Tech: Zombie Effect Chapter 10

Title: Tech: Zombie Effect Chapter 10
Characters: Logan/Carter; Robert
POV: Logan


“No guns, ok?” Logan said. “It’s dark. No one should be out and about. So just stay inside. We’ll be back soon.”


Carter glared at him. “Soon is relative. Soon could be sometime tomorrow.”


Logan reached out and pulled him in close. He leaned down. “Don’t be bitchy. It’s not a good look on you.” He softened the blow with a kiss. He hated leaving him behind, but the news had been full of riots and looting. Nothing close to them yet. Mostly in big cities like Los Angeles and Chicago. But he didn’t want to risk the supplies they’d already gathered getting stolen.


“Come on. The sooner we leave, the quicker we’ll be back,” Robert said.


“Lock the door,” Logan instructed as he and Robert went out the door. He waited until he heard the click of the locks before he went down the stairs.


Robert was standing by the truck when he got there. “He’ll be alright.”


“Yeah, that’s what I thought earlier today and yet he managed to shoot himself.” Logan climbed in the driver’s side and unlocked the side door. He heard Robert try to cover his laugh with a cough. Logan would have shot him a dirty look, but it was too dark and would just be wasted.


He took his time backing out of the driveway. He looked around but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. They lived far enough from town that they didn’t have street lights, he couldn’t be sure if anything had changed. “Had you heard if anyone’s gotten sick yet in town?”


“I hadn’t heard anyone getting sick in Oakfield. Some in Springmeadow and a shit-ton in Kansas City.”


Logan nodded. “Ok. Let’s not take too long though. Let’s just get what you want and head back. If people are getting sick in Springmeadow, then who knows how long the power would last.”


He slowed down as they neared the farm and feed store. It was still dark and appeared empty. Logan flipped his turn signal and drove onto the parking lot.


“Pull to the back, I’ll get my jeep and you can follow me. We’ll fill up both vehicles. I’m just west of Oakfield. Just past the city limit sign on highway 14.”


Again, Logan nodded. He knew the county highway Robert was talking about was just on the outskirts of town. It was all paved road so the ride was smooth. He was a little worried that they didn’t see any other cars. He remembered Robert telling him that there was a town meeting to talk about all that was going on.


Logan followed the jeep down the small highway. He turned on a dirt driveway. He bounced slightly as the truck rumbled over the gravel. He was thinking about his old little car traveling down the lane. He’d worry about damage to the undercarriage, but with the big truck, he knew nothing would get broken. After about a hundred yards a small ranch style house came into sight. He followed Robert as the man drove his jeep to the back of the house.


Rounding the house, Logan stopped. He saw Robert turn the jeep around and back up. Leaning forward, Logan saw the door of what had to be a storm cellar. He put the truck in reverse and pulled around so the bed of the truck as at the door of the cellar. Robert was waiting for him as he got out the truck.


Reaching into his pocket Robert pulled out a set of keys. “This is where I keep the inventory for the store and some other things that I’ve picked up here and there.” He bent down and inserted the key. There was a small creak as he opened the doors. “I’ll oil this again before we go. Come on. Careful, the stairs are steep.”


Logan squinted at the bright light when Robert flipped a switch two steps down. Once his eyes adjusted, he saw that the stairs were quite steep. Much steeper than a typical storm cellar. There were also more of them which had Logan thinking this was deeper than any storm cellar he’d been in before. Finally, the last step led into a large room. Looking around, Logan saw shelves filled with sleeping bags, tents, and so many things, his brain couldn’t process it all.


“Damn.” The word was drawn out as Logan looked around. “How? Where? Did you know this was going to happen?”


Robert shook his head. “Not the robot thing, but something. At sometimes. Too much has been happening. Tech going crazy. The population out of control. I was just collecting things in case something did happen. And it did. Grab a couple of these bags and we’ll load up.”


Logan walked over to where Robert had taken down a dark green bag. It was bigger than any backpack, maybe something from the military, he thought. He shook it out and unzipped it. It would carry quite a bit.


“Grab some of the stuff you don’t have,” Robert called out as he walked to the back walk.


Logan had thought he had gotten everything he and Carter would need, but seeing all the supplies, he knew he hadn’t gotten even close. He picked up a couple crank flashlights, a camp stove with the tinned fuel, and he grabbed a couple traps. He had thought about hunting but hadn’t thought about traps at all. They’d be safer and probably more efficient since neither he or Carter had ever been hunting before.


On the shelf above the traps were some boxes that looked like old radios. They had a tube-like thing connected to it with what looked like old telephone cords. “What are these? Do we need them?”


When he didn’t get an answer he turned around. He swallowed hard as Robert was nowhere to be found. Had he been wrong in trusting the older man? He shook his head. That didn’t make sense. Why would he have brought him here if he didn’t want to help? “Robert? Robert?” He called out.


Robert’s head poked out around a shelf by the back wall. “Back here.”


Logan picked up the device he was wondering about and walked back to where Robert had disappeared again. He found a door that had been hidden from view by the big shelf. Stepping inside he saw six shelves full of weapons. Guns of all kinds, bullets, hand grenades, Kevlar vests, and even a hand-held rocket launcher.


“Oh my god! Are these even legal to own?”


Robert didn’t stop filling a bag with bullets as he said, “What are you going to do? Report me to the police? I think they have other things to worry about. Go ahead and put a couple vests in this.”


Logan caught the bag that Robert tossed to him. He grabbed three of the vests and put them in. He held up the metal device he’d wanted to ask the other man about. “Hey, what is this? You have a couple of them out there. Do we need them?”


“They’re Geiger counters. And yeah, put a couple in. If everything goes to shit, any nuclear power plants could melt down.”


There were a couple of nuclear plants north and to the east of them. The way the jet stream flowed, they shouldn’t be bothered by them, but Logan wasn’t sure what plants were west of them. He walked back out the main room and put a couple of the radiation counters in his bag.


“I’ll put this in and pack some of the bandages and winter clothes around it to keep it safe.” Robert had followed him out of the back room and gone to the back of the other shelf. At Logan’s blank look, he explained, “It’s a bullet reloader. We’ll need it and I don’t want it to get broken. Go ahead and load up some of the bags.”


Logan picked up two of the bags by their handles. They were heavy. He didn’t know what all Robert had packed, and he didn’t want to break anything, he decided to only take two at a time. He twisted so that one bag was in front of him and the other bag was behind him, he carefully navigated the staircase.


He stepped out into the night. He half threw the bags in the bed of his trunk. He winced as they made a loud thud. Then he heard the crunch of a footstep on frozen ground. The light escaping from the storm cellar was enough to show five, bloody people shuffling toward him.


‘Shit. They are here already,’ Logan thought before he dashed inside. He closed the doors as quietly as he could and ran down the stairs.


“Shit, Robert. They’re here.” He’d said aloud what he’d thought just moments before.


Robert echoed him. “Well, shit.”


TBC

On to Chapter 11