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 ...