Chapter 74: 74
“How about the gas station though? Are there tankers still left?” he said.
“Unfortunately, no. We have a lot of empty containers that we found in the other houses; you could fill those up first and we could drive the tanker again outside. You could place the containers on the apartment next to Johnny’s place.” I explained.
He nodded and he grabbed a few people to complete the task.
Raphael then approached me and said, “Hey, I see we have a lot of building materials here but what I need are mechanical parts. Do you have a place here that we could get some? I’d hate to disassemble one of the vehicles here.”
“Hmm, what kind do you need?” Oscar said.
“A few that has pistons or the shocks for the motorcycles and a few gears and a chain or a thick rubber belt. I’d need something that could hold the weight of the minigun in the center of the vehicle. How many rounds of ammo are you planning to put in it?” Raphael said.
“About 1000.” I replied flatly.
“Wait, what?!” he exclaimed.
“That’s approximately 17.2 kilograms.” I said.
“H-hold on, how many rounds of ammo do you have?” he said.
We both just smiled and said, “a LOT.”
He was flabbergasted at the thought and his eyes widened for a while before it returned to normal.
“Oh yeah, I have a thought. You said Ken’s shotgun has its barrel sawn off. Can you do the same with this one?” he said.
“I’m not really sure on that, why though?” Oscar said.
“Because I’ve checked the measurements before and we would need to remove the seats in order for it to fit in the middle. That’s why I’m asking if we could saw the minigun’s barrel in half. It’s heavy too and removing a portion of it could ease the load on the SUV. I’m asking since I’m not a gunsmith.” he said.
“It would affect in how the bullet travels and sprays; I think, so let’s scrap that idea for now. How about just placing it in the back of the SUV then?” I said.
“Then it would be much easier. We just need to mount it and I’ll just make it move forward a bit after opening the back door and add some sort of stopper so the barrel doesn’t hit the frame of the SUV.” he said.
“Hold on. That wouldn’t be as cool though. Wait a moment, I’ll grab something.” Oscar said as he went to his house.
After a while, he’s carrying a medium-sized case when he went back to us.
“How about this then? Can you mount it on the top?” Oscar said.
We opened a case and I my eyes just light up. It’s an XM556. A small version of the minigun that is about half the size that uses 5.56 ammunition instead of the 7.62 that the M134 uses.
“Where the f.u.c.k did you get this old man?! You haven’t shown me this yet!” I exclaimed.
“Hah! I was planning to give you the M134 when I get too old to lift it. I bought this in 2017 when it was released, though only the military and the police could purchase them.” Oscar said.
“This… this could work. Much easier to mount this than the first one. This is a definitely much lighter than the first gun even with the bullets. The seats could just be adjusted on the side, not removed completely since I will just position this in the normal position and lift it up when the top door is opened.” Raphael said.
“It’s settled then. There’s a bike shop where I bought a few full suits and they have a few motorcycles there. We’ll load maybe three on the truck along with a few spare parts so that you have materials to work on.” I said as we nodded.
“Here kid, that is definitely yours now.” Oscar handed me the keys to the M134 again.
“You’re really sure? Thanks, I have a new paperweight in my collection.” I joked.
“KID?! You want me to unload this on you?!” he screamed as he lifted the XM556 though it’s just pointed on the ground and it’s not loaded.
“HAHAHAHA!!! Just kidding old man! Thanks a lot for this! I’ll put it near the Barett.” I said.
“Sky! Mom said to eat first! The food is getting cold!” Aya said when she approached us.
“Oh, it’s already almost 1:00 PM! We three have been talking here a while.” I said.
We three then headed to the pool area to grab a plate of sweet and spicy fish that is turned into balls. It was garnished with slices of carrots and potatoes and sprinkled with green peppers and always eaten with rice. The rest are already eating their meals when we joined them.
“What took you guys so long?” Kaley said.
“Oh, we got too excited talking about the SUV and the gun.” I said.
“Well, don’t forget to eat okay?” she said.
“Of course, thanks.” I said as I stole a fish nugget.
“Hey!” she exclaimed.
“This is for the soft-boiled egg from before! HAHAHAHA!!!” I exclaimed.
She just harrumphed though she did nothing to fight back. Scared from her silence, I just slowly placed one of my nuggets to her bowl after I ate the one that I stole. It seemed to appease her a bit and we just continued on eating.
I then grabbed a few rounds to replenish our ammo and we rested for an hour before we set out again. We headed for the bike shop across the street from the public market and no one even thought of looting the place. There is easily 10+ motorcycles here and a lot of other aftermarket parts and a few more protection gear for motorists.
We loaded five motorcycles in the truck and 10 more of the protective gear I’ve bought before. We also loaded a few boxes of aftermarket parts and spare parts to the truck. We also found reflectors, spray paint, stickers, and a couple of cameras that could be attached on top of helmets. We loaded them all in the truck since our aim for this run is the parts for the gun mount.
When fastening the motorcycles in the truck, across the street, we saw a few people looting the public market. There were five people holding different kinds of handheld weapons and are filling their bags with canned goods. One zombie is in their blind spot, so I sniped it with my AR.
*psshew*
The bullet went to its head and it fell down in front of them. They saw me take the shot and the guy in the middle gave me a nod and they went their separate direction.
“You know those guys?” Kaley said.
“No, but they needed the help.” I said.
“I wonder why they didn’t approach us.” She said.
“They must have people at home needing the food. People at homes now are starting to lack food and now they are forced to loot places. If they talked to us, we could’ve learned about their situation and invited them to our place.” I said.
We finally fastened the vehicles and we drove home. As we’re driving back, we saw the same group trying to open the bakery next to the elementary school.
I tapped on the roof of the truck to make it stop.
The other group had guarded expressions when they heard the vehicle stop though it eased when they saw it was us.
“W-we were just looting the place; We ran out of food yesterday. What do you guys want?” the guy in the middle said.
“I told you man; they will come after us if we don’t move fast!” the guy in the back said.
The guy in the middle and the two next to him had their hands up and I waved them down.
“We’re not here for your food. That place is empty though. We looted that yesterday. You’d have more chances on that diner there, we try to not take from everything here.” I said.
“You guys soldiers?” the man said.
“Sort of, we need information. What’s the situation at your place? I can point out a few places we haven’t looted yet in exchange for that.” I said.
“Don’t tell him man, he’d just go to our place and loot it!” the other guy said.
“That is possible or I could’ve just killed all of you at the market, that sounds easier than risk talking to you yeah?” I said.
Their group tensed when I said it.
“Look, we don’t want any trouble, and thank you for saving us earlier. I just don’t feel safe telling where we live with strangers.” He replied.
“Sure, that’s understandable. Let me guess then. Marcelo?… Libo?… Pulo?… Petron?… Elsewhere?…” I continued on saying different places near here and when I said ‘Elsewhere’ their breathing changed.
“Gotcha.” I said to myself.