After waking up, we noticed that the sounds of gunfire have significantly dwindled, and it seems that the highway is wholly deserted of people, with some new fires catching deeper in the city center, as some of the earlier fires beginning to peter out.
I checked my phone in vain, hoping to hear back from my friends, but there was still nothing. I hope they can make it here soon; otherwise, I'm going to have to go out there looking for them.
A quick check-in with all the buildings revealed that everything was quiet at the dorms and that no infected appeared to be approaching the dorms yet, but someone on watch at Building D reported seeing a shadow in one of the windows of Building C, the summer housing building that remained silent so far…
I wonder why the infected are staying away from here?
Maybe they haven't had a chance to expand out from the city center while on foot yet?
I decided to figure that out later; right now, I need to focus on our scouting mission.
As I'm deep in thought, Ted comes up and hands me the supply lists, which he had spent the night compiling into a black note book, "Hey man," Ted yawns, "Thanks for letting me do this; I just couldn't sleep and needed the distraction, going to see if I'm tired enough now." He says while heading into his room, where I can hear him plop down on his bed.
Quickly skimming through the black book, I discovered that things were better in the food department than I had hoped, but our water situation was worse than I had feared. We have about two days of water unless we ration it, which at most would double our time to four days…
"Hey, Don, wake up!" I say, kicking him awake as he decided to crash on our couch last night.
"Ouch! Easy dude! I'm up!" Don grumbles while getting up off the floor, "What do you want?"
"I need you to tell the other buildings to start rationing their water, begin collecting and boiling the water from the toilet tanks, as well as taking spare containers and saran wrap to set up evaporation collectors on the roof," I tell him, taking a note to scribble it all down.
"What's an evaporation collector going to collect?" Don asks, looking over the list.
"The water from our urine," I say, turning to head towards the lobby to set up the ladder, "We're going to need every drop of water we can get until we set up a permanent water collection system. And I want to limit people leaving their buildings as much as possible."
"But our piss? Ugh..." Don groans, heading out behind me.
Once the ladder is set up, John, Marcus, and Pompous Prick come down to meet up, and we slowly descend the ladder. However, when I saw Miranda, I was shocked to see seven other students have decided to accompany us.
"I hope you don't mind. Some TAs know of some other research projects the summer professors were working on better than I do, and I think that it would greatly improve our scouting efficiency," Miranda explains the unexpected tagalongs matter-of-factly.
"It's not an issue. Things have been quiet lately, but I'm not sure how much longer that'll last. It'd be best if we did this as quickly as possible so we need to split up. You'll lead your group to McKinley Hall while me and the rest head to the police station." I order, beginning to move out before Miranda speaks up.
"And what about weapons? Wouldn't it be safer to be armed?" Miranda questions.
"This is meant to be a scouting trip; if anything remotely dangerous or unexpected happens, immediately fall back to the dorms, Understood?" I answer.
"Alright, at least that is a plan," Miranda responds with somewhat noticeable dissatisfaction as we head to the campus.
It's a silent and eerie walk as we cross the deserted sky bridge connecting the dorms to the rest of the campus by crossing a recessed highway that is now devoid of almost every vehicle that normally passes through it on a daily basis.
Once through the glass bridge, we split up; Miranda and her crew turn left towards McKinley Hall while the rest carry on forward across the numerous college buildings until we reach the far end of the campus where the police station resides.
Shockingly, the doors to the police station are all unlocked. And I begin to make my way further in cautiously before the rest follow behind as Pompous Prick speaks up, "This is weird, right? I'm not the only one noticing the complete lack of people, am I?"
"Yeah, I think Lawerence is right; there should at least be a skeleton maintenance crew and some summer school professors. Also, why would any policeman leave their station unlocked in the middle of what is essentially a declaration of martial law?" Marcus says.
"Are you really sure we need to be leaving the dorms? Didn't the broadcast say to stay in place?" John nervously asks.
"We need to secure what's in the police armory while there's no one around to stop us. Ah, there it is!" I say, finding a building layout map that leads us straight to the armory, which is finally the first locked door we come across. Fortunately, John finds the keys in the drawer of the nearby desk.
After opening the door, we're greeted by a beautiful sight; I whistle before saying, "God bless this overly militarized police force of Merica!"
The walls are lined with dozens of guns, ranging from rifles to shotguns to pistols, even a tear gas grenade launcher in with the department's riot gear section… Which is also full?
"Alright, I knew it was fairly easy to get here… But why would all of the riot gear still be here after all the police were instructed to begin fighting this thing?" I say as everyone slowly recovers from the shock of a full armory.
As we're silently staring at all the guns we've just acquired, the pounding of footsteps echoes throughout the police station as Miranda and three other students from the engineering department charge into the room in a panic before slamming the door behind them and motioning us to be silent.
Miranda whispers with fear in her eyes, "Be quiet! It's hunting us one by one!"