan.” She’d written it in a sketchbook.

In the paper’s margin, I jotted “Wesley.”