“Yeah.”
“I’m… I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have tried to control you like that and I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”
“It’s ok. I get why you did it, it’s just that I’ve never had someone try to protect me like that. I’m used to taking care of myself.”
“I know. I just don’t even want to think about losing you again.”
“You won’t,” she said smiling at me.
“Good,” I smiled, “Now, you’re not going to like this but Thomas and I are going to go and see if anyone shows up at the Costco.”
She frowned, “And I expect you want me to stay here?”
“I was going to ask that you stay here. I can’t stop you but it could be dangerous and I would rather have you here. Please?”
“Fine. On one condition.”
Uh oh, I thought. “Ok. What is it?”
“From now on I get a say in which missions I go on. I understand that you want me safe but I can’t stay here all the time.”
She was right, I couldn’t keep babying her. “Deal,” I said hugging her. Just like that, our argument was over and everything was fine. She changed for bed, a smile on her face, and we went to sleep.
The next couple of days went by quickly and soon Thomas and I were leaving nice and early to get to the Costco. “I thought your message said noon,” said Thomas.
“It does.”
“Then why are we leaving so early? It’s only nine.”
“Because I want to get there early and get you set up in a good position to cover my ass.”
“Good point.”
At the Costco instead of turning left and going to the parking lot we turned right and headed to the Home Depot located across the street and several blocks away. With some effort, and the help of a loading truck and a Semi, we were able to reach the roof. There was a great line of site and I helped Thomas set up the rifle. Instead of one of the hunting rifles I had brought along the Heckler & Koch sniper rifle. We set the tripod on the edge of the roof so he could lie down and shoot. “Get comfortable,” I told him, “We might be here for a while.”
It wasn’t until around twelve forty-five that something happened. “Contact,” Thomas muttered looking through the scope.
“How many?”
“Just two.”
“Armed?”
“Can’t really tell but probably.”
“Alright,” I said letting out a long breath, “Let’s go say hello.”
CHAPTER 22
I climbed down off of the roof and crossed the highway on foot. As soon as I got into visual range of the two I climbed onto the hood of a car and called out, waving my arms back and forth. I wanted to make sure I had their attention right away. I didn’t want to frighten them and end up getting shot. When they acknowledge that they had seen me I hopped off the hood and made my way slowly towards them. When I got within fifteen feet one of them pulled their pistol on me. It was a young man, maybe twenty-six or so, six feet, clean shaven except for a short beard on the end of his chin. He was glaring at me with obvious hate. The other was an older man, I would say around fifty, short and bald with a large bushy beard. He hadn’t moved since waiving at me and he gave me a look like he was taking in every detail, everything from my age to my stance to my weapons were noted and categorized. He had a small smile on his face and I assumed that he didn’t find me very threatening, unlike his gun slinging companion.
“You J?” asked the bearded man.
I nodded, “Yep. But you can call me James.”
“I’m Ben and my jumpy friend here is Adam.”
“Nice to meet you both. Would you mind lowering the gun?”
“No chance in hell,” said Adam.
“Well, I think it would be best for all of us if you put the gun down.”
“I don’t give a damn what you think.”
“Ben, you seem like a good guy. Would you mind telling your friend to put the gun down?”
Ben’s smile grew a little before he turned and said seriously, “Put it down Adam.”
“Why should I?”
“Because he hasn’t been threatening.”
“Yeah and I intend to keep it that way.”
“I’m going to become very threatening if you don’t put down the damn gun.”
“Listen to him Adam,” said Ben.
“He doesn’t even have his gun out. What’s he going to do?”
“You want to see what I can do? Fine. I’m going to take my pack off, so don’t shoot me. Then I’m going to take my jacket off and unbuckle my holsters. Don’t shoot me.” I did just that without incident. “Now I’m going to dump some stuff out of my pack, nothing dangerous. Don’t shoot me,” I turned my pack upside down and some food, a bottle of water, Duct Tape and other supplies fell out. I picked up the can of spray paint that I had used on the door the other day and set it on the roof of a nearby car. I walked away from the can and Adam followed me with his gun. “I’m unarmed, my guns are over there. By all means, keep your gun out but don’t point it at me.” He hesitated for a second but after glancing at my guns on the ground he lowered his pistol, but he didn’t put it away. “Now watch the can and for God’s sake, don’t fucking shoot me.” They turned to look. I ran a hand through my hair, signaling Thomas, and watched as the can exploded in a cloud of black paint. Adam let out a yell and raised his gun but was stopped by Ben.
“I think you better put your gun away,” said Ben seriously. Adam looked like he wanted to strangle me but thought better of it and tucked it into his jeans.
I walked over and picked up my guns and buckled them back on. I began gathering up my supplies and putting it in my pack. “So is it just you two?”
“Nope. There’s a whole mess of us back at camp. I take it that there are more than just you,” he said gesturing at the blacked car roof.
I chuckled, “Yeah, a few more. So where’s camp?”
“Sorry, but I can’t tell you that.”
“No apology necessary. I completely understand. I won’t be telling you where I came from either. So is your group responsible for locking the Costco?”
“They were until you killed them,” growled Adam.
“Killed them? Listen, man, the only things I killed two days ago were Walkers. We did see signs of survivors but no living humans, just Walkers. So chill”
“Walkers?” asked Adam angrily.
“Zombies. We call them Walkers.”
“They must’ve taken refuge,” muttered Ben.
“Who?” I asked.
“Oh, we sent out a scouting party to check out a couple stores and they never returned. I figure they ran into some trouble and barricaded themselves inside, but one of them must’ve been bitten if all there was were Zombies inside.”
“That’s what we thought too. Listen, the Costco still has a bunch of supplies in it so if your group wants to go over what’s inside then you’re more than welcome too. We cleaned out most of the Walkers so it should be pretty safe.”
“Oh you’re so kind,” Adam said sarcastically, “Thank you so much for letting us go through your leftovers.”
“Look, dude, sorry some of your people turned, but tough. Don’t get pissed at me for your buddy’s mistakes. I didn’t kill them, the Walkers did.” Adam only glared. “Anyway,” I changed the subject, “are you the boss man?” I asked Ben.
“Me? Hell no. That’d be Luke.”
“You think I could meet Luke?” I asked.
“Not today.”
“Tomorrow maybe? We could meet here if you wanted.”
“Luke doesn’t leave the base.”
“Alright then, how about you take me to see Luke?”
“I can’t make that call. I’ll have to talk with him first.”
“Ok, then how about we meet here again same time tomorrow. Will that work for you?”
“It should. If it doesn’t then we’ll send someone with a message.”
“S
ounds good Ben,” I said offering him my hand. He shook it and I turned to Adam and offered him my hand as well. He didn’t take it, he only turned and began walking away. Ben shrugged and turned to follow. “Hey, Ben.”
“Yeah?”
“Next time, leave the little kid at home,” I said gesturing at Adams retreating form. I saw his shoulder hitch when he heard me.
Ben let out a bark of laughter, “Will do.”
I waited until I couldn’t see them anymore before I headed back to the Home Depot. As I reached the side where we accessed the roof Thomas was climbing down, the rifle slung over his back. “Nice shot,” I told him when he reached the ground.
“Thanks. So, how’d it go?”
“Pretty good. The short one was Ben, he seems ok. The other one was Adam and he seems like an ass but probably pretty harmless.”
“But the gun…”
“Yeah I know but he wasn’t confident with it. He was pretty jumpy.”
“Are there more of them?”
“According to Ben, they have a camp.”
“Where’s that?”
“Wouldn’t say. Can’t blame ’em, though, I wouldn’t tell them where we came from.”
“So was Ben in charge?”
“Nope, some guy named Luke. I guess he doesn’t leave their base so I’ve asked to meet him at their camp.”
“Sarah’s not going to like that,” he said grinning.
“Yeah she will, she’s going with me,” I said grinning back at him. We climbed into our truck and took off.
Back at home, I relayed exactly what I had been told by Ben and the plan to meet their leader Luke. Sarah caught my eye when I spoke of the last part and I nodded slightly to let her know that she would be coming with me. “You think this is a good idea?” asked Jason.
“I think it’s a terrible idea but we need to know who these people are and if they’re a threat.”
“Then I’m coming.”
“Me too,” said Matt.
“No, no. I’m keeping the number of people who are going small, as in two, as in Sarah and I.”
“What, why?”
“I don’t want these people to know our true numbers, I don’t want to appear threatening, and having Sarah along will help.”
“Well, they obviously don’t know Sarah,” joked Justin.
“And that’s part of my point. She can help me if the shit does hit the fan.”
“Yeah but…” started Jason.
“But what? Is there someone here who can, right now and besides me, fight better than Sarah?” Silence “That’s what I thought. Sarah and I will go to the meeting spot tomorrow at noon. If we’re back soon then that mean we got a message saying they couldn’t meet. If we’re back late then it means we went to visit Luke. If we don’t come back at all tonight, I want you to wait until the middle of the next day before you even think about looking for us. Ok?” They nodded, “Good, now let’s forget about Ben and the rest, for now, I’ve got a project to start.”
I wanted to build a cold storage for some of the canned food and for any meat that we might get in the future. There were two ways that we could build the storage. One way would be to dig a large hole in the ground deep enough that the temperature would drop significantly. The second way would be to dig deep into the clay hill in the backyard. This would be a lot harder because the clay would be harder to carve out but there were benefits of cutting into the clay. The clay would hold a cooler temperature than the dirt and when it rained the storage wouldn’t become as water logged. Either way, it wasn’t going to be fun. Walking out back I led the group to where I decided we would put the storage. I opted for the clay version just because it would keep a colder temperature. “So what we’re going to do,” I said standing in front of the hill, “is build a big ass cold storage inside this hill.”
“Fuck me,” mumbled Justin.
“You’re kidding right?” asked Jason.
“Nope. Come on, it’ll be fun,” I said sarcastically, “and it’ll come in handy.”
“I guess,” agreed Matt. “How big are we going to make it?”
“I figure six by six by ten.”
“Ten feet? You want us to dig into this hill ten fucking feet?” exclaimed Jason.
“Yeah pretty much,” I said grinning.
“Fuck,” muttered Matt, “When do we start?”
“Why not now? Let’s grab some shovels, I think we might even have a pickaxe,” I said heading to the garage. I heard them groan before following me. We spent the rest of the day carting off wheelbarrows full of clay and dumping them over the side of the lawn. We didn’t get far, the top layer was hard and dry and some of it crumbled away but the further we dug the wetter the clay became. The wetter the clay, the heavier it was and the harder it was to remove. We were probably working for three hours straight before taking a break and we had barely made a dent in the huge hill.
“This is going to take forever,” complained Thomas, he had switched with Matt about an hour ago.
That’s the point, I thought. I wiped the sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand “It won’t take that long,” I said, “Maybe a few weeks?”
“Weeks? Yeah try months,” scoffed Sarah. She had just walked outside and was carrying several bottles of water.
“Thanks for the words of encouragement,” I said smiling at her.
“Anything I can do to help.”
“If you really wanted to help then you can pick up a shovel and start slinging dirt with us.”
“I here in a more managerial capacity.”
“Oh, so you get to tell us what to do?”
“Yep.”
“Story of my life,” I muttered.
“Hey, I heard that.”
“I know,” I said winking at her.
She threw a water bottle at me before passing out the rest. “You guys going to keep working on this?” she asked.
I looked around at the guys, they were tired and I knew they didn’t want to work for much longer. “Yeah, maybe an hour more.” They all groaned, “Come on, it’s just an hour.” It was more like forty-five minutes when we finished for the day. It had seemed like we had hauled a few metric tons of clay, but it barely looked like we made any progress. This project would take us a while and hopefully keep the guys busy enough that they wouldn’t want to go looking for trouble. Other than the possible threat from this new group of survivors, our lives were pretty good. We had clean water, plenty of supplies and a secure perimeter. There wasn’t a reason for them to go on raids or do any recon. As long as we had food, water, and ammo we would be fine.
After washing up, warm water courtesy of Hannah and Liz, and changing we ate dinner and sat in the living room playing Cranium, the Disney version. I don’t even think I was paying attention, just watching the people I cared about having a good time. They were laughing, smiling and arguing over who could make a better Pinocchio out of clay. I was shaken out of my minor daze by Sarah poking my shoulder. “James. Hello, James, anyone home?”
“Sorry, what?”
“It’s your turn.”
“Oh, right.” We were split up into teams, Sarah and Michelle were my partners. I rolled our dice and took a card and read it. “Crap,” I muttered.
“Whatever it is, you have to do it,” Michelle said with a smile on her face.
“I know, I know,” I said getting to my feet. My card demanded that I act like Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean, without speaking. “Well, here goes nothing.”
We ended up taking second place, Carrie, Liz, Matt and Hannah took first. There was a fair amount arguing that followed the end of the game. Some argued that they had an unfair advantage having an extra person, the other teams only had three people apiece. I didn’t really care that much and I didn’t argue, but Sarah, man is she a sore loser.
“It’s not a big deal,” I told Sarah. We were in bed and she was still going on about the game.
“Yes, it is. It was unfair.”
“Did you have fun?”
“Yeah.”
“Did Michelle have fun?”
“Yeah.”
“Then stop complaining.”
Survivors Series (Book 1): Heroes Aren't Born Page 34
