"So you'll tell others about us," said Justin sharply.
Sid looked back and forth between Dave and Justin. "Being rescued is a good thing, right?"
"That's if this guy isn't a spy," said Justin.
"That isn't an accusation that I can deny," said Dave. "Almost anything I say will be taken as evidence against me."
Justin didn't say anything and Sid just looked confused.
"So how about this?" suggested Dave. "How about I stay here for a few days? I help out and work on building up some trust. I'm in no hurry and I'm rather tired so having a few days rest would help."
"We don't have many supplies," countered Justin.
"You people have chosen a great place. It's right on top of a shopping mall. There's lots of supplies just below us. I can help gather them up."
Justin squinted at Dave. His distrust plainly evident.
"These are difficult times," sighed Dave. "A certain amount of caution is important, but passing into the realm of rampant paranoia will only be harmful. Give me a few days and we'll see what your opinion is then."
Justin frowned. "Okay. Let's see how useful you can be."
"Good," said Dave. "What do you guys want done?"
* * *
Dave stood in front of the huge supermarket that took up a large portion of the bottom floor of the shopping complex. The mission that he had been given was to get some supplies. Dave hadn't noticed much of anything that could be called food up on the shopping complex's roof so it seemed like a fair enough request.
In front of the supermarket was a long line of shopping trollies of which Dave grabbed one. He pushed the trolly into the supermarket and looked about. He had been told that this was where the people upstairs got their supplies but Dave didn't see any real signs of looting. There were some areas on the shelves that weren't fully stacked, but that could have been from just ordinary store usage.
Thinking back on the lethargy that Dave had seen so far, he wasn't surprised by the lack of effort from the other survivors that he was noticing. But considering the events that lead to this time, it didn't seem surprising. If they didn't wake up and become energised soon then they'd have some serious issues surviving in the future - even with all the supplies right underneath them.
Dave didn't push too far into the vegetable section as he noticed a slight rotting smell from within. The fresh food section was probably starting to decay. Instead he heading for the tin food section where he started filling his trolly with pop-top cans of soup. He filled about half the trolly before moving on to the kitchen wear section. At the kitchen wear section Dave grabbed several dozen spoons and put them into the trolly.
Pushing the trolly into an aisle dedicated to drinks, Dave stopped in front of various sized slabs of filled water bottles. The big slabs were a bit heavy, but Dave stacked as many of the smaller slabs of bottled water onto the trolly as he could dare.
With all the supplies that he thought important, Dave left the supermarket and pushed the trolly to the back of the shopping centre. At the back of the shopping centre, instead of stairs, was an access to an inclined ramp so that people with shopping trollies could get from floor to floor without struggling too much with an excessive incline. If there had been electricity then he could have used the currently non-functioning elevators.
Although this made Dave's journey to the top floor of the shopping centre easy, there was still the issue of getting onto the roof. There was no need to get trollies onto the roof so no ramps had been made to reach that high. Dave looked at the stairwell leading up with displeasure as he tried to think of a way of dragging his heavy trolly up the stairs.
"Holly crap," said a voice from behind Dave.
Dave turned to see who it was. "Hi Eric." Dave wasn't really friends with anyone in the shopping centre but he felt that if he at least acted in a friendly manner then he'd get treated in a friendly manner in return.
"That's a lot of supplies."
"Yeah, I was asked to get some but I'm not sure how to get them up the stairs."
"I'll help."
"Thanks. I'll need it. I'm thinking that we might have to just carry the contents by hand."
Eric looked through the wire mesh of the trolley. "That's a lot of loose cans. That's going to be a lot of up and down."
"How about we take up the water bottles first and then see if we can lift the trolly with the cans?"
"Okay," said Eric coming forward.
They both grabbed a slab of water bottles each and began climbing.
"If you don't mind," started Dave, "can I ask what you've been doing?"
"I don't mind. I was just checking through the trucks looking to see if one would work."
"It's only been a few days, so they should all work."
"Yeah. But I'm not a mechanic. I have no idea how to hot wire a car, so I need to find the keys that can start a truck."
"That's a good point. I didn't think of that. Did you find any keys?"
"It was a mix. All the cars are locked, but oddly quite a few trucks still have their keys."
"That might make sense. The cars are probably people from people who locked their cars, took their keys and went shopping, while the trucks were here to drop off stock and the drivers probably stayed near the trucks in order to be on hand to move them at a notice."
"That's going to make finding the keys for the cars really difficult."
Dave leaned his shoulder against the door at the top of the stairs and pushed it open. Dave held the door open with his shoulder as Eric came through.
