Excerpt: Survival

The dew on the grass was drifting into the skies as Holly trampled through the overgrowth, pushing aside branches of pine trees that were short and stubby, like the Christmas trees her family purchased from the lot each winter. The trees were driven in on trucks and deposited into empty parking lots and odd corners that had no use except as Pumpkin and Christmas Tree Lots. Those companies selling pumpkins from God-knows-where turned around after October 31st and started selling Christmas Trees.