When most people thought of supply runs, they thought of stores. During the apocalypse that mental picture included aisles of abandoned food. Rotted perishables, and neatly stacked non-perishables there for the taking. Unfortunately, most stores either ran out or got looted. She always checked just in case. That went for gas stations too.

For Jessika the biggest win falls came from personal residences. When the fever first hit, there was panic and with good reason. Like Y2K, the bird flu, natural disasters and every other impending doom to date, the paranoid stocked up. Luckily for Jess (not so lucky for the home owners) they didn't live long enough to burn through their supplies. Houses full of non-perishables, bottled water, candles, batteries, and even occasionally a few guns. The trick was knowing which houses to explore. Jess usually aimed for houses with boarded windows. The ones that didn't evacuate but rather tried to weather the storm. More than once she stumbled across corpses with suicide notes. It was hard to look at but if enough time passed the bodies didn't even smell anymore. They just looked like skinny dried husks where a person used to sit. It was amazing how many people ended it with a bullet in the brain. It was gory but it did mean an extra gun and maybe ammo if she was lucky.

This house didn't have a corpse. It did have an open back door. So either they decided to make a break for it, which would probably mean there wasn't much to pick through. Or they ventured out and got attacked. Despite popular belief, walkers weren't completely brainless. They stumbled around but there must have been a little glimmer of memory in there somewhere because most of them returned to places they knew when they were alive. Her crowbar, or Bruce as she lovingly called it, was already out and ready but going into a place like that meant a walker could be around any corner. She didn't know the layout so that made it even more dangerous. It was a good thing Shane wasn't there.

She almost asked him to go so he could see first hand how capable she was, how careful. Being naturally paranoid benefited her well but risk or not this place was a find and knowing what she did about Shane he would have either tried to talk her out of it or make her wait outside while he went in. The guy seemed nice, responsible, all that jazz but he didn't look ahead enough. His idea of a supply run was food and water maybe some other essentials for the moment but what did she expect. They lived in tents for crying out loud. Completely exposed if the walkers did eventually start traveling toward them.

Jess wasn't just looking for food and water. She was interested in finding ways to make herself completely self sufficient. Eventually the processed food, gasoline, bottled water, and manufactured goods would be gone. Hopefully not for a while but it would happen and when it did, her goal was to be so self sufficient that she doesn't even notice. She didn't want to live like a caveman or tree house dwelling hippie but there were other ways to utilize the resources without scavenging through the wreckage. She made sure to get the immediate resources first but she always looked at books they had, especially anything medical, agricultural, or DIY projects.

Her overall plan was to find a place, house or business, that looked big enough and sturdy enough to fulfill her needs. She also needed property because she'd definitely be growing her own crops and possibly raising animals too but only after she had the crops established so she could feed them without starving herself. It went without saying that the property would need the biggest heaviest walls she could fashion. Walkers don't climb so well so a chain link fence would work for them but other survivors looking to sneak onto the property would need to be thwarted. The house itself would have to be fitted with solar panels. There were actually do it yourself kits but they might be tricky to find. And she'd have to learn more about household electricity needs so she would know how many kits she would need to power the house. Once she knew the formula, she was pretty sure she could work out the math. Maybe get a few extra and rig them to car batteries just in case. And well water or a water source on the property was necessary too. She had a lot of ideas but waiting for the government to come to the rescue was never one of them.