No one called dibs this time, and she could tell that everyone now thought they were just wasting their time. She found it fascinating that she could read the mood of the group. It was like that now. They had spent so much time together, that oftentimes they didn't even need to say anything to know what the others were thinking or feeling.
This must have been what it was like to be in the army. Does that make me a soldier? She laughed internally at the idea.
As the door of the next unit went up, Epps let out a low whistle.
"I think we hit the jackpot," Gregg said.
Amanda moved to look inside the unit. It was a goddamn arsenal.
"Oh, thank Christ," Tejada said. "I was starting to feel naked with thirty rounds in my pocket.
"I guess the fourth time's the charm," Allen said.
Amanda helped the soldiers pull the boxes out of the unit, and they spread the gear on the ground. There was a lot of ammunition in there, all arranged in boxes of cardboard or plastic. She liked the look of the bullets in the plastic cases. The individual bullets hanging looked like test tubes in a rack to her.
As Tejada sorted through all the ammunition, he began to mutter swear words under his breath.
"What is it?" Walt asked.
Tejada waved his hands to encompass all of the ammunition, "We don't have any rounds for our rifles."
"So?"
"So, we either lug extra rifles around with us, or we go fully loud when we run out of ammo for what we got."
Walt unslung his bowling ball from his back, waving it back and forth. "I'm ready either way," he said, all cocky bravado.
For a second, it looked like Tejada was going to lay into the boy, but he let the comment slide. "The other option is we ditch the rifles we got and take some of these hunters' deals. They're unsilenced and loud as shit, but they'll get the job done."
"I like getting the job done," Brown called as he set a big heavy box down on the concrete floor.
"What's in there?" Tejada asked.
"Don't know. Haven't opened it yet."
Tejada stood and limped over to the box. He squatted down to his knees and ran his hands over the case. "This one's for papa," he said to no one in particular. It was large, about the size of an old steamer trunk. He undid the latches on the black, plastic case and lifted the lid. He reached inside and pulled out a long tube.
To her left, Rudy spoke in a poor German accent, "Now I have an RPG. Ho, ho, ho."
The other soldiers laughed, but as was frequently the case around all of the boys, she had no idea what they were laughing about. She would be glad when they found other women. Men were just… different—and not always in a good way.
Tejada handed the tube off to Epps. The other soldiers shined their flashlights on it, treating it like it was a long-lost treasure. Tejada put his arms back in the case and fumbled around as if looking for something. "Fuck," he said, leaning back on his haunches.
"What?" she asked.
"There's no goddamn rockets for it."
And just like that, the RPG turned into just another defunct piece of metal with no purpose in the zombie apocalypse. Epps handed the tube back to Tejada, and he plunked the thing back into the case without ceremony. Where before, they had handled it like it was the holy grail, now, they treated it like a piece of trash with no more significance than the cut padlocks littering the floor of the storage facility.
In the end, most of the men ditched their silenced rifles. Allen, the best shot in the group, held onto his, and the soldiers gave him all of their ammunition. He had close to 200 rounds in his backpack when they were all consolidated. He would be their sniper if there was ever a need for such a thing.
The rest picked out a various assortment of rifles, matching them with the correct ammunition and stuffing as much as they could in their backpacks. There was still plenty left over, and Tejada handed her a rifle. While the other soldiers ate, he showed her how her new weapon worked. He showed her how to load it, turn the safety on, and where to point the sight to kill an Annie.
Amanda groaned at the thought of having to carry more weight on her back, but she knew she would be an idiot to pass up the chance at having a rifle and some ammunition. She wasn't the greatest shot out there, but she had done her time with the other soldiers at the makeshift shooting range back on the Nike Campus. She thought she could do some damage if she needed to.
Once Tejada was done educating her about her new rifle, they pulled cans of soup from their backpacks and heated them over the propane camp stove, placing the opened cans directly over the flames and stirring their contents until steam rose from them. With a t-shirt wrapped around his hand, Rudy pulled the cans free and set them on the concrete floor until they were cool enough to handle.
Amanda savored the saltiness of the soup. It wasn't bad, and she was glad to have it. She would kill for some chicken carbonara, but Progresso Italian Wedding Soup would do just fine. It had little meatballs in it, and while it wasn't like actual fresh meat, it did taste about as good as anything she had eaten in the last month.
When they were done, they tossed their cans in the corner with no concern for the storage facility's owner. He wouldn't be coming back. All the world's bills were overdue, and anyone still
