The soldiers grabbed Clara's hands, yanked her out of thebed of the truck, and threw her down on the ground where more soldiers werewaiting. It was a tough fall, but it was better than being dead, and thesoldiers had very little time or patience at that particular moment. Joan faredbetter. She was more present than Clara was, and when the soldiers held outtheir arms to her, she gladly accepted them. Joan scrambled down thescaffolding, not wanting to be in the way. When she hit the bottom, she turnedand watched as the last two soldiers made their way onto the platform.
Then she saw something amazing. Hubert stood up in theback of the truck, his sunglasses back on his face, and a cigarette in hismouth. He waved to her, smiling as if to say it was all worth it, then he put agun to his head and blew his own brains out. His body collapsed to the back ofthe truck as if in slow-motion.
One of the soldiers on the scaffolding banged on the roofof the truck's cab, and it lurched away, rumbling over the dead, the driverchecking his mirrors to see if he had any hangers on. How he was going to getout was a mystery to Joan, but he would figure it out.
Right now, she was more concerned with all of the gunspointed at her and Clara.
"Strip," one of the men said. Joan did sowithout hesitation. It was a new world, and public nudity was no longer frownedupon.
Chapter 13: The Dumpster of Salvation
Blake walked down the street, his hunting rifle in hishand. The rifle was solid, and Blake knew how to use it, but he only had onebox of ammunition. Unlike most people, his rifle was actually only for hunting,and he had no need for more than one box of ammo... until he had woken up tofind the world dying.
Mort followed him closely, his pistol in his hand. Therewere only three bullets left in it. He was saving them for a special occasion.They ran down a thinly populated street, home to low buildings, the occasionaltree, and the dead. They had seen a few people scattered about, but no oneappeared interested in making friends. The few cars that had passed them by hadbeen at full rev and flew past them without even slowing down. The buildings inthis part of town looked like they had been built in the '70s. They were squaresquat structures that had the feel of a strip mall. Narrow alleys ran behindand between each of the buildings.
They moved at a slow pace, necessitated by Mort's swollenknee. Blake knew where he was going, a pawn shop that was only a couple ofblocks down the road. They had guns. They had plenty of them, but he didn'tknow if they would be able to get in. They were taking a chance, but if it ledto them escaping from the city, then Mort was all for it, and he knew that hewas going to need more than three bullets to pull off the Great Escape.
The building was nothing special, but Blake walked aroundit anyway, peering in the windows. No one was home it appeared. The inside ofthe store was dark, and the windows were unbroken. They walked down the alleythat ran down the west side of the store, enjoying the shade it provided. Therewas a back door there, but it had no handle. Blake thought for a second beforesaying, "I guess we're just going to have to break into the place."
Mort shrugged his shoulders. Whatever they were going todo, he wanted to do it fast. They turned to walk out front. Blake smashed oneof the unlucky dead that had followed them down the alley across the face withthe butt of his rifle. It crumpled to the ground, but Blake gave it a couplemore whacks. It was most definitely dead, permanently, when Blake stopped.
They stood in front of the store, a handful of the deadshuffling down the street towards them.
"Alright, here's the plan. We break in the window,and run to the rear as quick as we can. A shithole like this isn't going tohave the guns out front. They'll most likely be in the back. We'll pop into theback, grab the guns, break out through the back door, and skirt around the backalley to avoid anything that comes investigating. Sound good?"
Mort nodded, "Sounds like a plan."
"Now if we break this glass and an alarm goes off,we're really going to have to move our asses."
"Right," Mort said, taking deep breaths in preparation."I'm ready."
Blake looked at the front of the pawn shop. "4 DVD'sfor $10," was painted across the window in red, yellow, and black."That's a hell of a deal," Blake said before smashing the window inwith the butt of his rifle. There was no pause as the pawn shop's alarm sprangto life. It was an ear-splitting noise, so sharp and powerful that Mort couldswear he felt each blast in his teeth. The alarm could probably be heard forblocks.
Blake ran through the store. He was much quicker thanMort seeing as how he hadn't destroyed his knee the night before. Blake hoppedover the counter in the back of the store and then kicked in the wooden doorbehind the counter. Mort moved as quick as he could, which wasn't actually allthat quick. He rolled over the counter and landed on the other side. When hestepped into the back room, Blake was tossing boxes of old junk on the ground.DVD's, tools, and junk jewelry all piled up on the floor. On the opposite sideof the room, Mort spied a chest hidden underneath some boxes of CD's that werecovered in a layer of dust.
Mort shoved the box to the side and lifted the cover ofthe chest. Lying in the chest was a treasure trove of guns. "Overhere!" Mort yelled
