Chapter 36: The Inventory Ledger
The lantern hissed softly, a single tongue of flame dancing behind the glass as Roy braced himself against the dog-eared notebook. The pencil stub felt enormous in his grip, the wood rough and splintered against his palms, but he'd gotten better at this. Every scratch of graphite across the page was a small victory, a mark that meant the world was still measurable, still knowable.
"Twelve cans of tomatoes," Rosa called from the shelf, her voice slightly muffled as she reached deep into the dark recess of the cabinet. "Seven of them are dented, so we eat those first."
Roy scratched another tally. His fingers were cold despite the warmth of the kitchen, and he had to stop twice to blow on them. The tremor that had plagued him in the first days after the shrinking had faded to a low hum now, present but manageable. Still, Rosa noticed. She always noticed.
She glanced back at him, her sharp eyes softening for just a moment. "You want the mug warmer?"
"I'm fine."
"Roy."
"I'm fine," he repeated, and this time he meant it enough that she let it go.
The inventory stretched on. Grains in their sealed bins, beans, and the last of the dried pasta. Rosa called out numbers with a steady rhythm, and Roy transcribed them into the notebook with increasing confidence. The picture that emerged was sobering.
"Two months," Rosa said, finally settling into the chair across from him. She ran a hand through her loose hair, the braid she'd undone earlier still not redone, and stared at the tallies. "Maybe two and a half if we stretch it. The grain will carry us further, but we need to focus on the harvest come planting season. That's the real prize."
Roy nodded, his eyes tracking the columns. "And the animal feed?"
"Enough for the chickens through winter, barely. The goats are on pasture more than grain, so they'll manage." Rosa's brow furrowed as she reached into the medical drawer, the one they all knew was getting lighter. She pulled out the contents and set them on the table with a gentleness that bordered on reverence.
Antiseptic. Dwindling.
Three rolls of gauze.
The silence between them stretched.
"We need to restock," Roy said quietly.
Rosa's jaw tightened. "I know." She stared at the three rolls of gauze for a long moment, then let out a breath that carried the weight of everything she wasn't saying.
"The supermarket," Roy said, setting the pencil down carefully. "The one on Mill Street. We never fully cleared it."
Rosa's eyes lifted from the gauze, a flicker of something sharp passing through them. "That place is a maze. Back room, loading dock, two floors of aisles. We'd need hours."
"We'd need Jason," Roy corrected gently. "And we'd need to move quiet. But if anywhere still has antiseptic and gauze, it's there. That place held everything before. Pharmacy section alone had two full aisles."
Rosa was quiet for a moment, her fingers tracing the edge of the notebook. He watched her work through it, the calculation playing out behind her eyes. Risk against reward. Time against need. She did that math in her head every day, balancing their survival on a ledger only she could see.
"If we go at first light," she said slowly, "we can be there before the worst of the day's heat. The walkers'll be sluggish in the cold, and the snow's been keeping them scattered. Jason's quiet on his feet, and you know the layout better than any of us."
Roy nodded. "I mapped it twice. I remember the stockroom layout, where the loading dock door opens, the fire escape off the east wall. If we go in through the roof access, we can drop down into the stockroom and work our way into the main floor. Less exposure."
Rosa's mouth quirked, almost a smile. "You've been thinking about this."
"Every time we run low on something. It's been waiting."
She looked at the three rolls of gauze, then at the tallies in the notebook, then at him. Small and determined on a table that felt like an ocean. "We bring the big packs. The frame packs Lee reinforced. Medical supplies first, then shelf-stable food, then anything useful we can carry. Jason takes point on the way in, I take point on the way out."
"Security?"
"Sandy on comms from the roof. Amie and Ally hold the perimeter on the east side in case we need a diversion. Jayden stays home with the goats and the coop." She said it with the ease of someone who had already run this operation a hundred times in her head. Maybe she had.
Roy picked the pencil back up, its weight familiar now. "I'll draw the route. Mark the choke points, the places we can hold if something goes wrong."
Rosa reached across the table, her finger brushing the back of his hand, a touch so light it was almost a thought. "We'll be careful. All three of us."
He looked up at her, at the green eyes that had carried him through a dozen near-catastrophes, and felt the hum in his hands settle.
"I know," he said.
He let the pencil rest against the notebook, the graphite tip leaving a small gray smudge on the wood like a period at the end of a thought. The lantern hissed between them, and the shadows it cast across Rosa's face made her look older than she was, or maybe just more honest.
She stood first, her chair scraping against the floor in a sound that felt too loud for the quiet kitchen. "Come on. Let's go see what we're working with."
Roy gathered the notebook, tucking it under his arm with the pencil, and stepped to the edge of the table. Rosa's hand came down automatically, palm open, fingers spread. He walked into it like it was the most natural thing in the world, because by now it was. She lifted him to her shoulder, and he settled against the curve of her neck, one hand finding the thin braid she still hadn't redone.
The stairwell was colder than the kitchen, the draft carrying the mineral smell of the water storage tanks above. Roy pressed closer to her skin as they climbed, his small body tucking into the warmth of her collar. Rosa's hand came up to cup him there, a shield against the chill, and her thumb traced a slow, absent line along his spine.
They passed the third floor landing, then the fourth. The fifth was quieter than the rest of the building, the hallway narrower, the doors all reinforced with the same salvaged metal brackets that held the barricades together. Rosa stopped at the third door on the left, pulling a key from the chain around her neck. She unlocked it and pushed inside.
The armory was a converted storage room, maybe eight feet by ten, lined with shelves that Lee had bolted to the walls in the early days. The frame packs hung from hooks along the back wall, their straps oiled and ready. Racks of canned goods and water purification tablets sat beside boxes of ammunition and a small collection of knives that Sandy had sharpened until they gleamed. The air smelled of gun oil, old leather, and the faint mint of the dried herbs hanging from a nail near the ceiling.
Rosa set Roy down on a low shelf beside the door, where the light from the single lantern reached without quite touching. "This is it," she said, her voice quieter here, almost reverent. "Everything we've got."
Roy looked at the shelves. The frame packs were sturdy, the straps reinforced with duct tape and careful stitching. But he counted the boxes of ammunition as his eyes adjusted to the dim, and the numbers were thin. Medical supplies in a plastic bin near the back. Three filters for the water pump. A coil of rope that had seen better days.
"We'll make a list," he said, setting the notebook down and opening it to a fresh page. "Everything we need to find. Medical first. Antiseptic, gauze, bandages, suture kits. Then water purification tablets and spare filters. Ammunition if we find it, but that's a bonus, not a priority."
Rosa moved through the room, her fingers brushing the shelves like she was saying hello to old friends. She stopped at the frame packs, testing the strap on the largest one. "Jason's pack fits him better than mine, but I want the weight distributed right. Lee's reinforcements held up on the last run. We'll take two packs, maybe three if we split the load."
Roy scratched notes into the margin, his pencil moving in small, deliberate strokes. "Tools. We should look for bolt cutters, a pry bar, maybe a crowbar if we can find one. The loading dock might be locked from the inside. And rope. Good rope, not the frayed stuff we've been making do with."
Rosa turned to look at him, a faint smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "You've been holding onto this plan for a while."
"Three inches tall doesn't leave a lot of room for hobbies. Planning was all I had."
Her smile deepened, something soft and sad moving behind her eyes. She crossed to the shelf and crouched down, bringing her face level with him. "You've got more than that now. You've got us."
Roy looked at her, at the green eyes that had carried him through darkness and storm drains and the long, cold nights when being small felt like being lost. He swallowed against the sudden tightness in his throat.
"I know," he said again, and this time the words felt like a promise.
She reached out and brushed her thumb against his cheek, a featherlight touch, then straightened and clapped her hands together. "We'll tell the others at dinner tonight. Three days gives us time to prep the gear, finalize the route, and make sure everyone knows their role. Jason can scout the approach with the binoculars from the roof tomorrow morning."
Roy picked the pencil back up, the wood rough against his fingers. "I'll have the route drawn by then. Every choke point, every exit, every place we can hold if things go wrong."
Rosa nodded, her gaze sweeping the armory one more time. "Then let's make it count."
The pencil stub hovered over the page, and Roy let the weight of what they had just decided settle into him like a stone dropped into still water. It wasn't fear, exactly. It was the same thing he felt every time Rosa shouldered a pack or Jason checked his rifle before a run: the quiet, humming awareness that the world could take them at any moment, and that they were choosing to walk into it anyway.
He closed the notebook with a soft thump. "Three days."
"Three days," Rosa repeated. She ran her palm over the frame pack's strap one last time, then turned away from the shelves and scooped him up, settling him in the crook of her arm like she was carrying a book she didn't want to crease. "We'll need to eat well before we leave. Oatmeal doesn't count."
"Jason's burnt oatmeal?"
"Especially Jason's burnt oatmeal."
Roy laughed, small and surprised, and Rosa's mouth curved in answer as she carried him out of the armory. The door clicked shut behind them, the lock turning with a sound that felt final in the quiet hallway.
The common room was waking up when they got there. Lee was sprawled on one of the couches, a compress pressed to his forehead, his bandaged head propped up on a stack of pillows that Sandy must have arranged. He looked up as they entered, his eyes tracking Rosa's path across the room with the lazy alertness of a man who was still wincing at the light.
"Inventory done?" he asked, his voice a little rough.
Rosa set Roy down on the arm of the couch nearest Lee's head. "Done. We need to talk at dinner. All of us."
Lee's eyebrows rose. "That serious?"
"We're out of gauze," Roy said. "Three rolls left."
The words hung in the air. Lee's face tightened, the easy humor draining out of it, and he nodded slowly. "Mill Street?"
Roy met his eyes. "You know it."
"I know it's a death trap." But Lee's voice wasn't arguing. It was measuring, the same way Roy had seen him measure a truss or a load-bearing wall before deciding whether it would hold. "We'll need the good packs."
"They're already picked out," Rosa said. She crossed to the window, peering through the gap between the boards at the grey afternoon light. "Three days to prep. Sandy on comms, Amie and Ally on the perimeter, Jayden holding the fort with the animals."
Lee let out a breath, long and slow. "And me?"
"You're on recovery. Doctor's orders." Rosa's voice softened just slightly. "We'll need you sharp for the follow-up runs, not hobbling on a concussion."
Lee grumbled something under his breath but subsided, pressing the compress more firmly against his forehead. Roy watched the acceptance settle into his shoulders, the same way it settled into all of them eventually. Plans were made, roles were assigned, and the world kept turning while they braced themselves against it.
Outside, the wind picked up, rattling the boards and sending a thin shaft of cold through a cracked seam in the window frame. Rosa didn't flinch. She just stared out at the grey sky, her hand resting on the sill, and Roy knew she was already walking the route in her head. Every street, every intersection, every shadow where something might be waiting.
He let his hand rest on the couch cushion, feeling the rough fabric beneath his fingers. Three days. Then they would step out into the world again, small and large together, and they would come back with what they needed. They had to.