After getting everything packed up and ready to go shopping we all hopped in my truck and headed out into the unknown.
"While we're out and about getting a dog whistle and a water tank, what else might we need?" I asked
"If there's any canned foods and bottled water, let's grab those," Ray suggested.
"We have water filters and pumps right?" Allison asked
"Yup" I responded
"Back at my family's home our pump had a special switch that shuts off both when the water pressure is good, and when it gets too low. That way it doesn't burn out. We should get those to make the pumps last as long as possible" Allison suggested
"Got it, so pump switch, extra food, dog whistle, and a water tank. Anything else come to mind?" I asked
"Nope" Ray and Allison said in unison
"So we'll stop at Walmart to get the food and dog whistle, and Lowes for the pump switches and water container. Sound good?" I asked
"Yup" They responded
"Where to first?" I asked
"Walmart has less to grab, and look for so it'll be an easy first stop" Ray said
"Sounds good to me" Allison agreed
"Walmart it is" I concluded
We arrived at Walmart without a single attack, which is great. Unfortunately the quiet drive made entering the store worse. It went so well on the way up, there's no way it won't go to shit in the store.
As we walked up to the closed automatic doors, we realized the power outage was gonna be a pain on this trip. We ended up smashing it in with the butt of my shotgun and using Ray's jacket to clean up the sharp edges in case we needed to run out. We wouldn't want to get cut, that would suck.
We slowly entered through the newly made door and looked around. It was difficult to see, but not impossible with the skylights letting some sun in. We found the dog food section first, so we looked in the adjacent aisles until we found the dog whistles. We grabbed every last one and made our way around the store to the canned foods section. As we kept making our way around to find the canned foods, we kept getting covered in dust falling from the rafters.
We finally made it to the canned foods section and found that every can was opened already.
"Looks like all the food is gone here, maybe there's some bags of nuts or something left" Ray said breaking the silence
As we turned to go down another aisle we saw a racoon that stopped dead in its tracks when it saw us. It was facing us, and seemed like the most normal thing we've seen since the apocalypse. The racoon then slowly and cautiously approached us. We slowly backed away and it ended up heading down the aisle we were going down. We noticed the racoon looked off, but we couldn't see what before it went down the aisle
As we peeked around the corner down the aisle there were probably 13 raccoons eating the candy from that aisle. These raccoons though weren't as normal as we thought. Some had six legs, others had long necks, and two had multiple heads.
One of the ones with two heads had one head turn towards us while the other kept on eating. It hissed at us, and when it did all the other racoons finally noticed us. They all turned to us, most looking like they have rabies, and they all started hissing at us. Next thing I heard was something hit the floor next to us. I looked down and saw some liquid in the floor that sizzled as the floor eroded underneath. As I looked up I saw the rafters filled with racoons, some stationed around spitting what I assume was acid at us.
We all immediately bolted it out of the store being chased by hundreds of mutated racoons. As we rounded the corner and reached the door, we saw probably 20 raccoons guarding the exit. We looked back as the raccoons behind us flooded around the corner and we decided to sprint out the door shooting all the raccoons guarding the door. As soon as we exited Allison fell almost like she tripped. We watched as she kicked the air at her feet until we saw her foot connect. We saw a newly showing raccoon fly backwards as Allison got up and continued towards the truck.
"They can turn INVISIBLE!" Allison exclaimed horrified "what if other things like the bats, or even the sound dog can turn invisible!"
"Let's hope that's not the case" Said Ray
"I agree'' I said "let's hope Lowes isn't as bad. " What do we have left again?"
Ray said, "A water container and a... "
"... Pump switch" Allison concluded
"Got it, Allison, you get the switch while me and Ray get the container, sound good? We'll be in and out as fast as possible"
"Sounds good to me" Allison responded
"Hey, I know they keep a big stack of trash cans near the greenhouse, would that work?" Ray asked
"If not, we'll make them work" I said "We may just need to grab some duct tape just in case, I forgot to grab some before the apocalypse hit"
"We'll grab it on the way" Ray suggested
"Sounds good" I concluded
After we arrived we got out and left the truck running just in case. We broke open the door, cleaned up the shards, and entered into what hopefully isn't another hellish encounter. Allison split off to get the switches while me and Ray went to get the duct tape and trash cans.
We got the duct tape and had the trash cans in sight. We split the shack in half to share the load before hearing two shots.
"ZOMBIES" Allison yelled at the top of her lungs while booking it through the store.
Me and Ray sprinted out the store, threw the cans in the bed of the truck and ran back in. We found Allison running through the aisles zombies hot on her heels. I took a shot at one, then another until they were focused on me.
I told Ray "Check if she got the pumps or whatever, I'll distract them"
Ray ran towards her and I ran in the opposite direction down aisle after aisle. I got extremely tired extremely quickly. I found the plumbing section and knocked down as many pipes as I could, cutting off the zombies. The zombies in the back split off and started down towards the adjacent aisles towards me. I ran through the next aisle over and climbed up the shelves up to the top.
"We got them" screamed Allison from across the store
"We'll wait for you in the truck, I'll pull up to the front" Ray yelled
I then looked down and saw the zombies following what I did not too long ago. They were all scampering up and I felt the shelving unit start to tip over. I immediately started jumping from shelf to shelf running from the domino effect of shelves and zombies. As I reached the last shelf I tried to stop, but I slipped and fell spraining my ankle. I tried running through the pain, but it was too much, even for the adrenaline to overpower.
As I tried to run the zombies drew closer and closer and I knew I wasn't making it back to the truck.
As the zombies got within feet of me a popup appeared in my vision.
-Mutation unlocked-
Augmentation
-System unlocked-
Zoom
All of a sudden my leg no longer hurt and my endurance was back. I took this opportunity to sprint out of the store and jump in the truck. Surprisingly my ankle felt fine, but it was swollen when I checked it. I was out of breath again, but at least I was alive.
"We thought you were dead man" Ray said while driving out of the parking lot "I hope you don't mind me driving your truck right now"
"You're *huff* Fine" I said struggling to catch my back
"Thanks back there by the way" Allison chimed in
"No problem, *wheeze* but I have a headache right now, *huff* so please be quiet" I said still out of breath "sorry, *huff* that probably came across as rude"
"You saved my life, you can be rude all you want right now, oh yeah, headache, sorry"
We drove in silence until we arrived at the hotel. We unloaded everything out of the truck and started getting our water situation sorted out.