Thinking back on the lethargy that Dave had seen so far, he wasn't surprised by the lack of effort from the other survivors that he was noticing. But considering the events that lead to this time, it didn't seem surprising. If they didn't wake up and become energised soon then they'd have some serious issues surviving in the future - even with all the supplies right underneath them.
Dave didn't push too far into the vegetable section as he noticed a slight rotting smell from within. The fresh food section was probably starting to decay. Instead he heading for the tin food section where he started filling his trolly with pop-top cans of soup. He filled about half the trolly before moving on to the kitchen wear section. At the kitchen wear section Dave grabbed several dozen spoons and put them into the trolly.
Pushing the trolly into an aisle dedicated to drinks, Dave stopped in front of various sized slabs of filled water bottles. The big slabs were a bit heavy, but Dave stacked as many of the smaller slabs of bottled water onto the trolly as he could dare.
With all the supplies that he thought important, Dave left the supermarket and pushed the trolly to the back of the shopping centre. At the back of the shopping centre, instead of stairs, was an access to an inclined ramp so that people with shopping trollies could get from floor to floor without struggling too much with an excessive incline. If there had been electricity then he could have used the currently non-functioning elevators.
Although this made Dave's journey to the top floor of the shopping centre easy, there was still the issue of getting onto the roof. There was no need to get trollies onto the roof so no ramps had been made to reach that high. Dave looked at the stairwell leading up with displeasure as he tried to think of a way of dragging his heavy trolly up the stairs.
"Holly crap," said a voice from behind Dave.
Dave turned to see who it was. "Hi Eric." Dave wasn't really friends with anyone in the shopping centre but he felt that if he at least acted in a friendly manner then he'd get treated in a friendly manner in return.
"That's a lot of supplies."
"Yeah, I was asked to get some but I'm not sure how to get them up the stairs."
"I'll help."
"Thanks. I'll need it. I'm thinking that we might have to just carry the contents by hand."
Eric looked through the wire mesh of the trolley. "That's a lot of loose cans. That's going to be a lot of up and down."
"How about we take up the water bottles first and then see if we can lift the trolly with the cans?"
"Okay," said Eric coming forward.
They both grabbed a slab of water bottles each and began climbing.
"If you don't mind," started Dave, "can I ask what you've been doing?"
"I don't mind. I was just checking through the trucks looking to see if one would work."
"It's only been a few days, so they should all work."
"Yeah. But I'm not a mechanic. I have no idea how to hot wire a car, so I need to find the keys that can start a truck."
"That's a good point. I didn't think of that. Did you find any keys?"
"It was a mix. All the cars are locked, but oddly quite a few trucks still have their keys."
"That might make sense. The cars are probably people from people who locked their cars, took their keys and went shopping, while the trucks were here to drop off stock and the drivers probably stayed near the trucks in order to be on hand to move them at a notice."
"That's going to make finding the keys for the cars really difficult."
Dave leaned his shoulder against the door at the top of the stairs and pushed it open. Dave held the door open with his shoulder as Eric came through. Eric stopped and looked confused for a moment as he couldn't figure out what to do with the water bottles. Dave also didn't know what to do with the water bottles so he just placed them down near where he had left his bike and backpack.
Seeing where Dave put the his slab of water bottles, Eric placed the slab that he was carrying on top of Dave's.
"Let's see what we can do about that trolly."
"Sure."
Dave and Eric walked down the stairs and exited into the shopping centre. They looked at the trolly.
"My back is not going to like this," said Dave.
"But carrying up all those little cans will be a pain."
"True. I'm now wishing that I looked around for cans that were on pallets."
Eric looked at stairwell. "We better get upstairs soon. There's still a lot to do before night."
"The rest of the people on the roof didn't look too busy when I was up there before."
Eric almost jumped with guilt. "They ain't bad people. It's just that their minds are a bit broken. You know."
Dave was sympathetic towards Eric. "Yeah. I know. Now let's get this trolly upstairs."
"Okay."
Dave took the handle end of the trolly and pulled, while Eric took the other end and pushed. Dave pulled back on the trolley handle so that the trolly's weight was on its rear axle. The front of the trolly then hung out in the air. For each step in the stairway, Dave would pull the rear of the trolly tight against the stair while Eric lifted the front of the trolly in order to pop the trolly up a step. It was a slow process that involved a lot of groaning and swearing but in the end they managed to get the trolly up the stairs and onto the roof.
"Just fuck me," said Dave.
Eric grinned. "Well that worked."
"I'm actually surprised because that trolly is way heavier than it looks. You have some big muscles there."
Eric laughed. "Ah. Thanks. But we were lucky."
"How so?"
"We managed to do that while it's still day. We made a lot of noise. That would have attracted a lot of attention if it was night."
Dave looked at the stairwell. "How do you block the stairwell at night?"
"What do you mean?"
"I don't see anything around that could be placed in front of this door to stop it from opening during the night."
"We just push the door shut."
"That's all?"
"Yep."
Dave wasn't happy as he looked over the door.
"Let's load those water bottles again."
Dave picked up a slab of water bottles and placed it back on top of the trolly. Eric also placed a second slab of water bottles onto the trolly.
"Now what?" asked Eric.
"Now we take these to Justin and ask his opinion."
Dave got behind the trolly to push it by the handles. The roof of the shopping complex was not designed for people and had been roughly surfaced with some tar substance. Dave appreciated Eric walking alongside the trolly, helping to guide it.
"Hey Justin," called out Dave as they approached the elevator shaft. "Got your supplies."
Dave could see Justin crawling out from under the tarpaulin.
"Shit," said Justin staring at the trolly. "You used a trolly?"
"It's the only way that I could carry this many supplies. Even so I would have been stuck at the last set of stairs if Eric didn't help."
Justin gave Eric a glance before calling out: "Sid. Sid!"
"Yeah, yeah," said Sid. "What is it?"
"Got some supplies delivered. Some people are probably hungry so make sure they have something to eat."
Sid looked at the trolly. "That's a lot of soup cans."
"The cans have pull tops," said Dave, "so you don't need a can opener. Also, between the layers of soup and water there's a good dozen or so spoons."
"Good," said Sid. "Good. I'll get to handing these out right now." Sid took over the trolly and wheeled it a short distance away.
Dave watched Sid open a palette of water and pick up some water bottles. Sid walked over to a bundle of blankets and knelt down. Sid gave the blankets a shake and woman with a worn face appeared. Sid showed her the bottle of water, but the woman did nothing but stare blankly. Sid put down the bottles that he was carrying. He picked up one and twisted off the lid before holding it towards the woman. The woman
didn't seem to respond, so Sid gently placed his free hand behind the woman's head and slowly tried to pour water into the woman's mouth. Trickles of spillage came from the sides of the woman's mouth but she seemed to be swallowing some of the water.
Dave now understood what Eric had meant about there being a lot of work to do.
"Well," said Justin, "I'm impressed. I thought you would have just grabbed a bag of sweets and a can of soft drink and then come back. This isn't just some token effort."
"We all went through some tough times," said Dave. "I have no idea what I'm doing. And I guessing that everyone's just as confused as I am. Just by doing something this simple I'm hoping that we can rebuild some trust."
"You still planning on heading west?" asked Justin.
"Yeah. And I hope that you now trust me when I say that if I do find some place good, that I'll tell them about you people and we can try to rescue you."
"Well," said Eric. "I trust you. No one who wanted to hurt us would do this much to help."
"Yeah," said Justin. "You've put in a lot of effort for us. It's hard not to trust you. But I'll be blunt - a part of me is still worried. You're still a stranger to me and I can't quite get over that. What's your immediate plan?"
"There still is a bit of light in the day," said Dave. "I'd like to get downstairs up pick up some fresh clothes. Also I wouldn't mind having a quick browse for other things that I'll need that I didn't think of before."
"Like what?"
"Well, I could do with some more batteries. In fact, if I could find one of those solar recharging panels then that would be really useful. I can live with disposable batteries but having something that I can re-charge will be more future safe."
"Such a thing exists?" asked Justin.
"I'm not an expert. I wouldn't be surprised if this is something that exists overseas but just never came to Australia."
"This country really is the arse end of the planet."
"Yeah," agreed Dave. "So my immediate plan is to fill out my backpack with a few things that I didn't think of before. This will take up the rest of today. I hope that you don't mind, but I'd like to stay the night."
"That's okay. So you're planning on leaving tomorrow?"
"No." said Dave frowning. "When bringing the trolly up here I noticed that you have no defences."
"We're on the roof. Those things don't seem to be able to climb up here."
"You're talking about the outside of the building. I'm talking about the stairwell."
"What about it?"
"I asked Eric and he said that all you do is just close the door at night."
Eric looked embarrassed but Dave tried to reassure Eric by patting him on the shoulder.
"You don't think that's enough?" asked Justin.
"I suspect that it's good enough to stop one visitor. But what if a dozen or so turn up and start throwing themselves at that door. Do you think that that door will survive such an attack?"
"What do you suggest?"
"If you aren't opposed to it," stated Dave, "I want to spend a few days here trying to figure out how to make this roof top more secure. I don't like the idea of just leaving you people to die."
"Thanks. But we need that door. We can't seal it. It's the only way to get up here. Without those stairs we wouldn't be able to get supplies."
"So there's no ladders?"
"I think there's a fire exit, but that is on the outside. It would be really hard getting enough supplies to feed everyone if we had to use the fire exit. Plus, if we do get visits from the dead then they are usually outside."
Dave looked thoughtful. "I've noticed that the doors to this shopping centre are all open. What if we close them, and then have a fallback defence for the stairwell that we only use if the inside of the shopping centre falls."
"We've tried," said Eric. "The main doors are roller doors and need electricity to run."
"Maybe this place has a generator that we can fire up long enough to get the doors down?" suggested Dave.
"I haven't explored this place well enough," said Justin, "to even know if such a thing exists."
"I think I know where the generator is," said Eric.
Everyone looked to Eric with surprise.
"And here I was," said Sid, "thinking that you were just slacking off with your wandering around. Sounds like you're our man for knowing where everything is at."
Eric blushed a little at this rough praise.
"Okay then," said Dave. "Tomorrow's goal is to get this place sealed up."
* * *
Dave looked at Eric and said: "Now, I need some new underpants. Can you give me some directions to a clothing store?"
"Sure," said Eric. "But how about I take you there? I might find something for myself."
"Lead the way," said Dave pointing towards the stairwell leading into the shopping centre.
Eric started walking, followed by Dave, towards the stairwell.
Dave looked up at the sky. "We've probably got a hour or so of good light left."
"We should be careful," said Eric.
"Agreed. It's so easy to be distracted by something and lose track of the time. Although the shopping centre seems empty, I still don't want to be in it when it gets dark."
"Dusk is bad enough," said Eric as he open the stairwell door and went through it.
Taking over from holding the door open, Dave held it open while walking through.
"Let's do this quickly."
The middle of each floor was open so people could easily see from one floor to another. Eric led Dave to the fence that looked out over the lower floors.
"There's a few clothes stores," said Eric pointing to a store on the floor below them. "Most clothes are pretty fancy. But there's an affordable store just there."
"Even though money is meaningless, that's probably where I can get something that is most familiar to me."
Eric nodded. "Let's take the escalator."
Dave sighed. "Without power they are probably just awkward stairs."
Eric agreed as he led the way down the escalator to the front of a clothing store, where he stopped and looked towards Dave. Dave looked into the store to get an idea of its layout. He was surprised that a store with such a small front was so big inside.
"First I need one of these," said Dave as he approached one of the checkout counters, reached behind it and pulled out a large shopping bag.
Eric copied Dave and got a shopping bag for himself. Dave walked towards the back of the store where the men's section was located. Eric seemed to be trying to look everywhere at once.
"Do you come into these stores often?" asked Dave. "Your head is moving like it's on a swivel."
"Nah. My mother always got my clothes for me. I've not really had to come into a place like this."
"I shouldn't have asked that."
"Why do you say that?"
"A lot of people have been lost in the last few days. My question is one that could bring up some unpleasant memories."
Eric absentmindedly fingered a shirt that was on a rack near him. "I was here waiting for some friends when it all happened. My mother was back at home and I have no idea what has happened to her."
"So you are still hopeful that she's still alive?"
"No," said Eric letting the shirt go. "I'm certain that she is no longer alive anymore. My mother wasn't the most aware person out there. She probably even left the front door open as she does. She didn't have much of an idea of what 'careful' meant."
"I'm sorry."
Eric shook his head. "Does it sound weird that I'm so disconnected?"
Dave pointed upwards. "I've seen the people upstairs. There's a lot of disconnected people up there. You seem like you're in good condition in comparison."
"I was lucky, I guess. I got here early so I wasn't with my friends when it all happened. But I guess that a lot of other people were here with their family and friends. They saw those family and friends torn apart. That must have been rough. Of cour
se it was rough on me. However it has less impact when you see strangers suffering."
"Wait. Those things came into here?"
"I guess there were a lot of people in here and they were attracted to the crowds."
"So how do you know that the shopping centre is empty of those things now?"
"I've wandered around a lot during the day and I've not see any. They might wander in during the night, but by daylight they disappear."
"That's unsettling. Tomorrow, we really need to get the doors to this shopping centre closed. And hopefully barricaded with something extra so that they can handle a decent crowd trying to push their way in."
"I guess that I've been lucky so far."
"That's both of us. At least you've been on the roof most of the time. I've spent a lot of time on the road, most likely just walking by vast crowds of those things completely unaware of the potential danger."
Eric looked nervously around. "We shouldn't talk so much. Let's get what we want and get back up on the roof. We can talk then."
Dave smiled at Eric. "That's a damn genius idea."
Dave walked to the male underwear section and picked up some unpackaged briefs. He held them around his waist to check the size. It seemed a bit small so Dave picked up a larger size and held it around his waist. Armed with the knowledge of his size, Dave picked up two half-dozen packets of briefs and put them into his shopping bag.
Eric had walked over to a section with jumpers and was digging through a few piles that were on a display table.
Dave walked to the T shirt section and grabbed about half a dozen black T shirts that he put in his shopping bag. He didn't bother testing the size because with T shirts he actually knew his size. He then walked towards the trouser section and stopped in front of a shelf with some track-pants on it. He picked up a dark grey set and read the size label. Conveniently the size system was the same as his underwear so he knew what to get, his only worry being that the pants might be a bit long in the leg.
Continuing to the trouser section Dave looked about for some tough looking pants, the sort that workman would use. He found some khaki pants that were made from a tough canvas-like material. The label on the pants declared that they were perfect for any work environment. Dave looked down at the pants that he was currently wearing - they were a set of semi-casual office pants - and noticed that they were rather filthy.
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