by James Cook
Gabe located a large yellow wheelbarrow, and I helped him carry it over the piles of junk on the floor out to the empty street. There was more stuff in the hardware store that I would have liked to take along, but it was too heavy, and I didn’t have the means to carry it. We rolled the wheelbarrow down the sidewalk to the drug store and used a crowbar to pry open the door. While Gabe searched the pharmacy for antibiotics and painkillers, I found a shelf loaded with toilet paper.
Using the pliers on my multi-tool, I pulled the cardboard tubes out of the rolls. Without the reinforcing tubes, I could pack the rolls flat and store more of them in my pack. Next, I moved on to the first aid supplies. I snagged a box of freezer bags from a shelf and filled several of them with bandages, compression wrap, gauze, iodine, hydrogen peroxide, and cloth athletic tape. The freezer bags went into my pack along with the medical supplies. Gabe came around the counter from the pharmacy with a trash bag full of pill bottles.
He took a marker from a display at the front of the store and started pouring the pills into resealable sandwich bags and labeling them. As we were about to leave, I hopped over the counter behind the cash registers and stuffed a couple of boxes of my favorite brand of condoms into a side pouch on my pack. Gabe raised an eyebrow and gave me a quizzical stare.
“I don’t know what you have planned for tonight, Eric, but count me out.”
I laughed as I climb back over the counter. “You never know, man, we might run into some ladies on the way out west. I just want to be prepared.”
Gabe snorted and walked back outside. The next place we raided was the teashop. Unlike the other businesses, this one still looked neat and orderly, albeit covered in a thick layer of dust. I guess no one was thinking about a daily caffeine fix during the panic. I ignored the shelves near the windows, and went to the back of the shop where the sealed tins were stored. Gabe and I opened a few dozen of them and poured their contents into zip-lock bags, writing their titles onto labels made of masking tape. Earl Grey, Irish breakfast tea, and lemon green tea are my personal favorites.
With the tea stashed in the wheelbarrow, I followed Gabe down the street to the outfitter’s shop. We spent the better part of an hour rifling through clothing and shoes trying to find items for both us and the Glover family. Sarah gave us their sizes before we left, along with a list of the things they needed the most. Socks and underwear were at the top, along with boots, winter coats, and warm sleeping bags. We managed to find at least one of everything she asked for. I rolled up the clothes and wrapped them in trash bags before stashing them in Gabriel’s pack. The only room we had left at that point was in the wheelbarrow.
With our ‘gotta have’ items all accounted for it was time to look around for some ‘nice to have’ stuff. I found a pair of waterproof hiking boots and some extra wool socks, as well as a few boxes of a special adhesive called Mole-Skin. The stuff is great for patching up blistered feet. Gabe nabbed us a couple of balaclavas and new bladders for our water packs, then stood next to me for a few moments while trying to decide if we should grab anything else. Finally we decided quit with what we had. There was nothing else in the store we didn’t already have back at the cabin.
The only place that held anything else we needed was down on the end of the street. Gabe pushed the wheelbarrow down the sidewalk and stopped beneath a sign that read “Marion Gun and Pawn”. Every town in Appalachia had at least one of these places.
Someone had broken down the door a long time ago, and as we stepped inside, it was obvious that the locals had stripped the place bare during the Outbreak. Display cases on the counter were smashed in, the gun racks were empty, and the shelves were stripped bare of anything even resembling ammunition.
“Bunch of amateurs.” Gabe said, smirking. “Everybody knows the good stuff is locked up in the back.”
The entrance to the storeroom was heavier and of much better construction than the flimsy front door. Gabe looked it over for a few seconds before walking back outside and grabbing a handful of wires and a few small blocks out of his pack.
“Uh, what the hell is that?” I asked, pointing.
“What, this?” He smiled back.
I had seen this particular maniacal look on Gabriel’s face before, but only when he was around high explosives. It’s kind of his thing. A bad feeling wormed its way into the pit of my stomach when he started sticking the little bricks to the wall and running wires between them.
“You mind telling me where you got this stuff?” I asked.
“Hey, have your secret stash, and I have mine.”
“No, I mean like before the Outbreak. All your guns, ammo, explosives, all the things in the bunker that were illegal. Where did you get it?”
He turned a bemused glance at me. “Since when do you care?”
I shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t. It just occurred to me that I never asked before.”
Gabe stared at me for a moment longer, and then went back to readying the explosives around the door.
“After I got out of the Marines, before I took the job at Aegis, I spent a few months overseas doing contract work for the CIA. I met a few arms dealers who would sell their own mothers if the price was right, and saved their asses from torture and execution at the hands of their enemies. Out of gratitude, they offered me a discount on anything I wanted. I stayed in touch with them, and sent a lot of business their way. They got me whatever I needed, and since they were on the CIA’s buddy list, no one ever bothered us.”
“I can’t believe you worked for the CIA.” I said, shaking my head. “I get the feeling there is a hell of a lot I don’t know about you.”
Gabe belted out his coarse, rumbling laugh and stood up to clap me on the shoulder. “Eric, old buddy, you have no idea. Come on, let’s get to a good safe distance.”
We walked outside and around the corner of the building. Gabe held up a little radio transmitter and turned to me.
“You ready?” He asked.
“Um, won’t the noise attract all the walkers we just got rid of?”
“Probably, but we’ll be long gone by the time they get back.”
I shrugged. “Alright then, cool with me. Let’s fuck it up.”
Gabe grinned, and pushed the button. A low, powerful thump sounded from inside the gun shop, followed by the crash of steel landing on concrete as a thick cloud of dust and smoke bellowed out of the front door. It was not nearly as loud as I thought it was going to be. Frankly, I was a little disappointed. We waited a minute or two for the smoke to clear, and then went back inside to check the damage. The shaped charges blew the door off its hinges, and a section of the cinder block wall that held it in place lay in a dusty heap on the floor.
“Nice.” I said. “Not too subtle, but nice.”
Gabe stepped over the rubble and began searching the storeroom. It was only a little smaller than the front part of the shop, and as expected, it had boxes and crates stacked on neat shelves that ran all the way to the ceiling. At the back wall on our left, I noticed a desk with a large blood spatter on the wall beside it. I stepped around a rack of shelves and stopped in my tracks, staring.
From what I could tell, someone had sat down in the chair in front of me, probably after locking the door that we just blew up, and painted the wall with his brain. A nickel-plated pistol lay on the ground near the chair, intermingled with the remains of the person who ended his life here. I was guessing it was male due to the large gold watch around one of the corpse’s desiccated wrists. Two years of gravity pulling on the rotting carcass in the chair had reduced it to a stinking, soupy mess of bones, stretched sinew, and tattered clothes. I could make out the spinal column, and the remains of the shattered skull in the jumble of bones on the floor.
I made the sign of the cross, and offered up a quick prayer for the soul of this poor suicide. It had been a long time since I went to Mass, but I was once a good Catholic boy like all the Riordan’s before me, ever since my family emigrated during the Potato Famine. I didn�
�t really think anyone upstairs was listening at that point, but it never hurts to try.
Gabe and I searched the storeroom from top to bottom. I scored a case of .22 magnum ammunition for my Kel-Tec, and Gabe found a crate of .223 Remington. We grabbed some .45 rounds for Gabe’s pistol, some nine-millimeter, and a few hundred .308 cartridges. We put the ammo in the wheelbarrow, and even with everything else we had gathered there was still a little room leftover. We went back inside and searched around some more, just in case we missed anything interesting. I found several long cardboard boxes on a section of shelving labeled ‘Special Orders’. I recognize the label on the front of the boxes, LWRCI. I opened one of them, and sure enough, I found a rifle that would put a smile on everyone’s face when we got back to the cabin. I took it out of the box and start loading a magazine for it. Gabe came over to see what I was doing.
“What you got there?” He asked.
I pointed to the shelf. “M-6A3’s. Eight of them.”
“You’re kidding me. Civilian models?”
I looked the rifle over. “No, they’re not. These have the four position gas piston system, suppressor ready flash hider, full-auto capability, the fucking works.”
Gabe bent down to look at them and let out a low whistle. “Nice. That’s some serious hardware.”
“Who the hell do you think that poor bastard over there was selling these to?” I said, jerking a thumb at the human remains across the storeroom.
Gabe shrugged. “Hell if I know. A lot of people cooked meth and grew weed out here before the Outbreak, maybe he was selling to some of them.”
“Or to the local cops.” I said. “Drug runners had money, which meant they had quality weapons. The local police could have been outfitting themselves with high-tech carbines to stay ahead of the bad guys.”
Gabe thought for a moment, then nodded. “That could have been it too. Either way, you thinking what I’m thinking?”
I worked the charging handle and held up the rifle to sight through it. The rail system around the barrel was identical to the one on my HK. All of my optics would work just fine on it.
“It would be nice if we could all carry the same primary weapon. That would give us parts commonality, and we could all use the same mags and ammo. Having a few spares around wouldn’t be a bad idea either.”
Gabe grunted in approval, and carried a few more boxes of ammo outside.
Once we had everything that we could take with us, we put on our packs and set off down the road that would lead us back to Lake James. I volunteered for the first shift pushing the heavy wheelbarrow. Gabe took the M-6 I loaded and kept a lookout for infected as we slowly made our way out of town. It took us the better part of two hours to get back to the lake, even taking turns pushing the wheelbarrow every quarter mile or so. My lower back was burning and my shoulders felt like they had hot irons in them by the time we stopped on the shoreline. The sun was low in the sky, and it would be dark long before we could get back to the cabin.
“We need to find a place to make camp.” I said, looking toward the western sky.
“I know a place, let’s get the gear squared away first.” Gabe replied.
We transferred everything from the wheelbarrow to the canoe. I didn’t even want to think about how much effort it was going take to haul this stuff on the sections of our return trip that required overland travel. At least we could use the outboard motor to power us upstream once we got back to the Catawba River.
“Ok, where to?” I asked as we put the last of the ammo in the boat.
“The northwestern shore is probably our best bet. It’s on a steep hill, and there are a bunch of abandoned lake houses up there that we can pick from.”
I nodded by way of agreement. We pushed the boat back into the water and paddled toward the other end of the lake. It took more effort to row than before, but not enough to make things too terribly difficult. We reached the other side of the lake just as the sun began to sink below the horizon. I took the time to load up a couple of spare magazines for my new M-6, and then we tied the canoe to an old fishing pier. I scanned the side of the steep incline that sloped up the part of the western shore where we stood, and spotted a cottage near the top that would provide a good view of the lake and the surrounding hills. Set back into the hillside, it had wide sliding windows in the upper floor fronted by a broad balcony. Unless my eyes deceived me, there was also a propane fueled grill up there. I pointed it out to Gabe, and he agreed that it looked like a good place to spend the night.
When we reach the front door, Gabe took a little device with a pull-handle on it and a narrow needle-like protrusion jutting out of the front. It was a lock-picking device that was only available for use by law enforcement prior to the Outbreak. It would open most any kind of common residential door lock or deadbolt. It was highly illegal for civilians to own, so of course Gabe had two of them. We had used it many times, and it had proven to be worth its weight in gold. Well…maybe I should say that it was worth its weight in bullets, or toilet paper. Gold isn’t worth much anymore.
Using the pick, we quietly entered the house and locked the door behind us. Whoever stayed there last had drawn the blinds over the windows making it nearly pitch dark inside. After waiting a minute or two for our eyes to adjust to the gloom, we proceeded further into the house. I took an old L-shaped Army issue flashlight out of my pack with a red lens cover over the bulb. The red lens keeps the light from traveling too far. A flashlight beam is like a beacon to the undead.
Like many of the houses that we came across in the high country, this one was neat and orderly on the inside, but covered in a thick layer of dust. It was most likely someone’s vacation home once upon a time and was unoccupied when the Outbreak struck. We searched the kitchen for a light source, and Gabe found a box of candles in a drawer beside the refrigerator. We drew our pistols and did a quick sweep of the house. It looked like no one had been in there for a very long time. We locked all of the windows and doors before heading upstairs to rest for the night.
The propane grill on the balcony was a little rusty, but still in good working order, and had a half-full tank. I found a plastic container full of dried pasta in the pantry and a can of cheap store-brand pasta sauce. A search around the kitchen yielded a pasta cooker, a saucepan, and a few utensils. Cooking outside would make too much noise, and might very well attract unwanted attention, so we wheeled the grill inside and closed the drapes over the balcony windows.
Gabe set the table in the kitchen, and even managed to scare up a bottle of pinot noir. We sat down to one of the best meals we had eaten in a long time. I gorged as much pasta as I could stand, trying to load up on carbs for the trek back home. The two glasses of wine I chased it with did wonders for my anxious mood, and I was almost relaxed by the time I pushed away from the dinner table. Gabriel, with his insane appetite, was on his third plate of noodles and still going strong.
I left the rest of the wine to Gabe and went upstairs to get some rest. A clean set of sheets from the linen closet went on a bed in the guestroom, and my rifle and gun belt went on the bedside table, close at hand. The only clothes I took off before lying down were my boots; I wanted to be able to leave on a moment’s notice. The bed was warm, soft, and comfortable when I climbed into it, and I was asleep before my head hit the pillow. Approximately ten seconds later, or so it felt, Gabe woke me up to take the watch. As I pulled on my boots, he handed me a piping hot cup of Earl Grey with not one, but two bags of tea in it.
“God bless you, you wonderful, wonderful man.” I said as I sipped the caffeine fix.
Gabe laughed quietly. “The kettle is on the grill if you want to make some more.”
I nodded. “I’ll probably do that, thanks.”
I took my cup into the hallway, leaving Gabriel to settle down for the night. The curtain over the window that overlooked the patio obscured my view of the lake, so I pulled back one corner and looked outside. There was a full moon overhead, and the stubborn cloud c
over that had clung to the hills all week had finally moved on. The rolling, peaceful water below reflected the moon’s bright silver light in countless rippling flashes. Darkness enveloped the forest around the lake, and the stars stood out bright and clear against the open sky. I spent the rest of the night sitting in a chair staring out over the balcony, and occasionally sneaking glances out of windows in other parts of the house just to make sure there was nothing creeping up on us. When the sun began to peek over the horizon, I opened the sliding glass door and risked walking out outside for a better look.
The chill morning air was bracing after the stuffiness of the house. Over the eastern mountains a burnished crimson dawn flushed red, then bright gold as the first rays of sunlight crested the peaks in the distance and cascaded over the high country. I took in the view, and tried to fix it in my mind as firmly as I could. I didn’t know how many more times I would get to see the Carolina mountain country like this, and I wanted to make it last as long as I could.
Like all good things, my peaceful reverie eventually ended as dawn gave way to morning, and the sun climbed higher in the sky. I checked my watch; it was nearly nine-thirty. Time to wake up Gabriel. Time to get moving.
Chapter 6
Go West, Young Man
The approach to the lake yesterday was not very difficult due to the loose sandy soil leading down to the waterfront. The bad part about going downhill one way is the fact that you have to go uphill on the way back. Sand is easy to walk through when gravity is on your side, but it is a holy terror when you are trying to drag a canoe weighed down by a couple hundred pounds of supplies. It was nearly noon by the time Gabriel and I finally finished the second overland haul before reaching the last stretch of river on the way home. We had to stop several times along the way to catch our breath and stretch out the painful knots in our backs and shoulders. Despite the fact that it was only about fifty degrees outside, we were both drenched in sweat as we dropped the canoe on the rocky riverbank and collapsed to the ground beside it.