Capítulo 7
I drove to the edge of town, with no set destination. Avoiding a few zombies on the street, I occasionally saw people breaking into a store looking for supplies and leaving shortly after.
As we were on the edge of town, the place wasn't so deserted and many people were still in two houses, waiting for the government and the army to deal with everything. These kinds of people are the first to die.
Finally, while rummaging around in the street, I spotted a gun store. One that seemed untouched, since the two others I passed had already been looted. But you never know.
Getting out of the car, I looked around the street before grabbing my backpack with supplies and the guns and heading for the door. It was locked. Maybe there's someone in there.
With a knife in my hand, I started to make my way around to the back of the store, of course, on the way looking out for any windows, but unfortunately there weren't any. Halfway there, I started to hear the sounds of zombies, so I began to walk more cautiously.
When I arrived, I soon found the back door open and angry grunts coming from inside. Even more cautiously than before, I enter the store and spot a zombie. Silently, I approached it, then plunged the blade into the back of its head from the bottom up.
In order to keep quiet and get closer to the others, I put all my stuff on the ground and lift the guy's shirt, using it as a shield instead of letting it fall to the ground. Around a corner, I see a group of four zombies clawing at a door to get in.
To save myself the trouble, I throw the zombie I'm using as a shield at the other four, causing only two to fall.
Before the other two could do anything, I was already in front of them, stabbing them in the head. With only the two left on the ground, I kill them too before letting out a sigh of satisfaction.
I approach the door that the zombies were trying to break down and knock to get the attention of whoever is inside.
"Hi. Anyone in there? You can come out. It's safe now." I say as I walk away. It takes a while, but soon I hear the sound of something unlocking. The door opens slowly and a wrinkled, black face appears through the gap in the door. In response, I smile and wave my fingers.
"Who... who are you?! Are you from the army?" The old man asks hurriedly and a little frightened.
"Nah... just a kid in search of knowledge. If I were in the military, you'd already be dead along with those little guys." I say and point in front of him. He seems to startle a little, but soon recomposes his posture. While he's doing this, I turn around and head for the door I came in from.
"What are you doing?" the old man asks. The old man asks.
"We don't need any more of those things coming in here. There's no problem with me here, is there? Good!" I say before he even agrees and start to close the door. After confirming that there's no way any more zombies can get in here, I pick up my things again and start checking out the rest of the store. And I have to say. There aren't any guns left on the shelves.
"People stole it." I look at the old man who followed me, as if to make sure I didn't take anything either. So there is something here.
"I'm not after guns. I've got plenty by now." I say as I point to the weapons I'm carrying. "I'm after more zombies that might have gotten in here." I say as I grab my crowbar from the side of my backpack and break a glass.
"Hey! What are you doing?!" The old man complains angrily.
"I don't have the patience to go after them. They'd better come to me." I answered him by breaking another glass. Soon I hear two growls coming my way. After a moment, the old man hears it too, which means he's getting closer.
Two zombies soon appeared, crawling towards us. The old man got scared and hid behind the counter. While he was doing that, I left my supplies on the floor and set off to attack the two zombies.
The first one I encountered took a crowbar to the head, causing my weapon to sink into his head and send him sprawling. The second one was simply a matter of me pulling the crowbar out of the first zombie's head and hitting the other one in the side of the head. Seeing my job done, I threw the crowbar up and caught it in my hand. Good job for me.
"Ready, sir." I inform him and see him just look up from the counter, where he sees that it's true and leaves completely.
"You're quite strong." The old man says impressed.
"Just a little." I shrug.
"So, you said you were after knowledge, right? You want to learn how to use weapons?" He asks me, narrowing his eyes as he looks at the ones in my possession. "They're military." He says. It wasn't even a question. The old man is good.
"Yeah. Some military guys broke into my house, so I borrowed them." I give him a closed-lip smile, as if I wasn't talking about stealing from the military.
"I don't want to know. It's better this way. You look quite young. How old are you?
" "If I tell you, will you teach me how to use these things?" I ask him and see him shrug. What's that supposed to mean? "Right. I'm 16. My birthday's in less than a month." I answer and see him raise an eyebrow.
"Really young. Where are your parents?" He asks me.
"Dead. That won't really matter from now on, will it? I have to survive. Being younger or older doesn't matter." I say with all the seriousness I can muster in my tone. In response, he raises his hands.
"I'm not disagreeing. I saw how you dealt with those two things. What did you call it again? Zombies? What's that?" He asked me after defending himself unnecessarily.
Which reminds me, people in this world don't know about zombies. There are no movies or anything about the genre. That's why so many people have died without knowing that they should hit their heads.
"Yes. I call them that. When I was researching what was going on in the world, I saw this term mentioned somewhere in the world. I found it easy to say, so I picked it up." I come up with a convincing excuse about that. It's not as if he can prove me wrong.
"I see. By the way, I'm sorry about your parents." He pays his respects and I just nod.
"So, what do you say about those weapons lessons?" I ask, with a micro-smile. I see him sigh.
"Are you sure you don't want to rest? It's going to be dark in less than two hours." He asks me and I shake my head.
"We don't have much time. In a matter of two days the military will bomb the city. I want to be out of here before then." I say with my arms crossed, and I see them widen their eyes.
"What?! What do you mean they're going to bomb the city?! They can't do that!" The old man exclaimed indignantly.
"They can only do it, as they will. They've even given it a cute name: 'Operation Cobalt'." I say sarcastically and watch him struggle to believe it, but after a while he just gives up and sighs, putting his hands to his face.
"Shit." The old man says in shock.
"What do you say? Ready to teach me?" I ask as I offer my hand for a shake. He stares for a while and shakes my hand. "By the way, my name is Dean. Dean Winchester."
"Tristan. Let me see what weapons you have." He asks and goes to the other side of the counter. Without hesitation, I put all five of my guns on the counter.
"Hum... let's see. Two Beretta M9A4s. Excellent qualities. Was it one of the ones you borrowed?" He asks me and I nod. "Two AR-15s. Military models with sights. And finally a Remington 1911 R1 .45 ACP pistol." He tells me all the models of the weapons and more than I can understand.
"What?" I say, and he gives me an unimpressed look.
"Argh... kids these days. I'm only going to explain once." He grumbles and starts explaining about gun models, calibers, which bullets were better, which were worse. He even took out a booklet to explain it to me better.
We were at it for at least an hour. Fortunately, after waking up in this world, I realized that my brain capacity had also improved.
Like a photographic memory. So, as long as he kept explaining it properly, I could easily understand and learn about it.
"Um... you pick things up easily." Tristan said with his hand on his chin. "Let's start the practical training. Follow me." After picking up my weapons, we started walking towards the back of the venue, where, after passing through a door, we came to a shooting range.
"Are you sure the sound won't come from here? I really don't want to face any more zombies today." I ask calmly, looking around the place.
"Don't worry. The place is soundproofed. You can shoot as much as you like." Tristan says as he presses a button on the wall and the targets start to move away.
"Any tips?" I ask him as I position myself to shoot with the first gun I've ever gotten in this world.
"Straighten your posture, bend your front knee slightly, hold the gun steady and be careful not to let your hand hit the bolt of the gun." He says as he shows me his own gun in hand. "Good. Now shoot." After his authorization, I fire at the target, where I end up missing. "Again."
And this went on for 30 minutes. Where I missed, I fixed it and shot again. With each shot I got a little better. At last, I managed to hit the middle of the middle.
"That's it!" I celebrated as if I'd won the lottery.
"Congratulations. Now I want you to do this until you hit all the bullets without missing one." Tristan told me and I frowned.
"I don't want to use up all my bullets." I say after contemplating my options for a second.
"No problem. I have plenty of bullets." He tells me and walks over to a door that was half hidden. Like those doors that are camouflaged with their surroundings. Taking a brief look, I can see that there were no guns inside, but there were plenty of boxes of bullets. He comes back with two boxes for the caliber I'm using.
"I want you to do this quickly, then we'll eat and sleep. Tomorrow we'll train with the other heavier weapons." He says, and I nod, getting back to training. The rest of the hours were just shooting practice. Thanks to my improvement, I didn't need so much time to learn how to shoot accurately.
"Great job. Now, how about dinner and bed?" Tristan asks me and I nod.
"Of course. I'll just check the door to make sure nothing can get in." I say and leave the booth. When I got to the still-closed back door, I started looking around for something to lock it with. An iron bar caught my eye and I decided to use it. Placing it between the handles, I bend the pipe, making the door impassable to people or zombies from outside.
As I return to the main part of the store, I see Tristan waiting for me.
"Upstairs is my house. Let's go." He says and starts up the stairs. I grab my bag and follow. At the bottom of the stairs was a kind of bachelor loft.
"You really live at your work, don't you?" I ask him, looking around.
"Yeah, well, when you get old and the only thing you can do properly is your job, it's always nice to live close by." He says with a small smile. As I walked around his living room, I saw a photo of two women. One younger and one older.
"Your family?" I ask, still looking at the picture.
"Yes." He replies sadly. "They left before this mess started. At least they didn't see this mess." He says with a little relief in his voice.
"Sorry for asking." He waves his hand as if to ward off my words.
"Nah. It's all right. I'll meet up with them soon." He says, which makes me turn towards him quickly, frowning.
"What?" I ask him. In response, he lifts up his shirt in the stomach area, where I see a blackened bite and veins spreading. "Damn. When did that..." I muttered, incredulous.
"It was long before you arrived. One of them bit me and I managed to trap myself in the broom cupboard." He says with a grimace as if he's remembering what happened.
"You understand what that means, right?" I ask with acceptance. He shakes his head.
"As I said, as soon as I leave, I can be reunited with my family." He spoke as he walked around the house until he came to two pots. Probably ashes. "But I'm still going to teach you everything I know. At least what I can."
"Right. Thanks." He nodded. Opening my backpack, I took out some canned food and a medical kit. "For dinner and to treat that wound." I stretched the things out to him, with him accepting without hesitation.
"Thanks. Behind that door is a room with a bathroom. There should still be water. You can wear any clothes from there." He says, and I nod, heading towards the bathroom. To say that I wasn't bothered by the old man's future death would be a lie. I was planning to take him with me, and he would be the future weapons master of my community.
But we don't always get what we want, do we?