Chapter 65: 65
The usual formation is that my uncle is in the front since he has the shield while Dong and Mark are on his side ready to strike when the opportunity presents itself. Kaley and Jared are our shooters while Tatiana independently moves to assist in any way possible.
“Hey bro, can we just use the crowbar next time?” Jared said.
“It’s noisy when it breaks and I’d like to keep the padlock for future use.” I explained.
“You hoarder!” he joked.
“Yes. I. am.” I said with a smile as I opened the gates.
Kaley and I went inside since we’re the only ones who know what type of medicine to get first. We took all the antibiotics first while we took an equal number of bandages, antiseptic ointments, rubbing alcohol, paracetamols, painkillers, antihistamines, vitamin supplements, decongestants and everything that could fit in our bags. We grabbed a few plastic bags from the store and we placed more inside. We closed the gate again and I placed the padlock in since there are still more to be taken inside.
We killed a few along the way and it’s almost noon when we came back.
“Right on time guys, lunch is almost ready. It took you a few more hours than earlier though, anything happened?” Oscar said while on top of the catwalk.
“Well, we just got lucky on the first run, we stopped by a few more shops and killed a lot more zombies on the way here.” I said.
We unloaded it again and Rin was kept busy recording everything though Demi, Derek’s daughter was assisting her now.
The guys have fortified the fence by reinforcing where the chain-link fences were connected. They have started on building the fence on the other side and it is much wider than the one built here.
Our small basket of trinkets is now increasing in numbers and is starting to make a pile.
We gathered in the pool area and we ate lunch with everybody. Today my aunt made fried chicken with a side of mashed potatoes and coleslaw eaten over rice. The smell of the chicken makes my stomach grumble and I immediately headed to the plates with Kaley so we could eat after working diligently.
“Something American! There’s still rice though…” Oscar said while I laughed.
“You’ll never remove rice from our meals old man, we even eat potatoes with rice, what do you expect?” I said as I poured gravy over my rice.
“Oh, that is a faster way of eating, pouring it in rice to remove the dipping motion, correct?” Tatiana said.
“Never thought of it like that, we just do this since we discovered gravy though.” I said as everyone nodded.
“How come we don’t encounter gun shops here though?” Kaley asked.
“We’re on a special location actually. We’re in a big city but we’re also in the outermost edge of it. Most of the shops being built here is for the civilians to gather and make this their settlement so that the population would stretch in the edges and not get clumped in the center. That’s why we have a lot of food and water to loot more than guns. The closest sporting goods here is located on the next city after Caloocan City which is after ours, Valenzuela City. However, Oscar and I know the guy who owns one of the shops there.” I explained.
“Can we reach him though?” she asked.
“I’ve only sent an email to him but he never responded.” I said.
“Oh! The guy with eye patch?” Oscar said.
“Yeah, there’re several more shops there but it’s gonna be a long ride, probably two hours in a normal day. Besides, there’s still a lot of places to look into like police stations and other houses. However, if the time comes that we’d need more guns or ammo, we could stop by their place using the armored van or the HUMVEE that Tatiana brought here. There’s still the SUV but Raphael is working on it.” I said.
“Kid, isn’t there a few isolated ones in the Bulacan area?” Oscar said.
“Those illegal ones? We could go there too but it’s a shady neighborhood. We need to be packing if we go there. However, we could get gunpowder in some of the factories near it. We’d definitely need a lot of those when cast our own bullets in the future if we ever start to run out. I still have the reloading equipment here and an ample amount of resources to make them. Although, it would take a while before that happens.” I said.
“Wait! How about that old lady who tried to seduce us near the funeral home?” Oscar said.
I got chills when I remembered that place.
“What?! What is that place then?! I need to hear that story!” Kaley exclaimed.
The rest of the group seemed pretty excited on hearing it so I told them.
“It’s a small shop on the second floor of the funeral home. It’s barely noticeable because of all the signs covering the shop. The place sells low caliber pistols and rifles like the .22 kinds. When I went there with Oscar, the old lady there probably a little younger than him, quickly stood up and eyed us both. We were just checking the place for the first time and she’s a bit…frisky.” I said.
“HAHAHAHA!!!” Kaley began to laugh.
“Every pistol she gave us, she would accidentally touch my hand or Oscars and everytime she reached for another one, she would bend her body in incriminating poses.” I explained.
The group is now laughing when I started to act out what the old lady there did.
“Sounds like a very lovely woman.” Tatiana said.
“Well we found out that her husband was in the marines and was in deployment. We bought a few guns from her though we never came back.” I concluded.
“Kid, since we’ll be training a few more in the future we could stop by that store again. The .22s could be a good start for beginners rather than the 9mms and the .45 ACPs that we’re letting them practice with.” Oscar said.
“I agree, she still sells a few 9mms though. I hope she’s there somewhere. It’s a few kilometers from here though it’s closer from where we found Allan.” I said.
“So, we’re gonna head there next?” Kaley asked.
“I guess so, bullets and guns are equally important than food and water. However, we still have more access to the latter so the former is more important in our situation since we can’t replenish them indefinitely. Same thing with medicine, we should save every bit that we could since we will be relying on herbal ones when we ran out in the future.” I explained.
“Well it’s decided then. Rest for an hour before we go yeah?” I told the group.
We rested for a while then I saw Jonathan approaching me.
“Umm, Sky. Do you mind getting a wheelchair for my grandma when you find something there? My dad insisted on just pushing her here with it instead of driving us here everytime.” He said.
“Oh! We have one extra here.” I said.
“Really? Is that Ken’s spare?” he said.
“No, it was from the ambulance that we uhh…borrowed” I said.
He got taken aback but he just thanked me for it and he brought it to their home.
After we rested, we prepared everything that we needed and we head out using Raphael’s pickup truck. It’s a F-150 Raptor with bullbars installed on it.
We started to pass where we looted a few stores and we started to drive in the highway. I made a mental note of every shop and house we passed through while the others did the same.
After driving for half an hour, while avoiding cars and killing a few we came across, we finally reached our destination. We cleared the area first while I brought my uncle with me. We headed inside the small gate that leads to a staircase towards the store. I picked the lock for a few moments and then I opened the gate that leads to the small gun store.
Almost half of the guns are missing along with the ammo. It’s still a lot though. We brought our bags out and we filled it up. It’s still a lot considering the circ.u.mstances and I looked through some of the doc.u.ments in the table.
I was searching for her address if she would be close.
“Bingo! She’s very close to Rin’s last residence.” I said to myself.
We brought down five duffel bags worth of assorted guns and ammo though all of it was for the .22 caliber.
We loaded it in the back and I felt Tatiana tapping my arm.
“Someone’s coming. One guy, he’s armed.” She said while her expression changed.