The beer can pops open with a hiss as I hear Danny yell "'Whoo! 'Merica!" I turn around and he is dressed head to toe in red, white and blue. He's wearing a mixture of faded clothes and what looks like a cheap used plastic tablecloth from a 4th of July party.
"Seriously?" I ask. "You're opening a beer at 10 am? We just got here and this place needs lots of work still."
"Dude, can you believe this beer though? It's actually called American beer on the label. Here, catch!" Danny tosses me a beer. I grab it kind of angrily.
"It's warm even." I pop it open anyway and take a gulp of the stale cheap looking beer. The can has an old patriotic looking design. It has a picture of some now former athlete on the back. His name has long faded out but I don't think I'd know he was anyway. It's beer at least. And I guess it is the 4th of July, the American Independence holiday, whatever that means anymore.
Danny and I have finally found a house. There aren't too many in good enough shape to even be much recognizable as a place to find shelter, let alone call a home. At least it's livable, with a relatively intact roof. It's an old beach house, which was a luxury at one time. It's small but it's really about the location. The view of the lake is amazing. The house sits on Lake Erie, south of what was once Buffalo, New York, not far from the shores of Canada. Not that we can easily get back over there. The bridge is long blown down and any boats have long been scavenged. And it's not like we ever saw anyone on the other side of the river up north anyway.
Danny finally says "Scott, let's just take it easy today. We can get settled into the house tomorrow. Let's just celebrate the day."
"For what? The fourth of July is more of a joke than ever."
"Celebrating our own independence then!"
"Fine, to our independence," I say as I raise the can of stale piss in a feigned toast.
I guess I should be able to explain how things got to be this way, but honestly I don't know. It wasn't zombies or some horror crap like that. Perhaps it was a disease outbreak. But there had been pandemics before and they didn't end the world, even if it felt like that sometimes. I remember all kinds of rumors that spread on social media. Everyone was disappearing or dying. It was maybe aliens snatching people, a military invasion, a right wing coup, a left wing coup, and at one point everyone really did think it might be zombies. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter because I'm going to kill Danny.
I am writing this short story in installments, one chapter at a time. I am just writing a bit each day and am not sure yet where the story will lead. I've never done this before so this is an experiment to practice writing. Thank you for reading.