H1Z1 Chapter 13

It's hard to explain the pride I felt as I watched my son anxiously copying me as I showed him how to load, cock and safe the 9mm pistols I had pulled from the cabinet for him. He didn't flinch, didn't complain, wasn't nervous; he simply watched and listened, making sure he understood the entirety of the process and then silently loading each pistol into it's shoulder holster, snapping them shut and turning to scan his surroundings. Such a trooper. Literally, a trooper.

We loaded as many shotgun and pistol rounds as we could find into our carts, grabbed gun cleaning kits, a couple of hydration backpacks and sundry other outdoor gear. Although there were only seven one-gallon tin cans of stove fuel, we grabbed them all - I knew we needed it, and we could always switch to gasoline once we ran out. We grabbed all the matches we could, and lighters. We grabbed sleeping bags, camouflage jackets, anything we could think of.

And we realized we were overloading our carts. We still needed food. And to leave enough room in the truck for us and the dogs to ride back.

"We'll have to make trips, Dad."

"I agree, but the more time we spend running back and forth between the store and the truck, the more we expose ourselves to attack."

"It's been a while since the last one, though, Dad."

"True. I wonder why."

The dogs remained silent, watching us, watching our surroundings. Their ears were pricked forward and their hackles never went down, but they remained silent. They were an excellent early warning system. I wondered, if we loosed them, whether they would take off or remain at our sides to protect us. I wasn't sure I wanted to try that experiment quite yet.

We began to make our way back to the truck, each struggling with our overloaded cart. Perhaps our impromptu shopping trip was a bit over the top, but who knew how long we'd have to stay in our mountain retreat?

Although we could hear the creatures still moving about the store, we were still unmolested. I wasn't sure why this bothered me, but it did. We'd killed several, we'd made a lot of noise and the zombies obviously wanted our flesh for food - why weren't they pursuing us?

At the doors, we had to stop and drag bodies out of the path of the carts. I grabbed Marie's remains and pulled them to the side. Looking up, I was surprised to see Bill doing his part, moving the man's body aside without being asked. I would have done it - but I was glad he was dealing so well with the situation.

We loaded our goods into the back of the truck, ammunition last, so we could get to it. We had plenty of room, but the look on Bill's face confirmed my thoughts: we needed a definite plan - a list of what else to get, so we could do it quickly and efficiently. Although, ideally, we'd take enough to fill the back of an 18-wheeler, we didn't have the time or the space. Weapons were one thing, but it was time to show a little more discernment in our preparations.

"Let's make a list, Son."

Bill simply nodded. We started discussing what we had and didn't have both at home and at the cabin. We knew we'd need fresh items, but those wouldn't last forever, so we thought in terms of storable items. We also thought of things like extra clothing we might need - and then though about saving that for the sake of carrying more immediately needed, survival related items.

And then we cut the list in half, because we still had to have enough room to load the dogs back into the truck and head for home.

This was becoming more complicated than we had thought.

And we had to go back in to the zombie infested store ...

H1Z1 Chapter 12

I snapped the last bullet into the magazine, shoved it into the pistol and chambered the first round just as the source of noise rounded a rack of sleeping bags to my right. He was dressed in hiking shorts and a tech-shirt. Obviously a customer who had stopped before a morning trek. And obviously heavily infected.

"Bill, hold the dogs," I warned, raising the pistol. The sound of the gun drowned out any other noise, even the low growl of the dogs. My pistol shooting skills were a bit out of date. Two rounds hit the creature in the left shoulder, knocking it back and down as I, almost on auto pilot, kept pulling the trigger on the big .45. Boom! Boom! Boom. click. Uh-oh.

The zombie was dragging itself toward me with its right arm, a weird high keening noise coming from its throat. I could see shattered bones poking out the back of its shirt, the result of the two rounds that had actually hit. Slamming the pistol down onto the counter, I reached for my shotgun.

BOOM!

Bill beat me to it. I hadn't even noticed him rounding the corner from the shelves, but he had, and had immediately raised his shotgun and took action, blasting an almost neat hole through the back of the creature's skull, spreading its face across the floor and splashing little bits of brain on my shoes.

I was frozen, that little voice of terror trying to make its way back into my conscience. Bill, face ashen, promptly leaned over and threw up. He then calmly reached into the pocket of his vest and pulled out a shell, replacing the round he'd fired from his shotgun.

I managed to eke a "thank you" out as he turned back into the aisle he'd been searching for the right sizes of shoulder holsters. He simply nodded. When had my little boy turned into a cowboy? I didn't have time to continue that line of thought, though, and returned to the task at hand, loading magazines.

There were more zombies in the store, and between my wasteful unloading of an entire magazine and Bill's single shotgun round, we'd practically given them a foghorn to guide them in. We needed to hurry.

I loaded the mags for each pistol without incident, then turned back to the cabinet, selecting a pair of 9mm's for my son. He could handle a 9mm a lot easier than the big .45s I had chosen, and the rounds would be just as effective if he aimed for the head.

Bill returned, pulling his head into his second shoulder holster. "Jump back here and find spare magazines, Son.

".45's for me, 9mm Ruger for you. And get rounds. All you can find."

I began loading Bill's magazines, listening for the creatures I knew were approaching, our fresh flesh their only aim. The dogs' hackles raised again, and their low growls confirmed my fears. We still had to pull supplies together. We still had to get everything out to the truck and loaded. We had too much to do, and the danger increased the longer we stayed in the store. The only good thing about the situation, if there could be a good thing, was that there was a finite number of the creatures in the store. Bad, however, was that by now, they were probably all coming right for us.

H1Z1 Chapter 11

Leading the way, I gingerly stepped over the body lying in the automatic doorway and into the entrance. Bill was right behind, the dogs on either side of him, guardians with hackles raised, noses busily determining which direction the next threat may come from.

We angled over to the cart park and each grabbed one. "I should pull both the carts, Dad. That way your hands are free with the shotgun."

"Good thinking, Son, but what about the dogs?"

In reply, Bill unbuckled his heavy canvas belt and passed the loops of both leashes through it.

"OK, but if they sense something, another ... zombie, they'll try to go after it."

"I know, Dad, but I can push the cart in between me and the thing and then you can shoot it."

"All right. Straight to the outdoors section. Move beside or behind me, don't stop, and keep your head on a swivel."

"I never understood what that meant until today, Dad." Smart boy. The saying hearkened back to my Navy days - the skipper of the aircraft carrier I was stationed aboard would say it to the flight deck crew before every cycle. It meant "keep your eyes open, 360-degrees around you." Good advice.

We entered the inner doors to quiet. Nothing seemed to be moving, nothing seemed to be alive. Sarah let out a slight whimper which Steve replied to with a light growl.

"Knock it off, you two," I said, almost a reflex. They were excellent dogs, but they could be a little high strung. Probably a good trait in this circumstance.

Bill and I began moving toward the outdoors section. Not exactly marching, not exactly strolling. Both of us moved warily and scanned our surroundings, searching for sign of another creature. As we rounded the final tall display shelf into outdoors, we both sighed with relief. There was the gun counter, nothing and no one around it, and our goal directly in sight.

"OK. Shells. 12 and 20 Gauge. Load up your cart, Son."

Bill broke left to the shelf with the shotgun shells while I stepped through the gate behind the gun counter.

"Shit!"

"What's wrong, Dad?"

"Keys. They're on Marie's body."

"Oh, shit."

"Bill!"

"Sorry, Dad. What will we do?"

I raised the butt of my shotgun and rammed it into the lock on the drawer which held the trigger lock keys. It burst immediately. Some security.

"I guess that works, huh?" Bill asked, one eyebrow raised in unconscious imitation of my own wry expression. "Keep working, Boy."

It was funny that he retained his budding sense of humor even in our current predicament. I quickly located the cabinet key and unlocked the shotgun rack, pulling out the semi-automatic Smith & Wesson 20-gauge I had been eyeing for my son for months.

"Grab a shooting vest, Bill. And toss me a box of shells." He already had a vest his size on, and was filling the pockets. He looked up and threw me a box with a handful of shells left in it. I removed the trigger lock and began to load, racking one round into the chamber so I could push a fifth round into the gun. "Here, Son," I said, clicking on the safety and tossing the loaded gun across the aisle to the boy. He snagged it deftly from the air and turned to the rack of rifle straps. Smart, smart boy.

Just then, I realized that I was hearing something. A kind of dragging sound, and the moaning we'd heard earlier was back.

"Hurry. I want you to find shoulder holsters - you'll need a woman's small, I need an extra large. Automatic pistols - we'll need the extra bullets."

Bill nodded and turned to the next aisle, clicking the safety off of his gun.

I unlocked the counter-top pistol case and began pulling out handguns. .45 calibers for me - a pair of matched stainless steel Smith and Wessons. I grabbed them. "Left and right shoulder for both of us, Bill," I shouted as I pulled the trigger locks off of the pistols.

Pistol shells were behind the counter. Ejecting the magazines onto it, I turned and grabbed a box of .45 rounds, dumping it out on the glass top. The moaning was getting louder. And the dragging sound nearer. Hurriedly, I began jacking rounds into a magazine, looking under the counter for the guns' cases as I did so. Too much time. This was all taking too much time.

Both dogs began to growl.

Time was almost up.