Elias felt a rush of adrenaline. At the big-box stores, six dollars bought you two measly ounces. Here, it bought you a week of life.
Elias was a man of modest means and high anxieties. He didn't want a yacht or a sports car; he wanted a basement filled with enough calories to survive a decade of silence. But survival, he’d quickly learned, was expensive. A single pouch of beef stroganoff at the local outdoor supply store cost as much as a fancy steak dinner at a restaurant he could never afford. "Looking for the long-haul stuff?" cheapest place to buy freeze dried food
Elias jumped. A man in a faded green vest stood by a pallet of bottled water. He looked like he was made of beef jerky and old newspapers—leathery, thin, and surprisingly sharp-eyed. Elias felt a rush of adrenaline
The fluorescent lights of the Mega-Mart hummed with a low, menacing vibration that matched the knot in Elias’s stomach. He pushed a cart with one squeaking wheel past towers of colorful cereal boxes, his eyes fixed on a crumpled list. Elias was a man of modest means and high anxieties