A gigantic red circle around a smaller red circle crested the tree line as they drove.

"Target! We've got to stop!" Jane said, bouncing in her seat.

"You know it's been emptied," Frank said. He'd taken over driving a few hours back, giving Emily a chance to take a nap in the passenger seat. She was out within seconds.

"Maybe, but maybe not. We're out in the middle of nowhere. Maybe there's some stuff left."

Frank couldn't think of a good reason to deny her—and then wondered why he wanted to deny her in the first place. For some reason he felt the need to be confrontational for confrontation's sake. He wanted to get under her skin. Maybe it was because she had almost killed him... twice... or maybe he was starting to like her too much. Maybe he was mad. Mad at her for being dead. Mad because she was the greatest woman he'd ever met and everything about her was... impossible.

He glanced at her big smile and nearly life-like eyes shining bright green in the dappled light. She adjusted the army blanket over her shoulder and softly bit her lower lip with ridiculously cute childlike anticipation. She raised her eyebrows at him twice, in quick succession—inviting him into her excitement. Even sunken and surrounded by heavy dark circles, her eyes gleamed.

Goddamn! She has beautiful fucking eyes.

Frank turned back toward the road. "Let's stop, then," he said, his voice cracking.

Emily rubbed her eyes and looked over at him. "What was that?"

"What?" he croaked defensively.

"Was that your voice?" she said. "Sounded like a chicken squawking."

"We ran over a chicken," Frank said, matter of fact.

"I love Target," Jane squeaked.

The shopping center was tucked away from the highway, nestled in the dense trees. It looked out of place surrounded by so much natural beauty, this huge, solid, angular structure. There was the Target, then three or four little sundry stores and a hair salon.

Everything was smashed. Even a few of the letters on the Target sign, at least thirty feet up, were broken. The parking lot was nearly deserted. Only a few cars, long since abandoned and torched dotted the massive expanse of asphalt.

The parking lot light poles had letters on them.

They parked the Suburban in the "A" lot.

"I can't believe you're still smiling—the place is trashed," Frank said throwing the shifter into park.

"Yeah, but you can always find something at Target," Jane said, hopping out of the truck and rushing ahead, her army blanket flapping behind her as her bare feet slapped the pavement.

Emily and Frank followed at a leisurely pace.

"There might be something we could use," Emily said, shrugging.

"Yeah, maybe."

"I always used to imagine what it would be like to have the world to myself," she continued, holding her filthy dress against her thighs in the light breeze. "I guess I never thought about everyone else getting to it first."

"Yeah." Frank kicked at debris as they walked. "What a goddamn mess."

"I hope you don't mind that I'm tagging along with you guys."

"No, not at all." He looked at her, but she was looking at the ground. "Hey, the more the merrier, right."

"Okay." After a few more paces she said, "I'm not going to fuck you though."

"What?" Frank stopped. Emily kept walking.

Jane was scaling a small wall of shopping carts that had been piled up in front of the doors. She was having trouble keeping covered, the blanket getting caught in the tangled red plastic carts and exposing a butt cheek, then her narrow, bony back, but she remained unperturbed in her quest to explore the remnants of the store.

As much as Frank got a little thrill from seeing flashes of Jane's hyper-pale skin, he was concerned about the mountain of carts. Someone had probably done that for a reason. Frank doubled back to the truck to grab one of the guns. Sure, things seemed quiet, but one mustn't forget, the world was doing its best to kill you.

Inside, Jane pranced around like a kid, slipping on torn pieces of cardboard and broken glass. The contents of the shelves had been thrown to the floor and destroyed. Judging from the wide black tracks on the tile, it appeared as though someone had come through the place on an ATV. The grocery section was gutted but women's wear still boasted quite a selection. Some of the clothes were still hanging on racks. Emily caught up pushing a squeaky wheeled cart.

Within a few minutes it was nearly full. Frank watched their tittering spree, grinning at the unfiltered joy on their faces and decided to leave them to it.

Light fixtures dangled on grey wires, thin glass shards and white dust coated the collection of garbage strewn through the aisles.

Frank strolled lazily—the machine gun slung over his shoulder.

He was making his way to sporting goods hoping to find weapons, tents, sleeping bags, lanterns and whatever else would get a survivalist hard.

At the travel section he grabbed a torn and soiled rolling suitcase and dragged it behind him. He knew the girls would be cramming the Suburban full of all kinds of shit—he needed to keep his plunder separate and tidy.

He could hear the girl's excited voices echoing in the diffuse light coming through the front of the store. It seemed like Emily had let down her guard a bit with Jane. It sounded like they were getting along swimmingly.

He stopped off at the menswear section and neatly packed his suitcase with Dickies work pants (which were four sizes too big but nothing a belt couldn't fix), a stack of grey and black tee-shirts, mismatched socks and any underwear he could find. It appeared most of the winter clothes had already been picked through, but he did end up finding a multicolored skiing jacket in pretty decent shape. He held it up in the half-light and decided it was something a grandmother would wear—the pastels, the fringe of gold—it might as well have had a huge cartoon cat embroidered on the back.

Apocalypse or not, he couldn't bring himself to wear the thing.

"I'd rather be cold," he said, morbidly picturing himself at some point in the future shivering, and chattering his teeth, buried up to his chest in snow. His Jack Torrance moment. Feet numb, eyes too cold to blink and he'd say, better this than that fucking jacket.

Sporting goods was trashed. Nothing worth salvaging. Frank didn't figure they'd be playing pickle-ball any time soon or needing a volleyball net, so he abandoned the search and went to find the girls.

It was strange, walking the aisles in near darkness.

He'd always assumed big-box stores like Target, Best Buy and the like, were lit by their own little suns. Seeing them without the consistent florescent wash seemed wrong on a level bordering unreal. If the place hadn't been ransacked, boldly announcing the end of the world, it might have been too much too handle. It would have seemed too... sinister.

Places like Target weren't meant to be dark.

Frank found Jane and Emily chatting away happily, each one pushing an overflowing cart. For a moment, the scene almost looked normal apart from the meager lighting, seeing the two of them sauntering toward the cash registers casually conversing. They parked their carts next to four others which were also filled and turned to go back for more.

"Is all that crap... we can't take all that," Frank said, pointing.

Jane looked over at him, she was wearing turquoise leggings, a grey zip-up hoodie and white Chuck Taylor knock-offs.

She looked good.

"We can fit it," she said nodding.

"We cannot fit it. Not all of that!" He was still pointing.

"There's more room than you think in the Suburban," Emily offered.

"Not that much room. We'd have to leave all the gas tanks and water. And find a trailer."

"But look what we found," Jane said, shuffling over to Frank and grabbing him by the wrist. Most of the carts were full of clothes but one was stacked with books. "Their selection was... limited, but I figure we're going to need stuff to read at some point. Here this one's for you."

"This is a romance novel."

"Closest thing to porn I could find."

"Hilarious," Frank said—not smiling. He tossed the Harlequin aside and sifted through the stacks. "Harry Potter?"

"It's the last one in the series. I've read all the others, so I just thought..."

"But it's huge."

"Yeah well, Harry's a complicated guy. Besides, I wanna see if Ron ends up fucking Hermione."

"You know this is a children's book." Frank said.

Emily was standing by quietly, then elbowed Frank and whispered, "I've read it and it doesn't say so but... they fuck."

"What?" Jane looked up.

"Nothing," Emily said giving Frank a wink. Emily was now wearing a pair of cut-off jean shorts and what looked like a toddler's tee-shirt. The slogan on the front read, I love daddy's money.

On her feet she wore some generic black combat boots with a zipper up the side, lank, oversized white socks bunched up at the top.

Frank looked back at the overflowing carts. "Is that a bathing suit?" he asked incredulously.

"It's cute," Jane said grabbing the pale blue, two-piece and hugging it like a kitten. "I told you, it's crazy the stuff you can find at Target. Like, I would buy this back in the old days."

"When did you become a bubbly 12-year-old?"

"I'm just excited. I haven't felt this in a while. Let me have this." A flash of seriousness glossed her eyes.

"Okay. Okay. Look. You guys can have one cart..."

"Three..." Jane smiled pleadingly.

"Two... carts. Only two. I'm going outside to smoke."

"Thanks dad," Emily said to his back.

He made it a few steps further before he heard Jane in a loud whisper say, "Wait! Frank. Let me see the gun."

Frank stopped cold—his spine went rigid. He wondered if he should drop the handle of the rolling suitcase or tighten his grip—use it as a weapon. His body didn't wait for his mind to make a decision—his knuckles turned white and popped as they squeezed.

"Frank? What are you waiting for? Give me the gun."

Jane's voice was devoid of fear. She just sounded annoyed. He looked over his shoulder and the two girls were standing where he'd left them—their bodies loose and relaxed.

"Skunk," Jane whispered.

"What?"

"There's a skunk over there. Give me the gun."

Frank left the suitcase and tip-toed back to the girls, slowing taking the gun from his shoulder wondering if skunk was some kind of codeword. Jane met him and took the gun, shouldered it, squinted through the site and asked Emily if it was ready to fire. Emily made a quick assessment, reached up and flipped a switch.

"Single shot," she said and nodded.

The sound was enormous. A giant, tangible thing. Frank reluctantly welcomed back the ringing in his skull.

"I got it," Jane started jogging toward the shadows, "I think."

"Did she just shoot a real skunk?" he asked Emily.

"I think she did."

Frank thought for a moment and watched as Jane navigated the overturned displays and things. "She's gonna eat that skunk, isn't she?" he asked no one in particular.

"I think she is," Emily responded.

"Oh man."

"When we got some make-up and stuff, I think she grabbed some perfume. Maybe we should get some more."

"Yeah." Frank looked at the floor. It was hard to come to terms with finding a girl attractive and then picturing her eating a skunk.