My long lost, but not so lost, friend

Jason Duncan
Big Bend region, Florida

I grew up in a small town in the Florida Panhandle. I went to a small school that taught all grades, from preschool to high school. I started there in middle school. One of my best friends was this kid named Howard. Howard and I were thick as thieves through all of our formative years. We were inseparable barring serious illness.

I found the fucker. He found me. Whatever. In this crazy bullshit, this chaos panic and disorder, we crossed paths at just the right moment. Five minutes either way and we'd have passed one another, likely never to see each other again. He was sitting on the hood of a car on a long stretch of county road between two towns. Just sitting there. Said he had just walked out of the woods and was about to head back out again when he heard my engine. I told him it might be foolish for him to just sit out there exposed like that. Not everyone is friendly these days. More so than before.

He stayed in the panhandle after graduation while I moved on to explore and sew my oats. When this shit kicked off earlier in the year, he tried to hold out with his family, but apparently they succumbed and were lost. His words..."they were lost." He gets the glassy eyed stare when he says it, so I'm not pressing for details. He said he got on his mountain bike with a backpack and started riding. There are a lot of long dirt roads up there and I imagine you can make it a pretty fair distance without passing many of the dead. He says he made it almost to Tallahassee before he ran into real trouble. Again the glassy stare. He was trying to get to South Florida because the news said there were refugee centers and evacuation points all over the place.

I explained how wrong that was now. Maybe if he had driven, he'd have made it sooner... would have missed this rendezvous .... I'm glad he didn't. How selfish is that? I'm glad he suffered longer because it brought us together.

Shit. I suck.

We're going to try for Apalachicola or St. Joe or something. I want to stay near the water. They don't seem to like the water. There was a pretty small population there before. Maybe there are still survivors. I still don't want to go to a QZ and I've convinced Howard we shouldn't even attempt it. I hope I'm right.

He's riding with me now. I've got enough supplies for both of us to make it a long while if nothing too shitty happens. Yeah. I know.

UPDATES: The laptop turned on again by itself. Still didn't do anything significant.

There are deer everywhere. I think it's more than there used to be. Lots of other wildlife. I guess the lack of traffic isn't wearing there numbers down lower like it had been. Either way, it's keeping us better fed.

Will advise.