Dog Days

CJ prepared to head out as soon as the day broke. The familiar pang was the first thing to wake her up these days.

Boots. Check. Her brown hikers. Not the most comfortable shoes but the more sensible, should she get caught outside. Or in case she got lucky enough today to escape from L.A.

Her two-year plan, turned five-year plan, turned get-the-hell-out now plan was in immediate effect.

Waist holster. Extra magazines. Check.

Beretta. Stylish and made for her hands. Also fully loaded. Check. No one could see this.

Jacket. Loose fitting denim. Check.

Gold locket. Check. No one could see this either. She tucked the heart-shaped locket Cole had given her into the front of her tight black denim jeans. She wouldn’t risk wearing it around her neck and risk it either getting caught on something or catching the attention of a thief. It wasn’t hers to lose.

When are you coming back, dude?

Dude. He was way much more than just “dude” to her.

She grabbed her backpack with more essentials last. God she was starving.

She walked out of her grandma's old English cottage home. Only this wasn't South Pasadena. It was East Los Angeles and the now defunct 5 freeway was just blocks away. All the action happened on that freeway in the initial days of the invasion and all the current skirmishes, especially, happened in and around that area. The immediate conflict and what she could gather had ended and now random, and no less dangerous fights were happening.

A boom in the distance shook her.

Right now all she could think of was food, and gathering information. The earlier she got out, the better. She walked past the mostly empty houses and litter strewn on her street.

Most of the families had packed up and left. Now just squatters were left, and in the early days of the fighting, a few rogue soldiers with confederate flags started ransacking houses they thought they could get stuff out of.

The empty appearance of her grandparents home and the for sale sign out front just garnered a quick look in the windows. They came at night and peered past the living room, the dining room into an empty bedroom, and the kitchenette at the front of the house, right into the kitchen where she crouched hidden. They ended up raiding her neighbors home.

It was just her and squatters and strays now. Dogs and cats. Oh, and a few aircraft. No patrol units. Even the strays were starting to disappear.

Just then the food truck came into view. Her eyes almost popped out of her skull! There was quite a line formed and people were talking loudly. It was an argument about the price.

When it was her turn she paid for her bowl of plain meat that didn’t taste like beef with a Swiss army knife, Old Man Jack from the bar had given her. They stopped taking cash today and even worse, they started selling dog meat, and she ate it.

Cole and I are strays. We met at the Hospital the day my grandparents and his wife passed. The same day the South rose again and attacked the liberal states.

Heading east after Cole meant going through downtown Los Angeles. She was a woman alone. Going south led her through some beautiful and no, not safe, country and heading west all the way to the beach was, well, a dead end. Anyway, her goal was to head North to the California Oregon border but she was surrounded on all sides by urban and suburban neighborhoods of Los Angeles County. She hated Orange County so she likely wouldn’t be heading that way.

She was eating the last of the meat when she looked up and saw a familiar figure headed her way.