It seemed like every business and home they passed had been destroyed or damaged, most with doors that had been kicked in. Almost nothing they passed was safe to take shelter in. That was another lesson they'd learned after Charlie had almost been stung by a scorpion when he picked up his canteen for a metallic-tasting drink of piss-warm water. They now watched out for little track marks in the dust: the indents telling them that snakes, scorpions, or spiders had taken over another of Man's abandoned houses, driven up out of the ground months before they should have emerged. Most of these places would remain theirs forever. There weren't enough people left to drive them out.
Relying on their training, the two males had been making camp with no fire and whatever was handy; wearing gloves and hats, extra pants and coats under their uniforms. Going very easy with their water, on the fourth day of being AWOL, they had gotten lucky, finding a store that was damaged (that kicked-in door again), but not cleaned out, and Kenn was relieved.
The feeling hadn't lasted long. They only had a week's worth of food and water, maybe two if they rationed, and the Marine had a feeling they might have to. The lack of rebuilding was a big sign of things to come. They hadn't even seen a single person for the last three days, until tonight, and the rare flashes of light in the dark never lasted long enough to track. Hard times were here.
The two males pulled their hoods closer as drizzle started to sprinkle them. Kenn was glad it wasn't that shit that burned - acid rain. That was something he'd heard about, but scoffed at…until he had a drop land in his eye. Then there was chemical rain, which they were getting now. Almost warm, it was flammable - a puddle would sometimes catch fire from just a thrown cigarette.
The weather wasn't the worst part of traveling now, but it had definitely slowed them down. They had only come 70 miles since ramming the dead fence to get out of the abandoned Military Installation, and they had made a lot of "We'll let this storm move out." stops. The fury of nature came suddenly now, steady downpours of hot drops that made them itch, or full of little black flakes that resembled snow. Then, there would be brilliant, flashing lightning with loud, drumming thunder that promised damage…and then nothing but silence - all in the same hour. The only true constant was the wind and it blew sand and grit into everything.