“What about the tightly packed object?” Dante asked, studying the wall. “Can we get the bolts tight enough?”
Tate approached the display and looked for a moment, hand over his chin. Finally he found a plastic bag dispenser, and tore one off, pouring a couple handfuls of bolts before wrapping up tight. He tossed it over to Dante, who inspected it with a smile.
“I’d say that works,” he said. “Let’s get to building.”
Tate nodded. “If you want to start bagging these up, Maddox and I will start building the cannons,” he suggested. “Get ‘em about halfway full and set ‘em to the side. We’ll adjust the size when we get ‘em assembled.”
Dante nodded and headed for the display, but as he reached for a bag, Ace yelled from the front door.
“We got company!” he barked.
Everyone tensed, drawing their guns and ducking.
“What do you see?” Dante called.
Ace peered out from behind the wall. “Car load of people, three… no, four, just got out,” he said. “They’re walking this way.”
“QXR?” Dante demanded.
“No, civilians,” Ace replied.
“Armed?”
“Yeah.”
Dante took a deep breath. “Stay low, I got this,” he declared, and then turned to Tate. “Let’s flank them. I do the talking and don’t fire unless I do. Good?”
Tate nodded and moved down a few aisles before heading towards the front of the store. Dante moved down the aisle one over and crouched down by the side.
The front door opened, and somebody said, “I don’t know about this,” in a worried voice. “There are trucks out here.”
“We need ammunition, and this is the only place in town to get it,” somebody else said. “We’ll be in and out quick, I promise. These trucks are probably abandoned anyway, like all the others we passed.”
Dante emerged to face two men and two women, varying in ages between thirty and fifty. “Sorry to disappoint you, but those trucks aren’t abandoned,” he said.
The oldest man’s eyes widened, and he raised his hands. The other three immediately raised their hands too, one of them holding a shotgun by the barrel, arm shaking.
“Now, we’re not going to hurt you, but I’m going to need you to put that shotgun on the ground, slowly,” Dante instructed.
The man nodded and slowly placed the weapon on the ground. As soon as it was town, Tate emerged from behind them, grabbing the weapon and stepping back into the main aisle, out of their reach.
“Now, what are you doing here?” Dante asked, crossing his arms.
The man shook his head. “We don’t want any trouble,” he said shakily.
“I appreciate that, but that’s not what I asked,” Dante said firmly. “What are you doing here?”
“We’re getting out of town,” the man explained, “but we used up most of our bullets just getting out of our house. We came here to restock before hitting the road.”
“Road to where?” Tate asked.
“My brother has a farm a couple hours north of here, near Kingstree,” the man said, and the woman behind him tugged on his shirt in a panic. “Oh, relax woman, if they wanted us dead they’d shoot us here, they aren’t going to track us to Kingstree.”
Tate cocked his head. “City life ain’t cutting it for you anymore?” he asked, lowering his gun.
Dante motioned for the group to put their hands down, and everyone relaxed.
“Not after what we heard about Beaufort,” the oldest man replied.
“Beaufort, huh?” Tate asked. “What did you hear?”
The man turned to his companion. “Billy, you want to tell them?” he asked.
“My girl and I live in Beaufort… at least we did until this morning,” the younger man next to him said. “A bunch of men with guns started going through neighborhoods, shooting those things, but also pulling people out of their homes. Not a lot mind you, but a fair number of people that were just holed up hoping for rescue. We were like that too, until we saw them roughing them up and throwing them into the back of a truck.” He winced, swallowing and shaking his head. “We got in the car and took off.”
Dante cocked his head. “How did you get across the bridge?” he asked.
“Dumb luck, really,” Billy replied. “They were just pulling up to block it off when we sped by them. They fired a couple of shots, but didn’t follow us. We didn’t know what to do, so we came here to her Uncle Jack’s place.”
The older man, apparently Jack, nodded. “And when they told me all that, I loaded them up in the car and we came here,” he added. “I don’t know who those boys are, and I get the sense I don’t want to know ‘em. I’m too old to be fighting.”
“They’re mercenaries from the QXR group, and you’re right, you don’t want to know them,” Dante said.
Jack raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like you know that firsthand,” he said.
“Wish I could say otherwise,” Dante replied.
Tate inclined his head towards the group. “You said you came here for ammunition?” he asked. “Didn’t know they had that here.”
“There’s not much, mind you, but they got a cage in the back room,” Jack explained. “Come on, I’ll show you.” He stepped forward slowly, and Dante motioned for him to lead the way.
Jack reached underneath the counter behind the register, pulling out a set of keys. He led them into the back room, which was a small storage area. There was a four-foot tall metal cage with a swinging gate, and he unlocked it, opening it up.
“Well I’ll be damned,” Tate breathed as he looked over the forty boxes of ammunition. “I had no idea this was back here.”
Dante cocked his head. “So what do you need, old timer?”
“Could use a couple boxes of twelve gauge,” Jack replied. “Maybe a couple of nine mil, if you can
