Without law 16, p.14
Without Law 16, page 14
Her kiss caused butterflies in my stomach, and I felt my body tense before I sighed and kissed her even deeper. I pulled her close to me and pushed my hand up into her curly hair.
“Hey, get to work over there!” Tara yelled, and she and Paige snickered.
I kept kissing Kimmy and held up the middle finger to the platinum-blonde, which only made her and Paige laugh harder.
After we finished our kissing session, Kimmy and I got back to work. We were able to find a few dozen quarts of oil, some spare windshield wipers, lightbulbs, and a few other car accessories. We loaded it all up into a cart, and then we met the other girls at the front of the store. Paige and Tara had found some clothes for the children, they were outgrowing the ones that they had, and we didn’t have any in larger sizes for them. They had grabbed some even larger ones, too, so that when they had their next growth spurt we would have some already available, which was incredibly smart, especially with winter coming. They also had grabbed some baking utensils, and some blankets and pillows.
Anna had a cart full of hygiene products as well, shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste, menstrual products, and a few other things. I looked through her basket quickly to make sure that she had gotten the pregnancy test, and when I saw that they were in there, then I nodded to the group and led us all back outside. I waved up to Bailey, and she waved us over, so I figured that she hadn’t seen anybody in the time that we’d been inside the store. It hadn’t taken us long, maybe twenty minutes or so to go through the place and pick out what we wanted. We’d become experts at going through places quickly, but that was still long enough for somebody to come along.
I walked the girls over to the trailer, and we offloaded all of the stuff from our grocery carts. We still had plenty of room for whatever else we could find, and since we only found oil but no filters to do oil changes I figured that we would go and try to look at the automotive store that was on the corner.
I hollered up to Bailey to let her know where we were going, but Anna interrupted me as I did.
“Do you think we all should go there?” the redhead asked.
“What did you have in mind?” I countered.
“There’s another couple stores on this block,” Anna said. “I can check them out if you want.”
“I don’t think that’s a bad idea,” I said. “But I don’t want us completely splitting up, we need to at least be in pairs. You and Paige and Tara go to the shops over there. Kimmy and I will look in the auto parts store.”
“Aye, aye, captain,” Tara said with a smile.
“Bailey,” I called up to the sniper.
“Yeah?” She asked.
“Change of plans,” I said. “Anna, Tara, and Paige are going to check out the shops over there. Kimmy and I are going to the auto parts store at the end of the block.”
“Got it,” the blonde called down, and I saw her give me a thumbs up.
Anna was right, it was more efficient if she went and checked out the other shops on the street. It was impossible to tell what we might find in there, there was always the potential to find something extremely useful no matter where we went. It didn’t take all five of us to look through the auto parts store, Kimmy and I could handle that on our own just fine.
Besides, Bailey was posted so she had a good view of the area, and I trusted her to take care of any issues that might come along. I knew the blonde sniper had our backs. She had never let me down before, even in high stress situations, and I didn’t think she was about to start now.
That was something that I was always really impressed by with the girls. All of them were very good under pressure, which was often a skill that had to be taught, but it came to them naturally. Anna was probably the best under pressure, which was one of the reasons why she was my second in command, but the rest of the girls did very well in stressful situations, too. They had to if they wanted to survive in the world as it was, especially if they wanted to be out running errands with me. There was hardly a time where we left the safety of campus and didn’t run into somebody trying to cause trouble.
Unfortunately that was the normal now. Most of the other survivors that we ran into weren’t nice people. We’d made a few friends and picked up a few people to come stay with us at campus, but I would say that 70% of the people we met on the road were jackasses just looking to survive the next day.
A lot of them didn’t even understand the concept of trying to survive long term. Everything was day by day with them, which was no way to actually survive in a world that was in disrepair. It was a lot better to make a sustainable environment than it was to try and live one day at a time. Doing that would only cause more stress. If I lived day by day, then I wouldn’t know where my next meal was coming from, I wouldn’t be able to feel safe or put down roots anywhere. I would constantly be low on supplies and scavenging to find more.
If I was on the move then that would be the way that things had to be, but it was no way to live. That should only be a means to an end, not a way of life. Sadly, most people didn’t have any basic survival skills. It wasn’t something that was taught in school, and most of their parents probably didn’t have any survival skills, either. If they knew anything it was probably from watching some survivalist show. Granted, I liked those shows, but they weren’t any substitution for the real deal.
Then again, maybe it was better that some people didn’t have survival skills. That would mean more competition when we were out on runs, and that there would be even more assholes running around. We already had enough of those.
Kimmy and I walked down to the end of the block. The automotive store looked like it hadn’t been touched, and yet again I wasn’t surprised. There wasn’t a lot of demand for car parts after an EMP attack.
“How do we get in?” Kimmy asked.
“Like this,” I chuckled and used the butt of my rifle to hit the glass of the door.
It shattered, and I reached in and undid the lock.
“I guess that works,” she laughed.
“I may have done this a time or two,” I said with a wink.
“I bet if they still had electricity then an alarm would be going off right now,” she said.
“Most likely,” I agreed.
“Should we clear the place?” Kimmy asked.
“Do you think you’re ready?” I asked.
“I think I can handle it,” she said with a nod.
I knew that there wasn’t anybody in the store, but I figured it didn’t hurt to give Kimmy the experience. She had said that she wanted to learn how to do more, so this was a good place to start, and it was nice to learn with a building that was basically already clear. It was obvious that nobody had been in here. If someone was living in the building then there would be signs of that, but there wasn’t, and the nice thick layer of dust that coated everything gave away the fact that nobody had been inside recently.
I went over the basic rules of clearing a building again quickly, then I nodded to Kimmy to follow my lead.
We entered the building, and I went to the right while she went to the left. After the front of the store was clear then we made our way to the employee only section and cleared that area as well.
“Clear,” I called when we had gone through the whole store.
“Clear,” Kimmy called, and she looked at me with a wide grin. She was clearly proud of herself.
“Good job,” I told her with a smile.
“Thanks,” she said. “I hope you aren’t just saying that.”
“Not at all,” I assured her, and I meant it. She hadn’t swept me once, and she’d made sure to check everywhere. She had done well considering she had barely any practice with it, and I knew she’d only get better if she had the opportunity.
“Well, good,” she said, and she put her weapon away. The girls had opted to carry their plasma guns with their pistols for backup just in case something failed with the plasma weapons. They were still new to us, and I didn’t want to risk being caught with only them on hand.
Kimmy, however, carried only a pistol since she didn’t have any experience with the plasma weapons. We could all use more practice, but I didn’t want to give Kimmy one when she rarely used a weapon as it was.
She and I started to go through the store, but it was a lot more difficult to find things here than it had been at Walmart. Walmart was designed for shoppers to come in and find products themselves, but here the employees were responsible for retrieving most of the actual parts. There were accessories and some tools out on the floor, but the filters we needed were in the back, and we couldn’t seem to find them. A lot of the products were in boxes and the shelves were labeled with random assortments of letters and numbers that meant absolutely nothing to me. I couldn’t even find a manifest that showed what the labels meant, I figured that it was probably on the computer. The employee probably searched for the item they needed and then retrieved it based off of the code.
I started to take products out of the boxes to see if I could figure out what each shelf contained, and I thought I was starting to get the hang of it when I heard something.
“Did you hear that?” Kimmy asked as she stopped what she was doing and looked at me.
“I did,” I said with narrowed eyes. “But I’m not sure what it was.”
We both stopped and listened. Everything was quiet for a second, but then I heard the distinct sound of Bailey yelling.
“Fuck,” I said, and I pulled out my plasma gun from my hip and ran toward the door.
I stopped once I had a view of the road, and I scanned the area to see what was going on. If Bailey was yelling then there was a problem, and I needed to figure out what it was. This was why we needed those walkie talkies that Kimmy had got working. Luckily we’d gotten batteries for them, so this wouldn’t be an issue after this run, but for today we were on our own.
“What is it?” Kimmy whispered as she came up behind me. I could feel her breath on my neck as she leaned up against me in order to get a good view.
“I can’t see anything yet,” I said, but then I heard someone else’s voice call out, and a man took a step out from behind the jeep. He had been standing on the other side of the vehicle so I couldn’t see him.
“Oh, my god,” Kimmy breathed. “Is he trying to steal the jeep?”
“I’m sure he is,” I said with a nod. “But he’s not going to.”
“What do you want me to do?” she asked.
I thought for a second about my options. I could have Kimmy stay in the automotive store, but there could be others with this guy, and she could be in more danger on her own than with me. At least if she was with me, then I could protect her.
“Follow me,” I whispered. “Stay close.”
“What about the other girls?” she asked. “Should we try to go get them?”
“I’m sure that Anna heard, too,” I said. “They’re probably on their way over there.”
“Alright,” the curly-haired woman said. “I’m right behind you.”
“Good,” I said, and I scanned the area once more. The man was looking up at Bailey, and he had his weapon drawn.
Seeing him point a gun at her got me heated, and I had to regain my composure before I did something stupid.
I led Kimmy around the back of the building, and we made our way along the backside of the little strip mall until we came to the Walmart where our jeep was parked. Once we were there, I carefully hid us behind one of the vehicles in the parking lot.
Kimmy tapped me on the shoulder, and when I turned to look at her she pointed to our left.
Anna, Paige, and Tara were all hidden behind another vehicle that was in the lot. The redhead and I made eye contact, then I nodded at her to let her know that I had a plan.
We were close enough now that I had a better view of what was going on. There were four men standing near our jeep, and they all had pistols of various calibers pointed up at Bailey. Each of them looked grimier than the last, and skinnier, too.
“Look,” Bailey shouted, and I could tell by her voice that she was getting exasperated. “I’m giving you an out. Just walk away!”
The blonde had obviously been trying to reason with these assholes, but it wasn’t working. Part of me wondered why she hadn’t just taken the shot, but I knew my sweet hippie girl, and she wouldn’t feel right not at least giving them the opportunity to walk away.
Honestly, I couldn’t blame her. We’d been part of a lot of violence lately, and more than that, we’d seen a lot of violence. The NKs had taken a lot of hostages, but they’d killed even more american citizens. I wouldn’t kill more if I didn’t have to.
I had to consider that not everybody who was doing something bad was inherently a bad person. I knew that some people were just trying to survive. Between last year’s winter and the Korean invasion I wasn’t sure how many more citizens we even had in the area so the ones that made it had clearly fought hard to do so.
The fact that they weren’t taking the opportunity Bailey was giving them didn’t bode well for them, but I figured I would give them one last opportunity. They might not respect Bailey since she was only one person, but they’d have to pay a bit more attention if they knew that I was here, too.
I looked over to Anna and gestured that I was going to try to communicate with the guys. The redhead nodded, and I knew that she and the other girls had my back.
“Just give up, bitch,” one of the guys called up to Bailey. He had shoulder length shaggy brown hair, a white T-shirt on with a pair of black cargo pants and sneakers, and a rolled up cigarette or joint behind one ear.
The way he talked to my sweet hippie girl pissed me off, and I stood up and leaned over the top of the sedan that I had been behind.
“I think you’re the ones who should be giving up,” I said, and the men all turned around to point their guns at me.
“Where the fuck did you come from?” the shaggy-haired man asked.
“My friend up there gave you an out,” I said calmly as I leveled my plasma gun at them. “You should take it.”
“The fuck is that?” a short bald guy in a red T-shirt laughed. “Is that a toy gun?”
“You don’t want to see what kind of gun this is,” I threatened. “And you definitely don’t want to see what kind of aim my friend up there has.”
“Who, that little girl?” the brown-haired man scoffed. “You two are still outnumbered. You should take your own advice and walk away.”
“You should get your facts straight,” Anna said as she popped up from behind the black mustang she and the other girls were behind.
“That’s still three to four,” the guy said. “You should learn how to count, sweetie.”
“What about us?” Tara asked as she and Paige popped up as well.
“Yeah,” Paige said. “Do we need to learn how to count, too?”
“So there’s two more of you,” the guy in the red shirt said. “We’re not fuckin’ scared of you. It looks like we’re at a standoff, though.”
“No,” I said. “We’re not.”
“Two more actually,” Kimmy said as she popped up next to me.
“Our friend up on that roof could take all four of you out in a matter of seconds,” Tara said. “You’re lucky she saw you before we did. This is us being nice, you don’t want to see us angry.”
“What are you, the fucking hulk?” the brown-haired guy laughed.
“Worse,” Tara said, and she raised an eyebrow at the guy.
“My blonde companion is right,” I said. “This is us being nice, but I’m about done with that. You have ten seconds to get the fuck out of here, or your brains are going to be on the ground.”
“Fuck you,” the guy spat.
“I tried,” I said with a shrug, and I glanced over at Anna and nodded. “Bailey!”
I yelled the sniper’s name, then I immediately ducked down and pulled Kimmy with me.
The guys had been facing the girls and I, completely ignoring Bailey on the roof. It was a rookie mistake, and one that would cost them today. I would have fired at them, but they had their weapons pointed right in our direction and there was a higher risk that one of us could get hit.
Bailey’s rifle sounded four times, one right after the other like the god of thunder himself smiting unfaithful subjects, and the soft sound of the bodies hitting the ground followed.
“Clear!” the blonde called out after a minute.
I poked my head out and double checked, but all four of the men were lying on the ground with blood pooling around what remained of their heads.
“Good shot,” I called up to Bailey as I stepped out from behind the vehicle.
“Thanks,” she called down, but she sounded sad.
“Hey,” I said. “I know you didn’t want to do that.”
“I tried to give them the opportunity to leave,” she said with a shake of her head. “They just had to be dicks about it.”
“Fuck ‘em!” Tara yelled up to the other blonde. “They were assholes!”
“I know,” Bailey chuckled. “And to be honest I got really mad when they called me little girl. I was about to shoot them right then, but Tav popped out then.”
“Sorry,” I laughed. “If I had known you were going to take them out I wouldn’t have said anything.”
“It’s alright,” she said, and I could hear the smile in her voice even though I couldn’t see it. “It happens. Finish up what you were doing, I’ll make sure that nobody else comes around. And this time I’m not going to give anybody the opportunity. They’re just going to waste it.”
“Good call,” I said. “We’ll make this quick.”
We all dispersed again and headed back to the buildings that we were originally looking through. While we walked I thought about what Bailey had said. I hated to see her lose some of her sweetness, but it was probably for the best. She had tried to give those guys a way out of the situation alive, and they’d squandered it. We’d been in enough situations like that to know that most people would squander the opportunity, but it still sucked to see Bailey come to that realization. She was a sweetheart for even trying to reason with those guys, and I loved her for it, even though it wasn’t practical.
