Monday, January 2, 2012

# 40

The inside of the store was dark but not pitch black, they had skylights that aside from being have covered with the point they went to with snow , were letting a little bit of light in. The back room was mag light only though and we had to use all of our gumption to move around in the back. My head was telling me it was too cramped and too dark. I was a little uneasy about it and we headed straight to the floor where it had more light. Once again I felt wrong walking around in the store with the place dark and no one but me and Leeya around, The things you grow up knowing never change , at least not right away. I squinted and started to head to the sign that said hunting, that was where the candy was. I still had no idea about guns I was never raised around them or hunting, more of a fixer than an ender I guess. The gun I had was black and shiny and looked like the type in a spy movie and the shotgun was big and bad, i just hoped I could find the right bullets because with the wrong ones I was libel to shoot myself or have the gun blow up. Whether or not that could happen I don't know , I am clueless but my head tells me these things.

I get to where the guns are but no ammo. I look around and see a rack all locked up with what appears to be an impenetrable cage around it. I head to it and Leeya follows me. The rack was made to keep people like us away from what was inside but that was not the answer I was looking for. "Look around for a key for this anywhere if you can" I said to Leeya and we started rummaging through the counter the register was at just in front of the rack. Nothing but tape sale flyer's and pens. Not what I had hoped for. I told Leeya we had to find the office up front wherever it was , maybe the boss or manager had the keys in his desk and had to personally open the cage for safety reasons. Least I hoped that was what would go down, hell the manager has the keys for a DVD at Toys R Us why would this be more lenient. We headed to the front and kept a keen ear open, I was locked in to not letting anything sneak up on us.

The complete and utter quiet was so unnerving that the slightest click would make us duck down and stare into darkness for a few minutes. Half the time it was probably a rat or mouse but in my head it was a "thing" sneaking up ducked down to get us. It was probably all in my head, the "things" have never shown the slightest ability to be covert. Heck they walk right into a vehicle without moving , I doubt they would sneak up right? Looking through the drawers of each and everything we could find up front was annoying. Especially when what your looking for is no where to be found. I started thinking that there was no key here, maybe the boss took it home with him for safety and was walking around looking to eat me with the key on need dangling from his belt. Bastard I find him i will kill him twice , I thought to myself. My anger was averted when I looked over and Leeya was bending down to check a bottom drawer. Something about the form of butt that makes me loose my train of thought.

Keys right, start looking again and finding nothing again. This was becoming painful and boring. " I got em I think" Leeya announced, I felt so much better. The keys were underneath the desk in a magnetic key hider for cars. Her finding it made me think , thank god shes here I wouldn't have looked for that. I grabbed a carriage and so did Leeya and we headed back with keys and smiles. The first three keys were not even close but the fourth opened the cage and I loaded every single ammo bow they had into the carriage and had Leeya load shotguns, they had a ton of ammo for them so load up, and a few rifles that matched the caliber on the rifle ammo boxes. Feeling greedy we went to the clothing for hunters and grabbed water proof boots ,jackets ,hats , anything and everything that could be of use later. Then i grabbed arrows everyone they had and  few crossbows , compound bows , and parts for repairing them. Our carriages weighed a metric ton now and we were struggling to get them to move without the wheels shattering.

We reached the back room and left the carriages as I said to Leeya " while we are here we better look for anything else we may need." She said OK and cocked her gun, smart girl never too safe. I headed to the front and filled a cloth shopping bag you can buy with all the beef jerky the registers had, and then all of the energy drinks in the now dead mini fridges in the check out aisles. Leeya was in the clothing section looking at woman's sweat clothes, and grabbing all extra larges. A good idea with the cold we had that was for sure. On my way to the back I stopped in the hunting area one more time and grabbed the heat packs for sticking in shoes and gloves. I was almost sure we forgot something but we had more than enough for the bug we were driving.

We stepped outside the back of the store and the carriages got stuck in the door by the snow drift. I opened the back of the newer bug and Leeya started assembly line handing me stuff and I was throwing it in. When the back was almost too full I started tossing things over the seat into the back seat. Things were working out and we had the first carriage done and half of the second when we hear it. A sound like a commotion, and it seemed to be coming from around the corner of where we turned into the back of the store. I told Leeya to keep loading and snuck to the edge of the building to peek around it. The group that had earlier came and tried attacking us was heading this way. They had been somewhere we had passed I suppose and were following the tracks we made in the damn snow. Damn I had not thought of that. I ran back to the car and me and Leeya ram shackled everything into the back. Then I told her to get in fast. "Why what was that noise she said frightened?" I looked at her and said "the people from earlier, they must be holding up somewhere around here, they followed our tracks in the snow". She leaned into her seat and looked sick. The thought of a busted up VW against all of them was not good but what was more depressing was they weren't "things" and could think and run.

I fired it up and headed to the opposite side of the back, the problem was the store was in a nook and all exits lead to one opening in the street , where they were. I powered around the second corner and could see the front of the store before us. As we blasted by the front of the store the people were running to us, probably following the noise of the car. We kept the hammer down and I heard gunshots. I had not heard them earlier in the day and wondered if they had found guns since or not been armed. Strange to me because I wouldn't take a crap without a gun at this point. We pulled into route 6 and headed eastbound taking a hard left onto the side road leading to the highway. Leeya said " why the highway? the Hotel is just a little ways up". I looked at her and said " they followed our tracks once I don't want that to happen twice, we take a long way back".

Leeya looked bummed out and I knew why , it was getting dark now and the long way was the wrong way to get in the Hotel tonight. I had a backup plan and hoped it would work. The next exit down to come to the Hotel from the other side had a few places like the Hotel we had friends at only smaller and that would be fine by me. The Hotel we were at had heat and a pool and friends but just a safe place to hold up was good for us now. Then we rolled up on something that answered all of my questions, an RV lot just off the exit. I hammered into the lot and we headed all the way in and to the back, where the big RVs were. I told Leeya while handing here my handgun as well to sit tight and then hopped out of the car and walked over to the first bus like RV they had. Locked damn, I leaned into the cars broken out back window and said to Leeya " I am gonna see if they have keys at the office get in the drivers seat in case you have to book it". She nodded and did just that while I wrote down a few RVs stock numbers.

The walk to the office was a bit off, with tracks only by us and all the RVs sitting here. I wonder how many people would be alive if they could have used these I thought. I opened up the office with my foot and a hard kick and went to the key rack. I didn't go far because right on the desk with paperwork for a finalized sale were keys with a note saying "for pickup at 2 fueled up and ready". Music to my damn ears I thought. I grabbed the keys and noticed the paperwork was for 126 thousand dollars. Holy crap it must be a nice one. I took two steps out of the office and there it was , I had driven right by it parked in front waiting for pick up. I whistled for Leeya and when she looked I waved her over. "boom, boom ,boom," she kept bouncing off the camper in front of her trying to go backwards. She couldn't drive a stick, there is something she might want to have said to me. I walked over and had her slide over and drove us to the RV out front.

We got out and she was red in the face with embarrassment. I told her she should have said something sooner if it would have gone bad she would have been toast trying to drive away. I opened the RV and we walked inside, it was glorious the darn thing had a chandelier and a kitchen and a queen size bed. It was like a mini mansion on wheels and with one door in and one emergency door out back it was damn near perfect for what we needed. I got behind the wheel and fired it up to make sure it ran and had the fuel they bragged about. As soon as we had it running I had Leeya check it out and I started loading the weapons in it. We were going to be OK for tonight I thought and we loaded it up. Once we had the beast loaded I got behind the wheel and we rolled out of there and onto the highway. Leeya asked" why the highway why not the Hotel lot"? I responded " no one can follow us there we can give it tonight to calm down and the highway seems "thing" free from what we had seen". She calmed down and we rolled onto the highway and pulled to the side a mile in. I got the heat fired up from the trucks helm and hot water too. Leeya looked so happy it was pretty good to feel the way I did. She reached for a light and I said "No, not that we would look like a candle in a desert like that". We kept it dark for the night but we were warm and safe and armed. We even had beef jerky and energy drinks. In the morning we would bring our loot to the friends at the Hotel and then work the rest out.

As we settled in to bed , neither of us was into the sex this evening. It was about holding each other and feeling safe after a long day of hell. As we lay there and Leeya was clinging to me tightly , I couldn't help but think about what we saw in Providence. And what I was thinking was ahead for me at my brothers. Fear makes a nasty caffeine pill and while Leeya went to sleep rather fast from her exhausting day I was wide awake, for a few hours. Laying there listening to every noise and the wind.

2 comments:

  1. Never thought of driving an RV! Home that moves when you need it to! And they should give up on the brother's place by now! LOL

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