Aint a fish swimming in the ocean, she says, could beat these crackers.

She takes the rest of the box and a twenty-four pack of Coke, some bottles of water, three tubes of Pringles, a few cans of chilli and soup, and some boxes of macaroni and cheese. She grabs some other things too: a flashlight and batteries, a bar of soap in case she gets a chance to wash, a toothbrush and toothpaste, a hairbrush, and a whole spindle of scratch-off lottery tickets because she likes to see how much of a millionaire she would have been in the old times.

She checks behind the counter for a gun or ammunition, but theres nothing.

Then she notices the slugs are getting closer, so she loads up the passenger seat of the car with her haul and gets back on the road.

When shes out of town, on a long stretch of two-lane road, she opens a Coke and another packet of peanut butter crackers, which taste like cloudy orange heaven.

While shes eating, she thinks about how smart it was for God to make meatskins not interested in real food so there would be plenty left for regular folk. She remembers an old joke that makes her smile the one about the meatskin who gets invited to a wedding party. At the end of it they have twice the leftovers and half the guests.

She chuckles, and the road is long.

*

She takes the coast road for a while, shaggy palm trees everywhere and overgrown beach grass coming up through the cracks in the road, and then she turns inland for a change. Gators, shes never seen so many gators before. They are sunning themselves on the black tarmac of the highway, and when she approaches they skulk out of the way in no particular hurry. There are other towns, but still no signs of regular life. She begins to imagine herself as the last person left on the planet with all these meatskins. The first thing she would do is find a map and drive the country to see the sights. She would start in New York and then adventure herself all the way to San Francisco where they have the steep-driving hills. She could find a stray dog or tame a wolf, have it sit next to her and put its head out the window, and they could find a car with comfortable seats and sing songs while they drive.

She nods. That would be a right thing.

The sun goes down, and she turns on the headlights and one of them still works so she can see the road ahead of her but in a lopsided way. There are some lights in the distance, a glow on the horizon that must be a city, and she drives in the direction of the glow.