into the store, fill up some bags and boxes of food, run back to the truck and happily drive back to the shop.
So I left here in the big 4x4 armored pickup truck. The zombies don't seem to be interested in the repair shop and they weren't any around when I pulled out of the shop. Unfortunately though, as I got nearer and nearer to the convenience store, the zombies started streaming towards me and the truck from every direction. When I got to the store, I was completely surrounded by them. They were clawing and scratching and banging at the truck. The armor held up to their assault, but I couldn't get out to raid the store.
The front of the convenience store was just one big piece of glass and I thought about just driving through. I knew that wouldn't work, though, because once I was in the zombies would also be in with me. I would have to rethink my approach and try again.
I backed the truck out of the parking lot, the over sized tires easily crushing the bloated corpses of the surrounding zombies. I drove away from the convenience store, taking a long roundabout path back to the garage in order to lose the pack of zombies I had acquired at the convenience store and to avoid drawing others to the store when I stopped. It was still quiet here at the as I pulled in and secured the garage doors behind me.
As it is right now, I know that I can travel where I want to go, but I can't get the supplies I need. The truck seems kind of large and not so good for the maneuvering I will have to do if I want to get right up and close to the store fronts. I need to think on my approach to the problem some more.
Success!
I just got back from the convenience store and I am restocked with food and water
This time I used the car that was parked in the shop's other work bay, a small sub-compact car. It looked like whatever was wrong had already been repaired and it was just waiting for the mechanic to put the tires back on and the hood down. “No problem,” I thought. After putting the tires back on I welded armor over the car in the same way as I did with the truck. This time I left some openings in the armor of the side window so I'd have a good idea of how many zombies were massed next to the car when I reached the store. I would also be able to blast away at them with my pistol for some breathing room
The initial part of my second trip to the convenience store was the same as it had been with the truck. By the time I arrived I was completed surrounded by the undead. This time, however, I was able to slip into the store through its double doors thanks to the diminutive size of the sub-compact. It was the perfect situation because only the car would fit into the gap. Any zombies that had grabbed onto the side of the car were scraped off as I drove through.
After pushing all the way in, I backed the car up so that the rear bumper pushed the doors closed, preventing the zombies from pressing into the interior of the store. After setting the emergency brake and turning off the car's engine to avoid breathing exhaust fumes, I stepped out of the car and methodically shot the three zombies that were tenaciously clinging to the front of the car.
Looking back, I saw that the store's windows were holding back the horde of undead press against the glass. I shuddered as I thought about their numbers and the how truly thin the store windows were. I quickly assessed that there weren't any people in the store, alive or dead, and quickly went to work. I was shocked to discover that the store appeared to have escaped the shelf baring raids by survival minded shoppers in the days preceding the zombie plague. There was still a wide assortment of canned food and dried goods, as well as a vast assortment of drinks. There was more in the store room at the back of the store, more than I could fit in the little car. The car, in fact, was so full that its rear end was sagging dramatically.
Satisfied, I got in my car to leave, but pulling back out proved to be a little trickier than my entrance. I shattered one of the doors backing out. The stress of my rear bumper pushing against the press of the undead outside the door was more than the glass door could bear, causing it to warp and snap. I continued slowly past the door, bumping and gently nudging the zombies as I went. Memories of my first escape by car, which I had destroyed by car ramming into the zombie hordes, were still fresh in my mind. It was better to be safe than sorry.
I was still backing up when a hand shot into the visions slits I'd cut out of window armor. The hand was well rotted and the ragged fingers busily searched for my face. I immediately leaned hard to my right side and away from the hand. I wasn't going to take a chance of catching the infection by trying to remove it with my bare hands and I didn't know what part of the arm was best to shoot with the pistol. The hand and arm kept flailing in the window slit trying to reach me and left chunks of flesh and gore on the rough edges of the metal. After a few more heart pounding seconds of backing the car up, I cleared the back edge of the zombie horde. I flipped the car into a quick turn and the pulled away from the store as quick as I could. I was heading back to the garage on my roundabout route with a zombie arm still flailing inside my little car.
As I picked up speed, the arm was pulled to the rear of the vision slot as the attached body was dragged along the pavement outside. Soon the zombie outside was no longer running but had fallen; the weight of its body forced its arm up into the ceiling of the car. Not slowing down at all, I drifted the car to the left side of the road with the intent on scraping the zombie off on a telephone pole.
I picked a pole and aimed the car to pass it within inches. The zombie outside smacked against it with a loud ‘thwock' and a 'BANG'. I was finally free of the arm, but I was also missing a whole section of sheet metal that I'd welded over the window.
I continued driving and noted that the quiet engine of the little car did not drawing attention from random zombies as I cruised back to the shop.
So I am well stocked now, for a little while. I've got time to think about how I'm going to resupply again at the convenience store since I've broken the doors. With the door broken, they can get into the store. There is still a lot of food left and I will need to get to it again.
The Kitchen Sink
The Internet had been down after the power flickered several days ago. It's back up now. Some server probably just needed to reset themselves somewhere
I've been busy though. I was cleaning up the front office when I had a breakthrough idea. I was pulling some of the previous owners junk off of the desk and sweeping it into the drawers. Then the idea hit me like a ton of bricks! I won't have to get out of my car if I can sweep supplies into a drawer fastened to the car.
So what I did, in a nutshell, is took the big, ugly, gray, metal desk that I had just been throwing junk into and I welded it to the side of the little car. What I really did was cut off each of the draw sections from the sides of the desk and I fitted them into both doors of the car, right and left. They take up space pretty far into the seats, so I've rigged a third seat in the middle. I'm going to have to drive like a rural delivery postman, with my feet stretched to work the pedals and using my left arm only to steer.
I have also replaced the sheet metal armor over the windows. This time I skipped the big slits I'd cut in last time and just drilled small holes for vision that the zombies can't thrust their hands into. To sweep in the supplies when I return to the store, I have an L-shaped pole that I push out through a small hole in the window armor. With the drawers welded to the doors, I will have to do my entering and exiting of the vehicle through the back hatch now.
I've been back to the convenience store now, twice. The zombie hordes were substantially on these last trips. It's probably because they have wandered out from the population rich neighborhoods and now roam freely.
The drawer concept has worked awesome. I just pull the car into the store next to a shelf, pushed out a drawer, and then dragged supplies into the open drawer. I pull it in, stash the supplies somewhere in the car and then move on to the next shelf.
I will keep working to upgrade the car.
I've also got more and more zombies starting to wande
r and roam in the area around the shop. I have to wait until the coast is clear for supply runs, but those opportunities a becoming more infrequent.
Someone else
I rescued another survivor today. I was trolling through the area looking for a new store to raid when a rock slammed into the top of the car. It scared the living daylights out of me. Then it pissed me off. “Who the hell is chucking boulders at my car?” I thought. I stopped the car and started scanning outside through my little vision holes.
The zombies were starting to swarm the car when I finally saw him. He was standing slightly back in the window of a nearby two story house. I couldn't rescue him with a horde surrounding me though, so I honked twice and started nudging the car through the building horde. There was no place for them to grab hold anymore, but they still beat on the top and sides of the car with their swollen and plague ridden flesh
When I was clear of the horde, I continue forward at a slightly quicker pace. I honked the horn as I went to attract them. I pulled them with me for nearly a mile before stomping on the accelerator and looping back to the survivor's house. The zombies were clear of the area, so I back the car up to his front door, popped the rear