Chapter Two
Close Encounters
You all go into the house. "Alright tell me you have some damn coffee, Or I just won't make it." Thomas says. "Yeah in the kitchen." William says. Thomas comes back in, he bounces up and down on the balls of his feet. "This is why it sucks that none of you guys smoke, I have been out of smokes for a few hours." Thomas says. You pull a pack out of your pocket and hand them too him. "Found them at the gas station. I knew you would come along eventually." You say with a grin. "Oh man your the pimp, shit, I don't know, you're just damn awesome!" Thomas says. He grabs the pack from you and packs them. "Hey they are even camel menthol's! You're a god or something." Thomas says. He pulls a lighter out of his pocket, it has several things attached to it. "So nobody's got a key ring yet I bet." Thomas says. "Here we go." Edward says. "I said, 'get a key ring and put survival gear on it, you never know whats gonna happen' But nooo, we can't do that." Thomas says just before he lights up his cigarette. "I can take them back you know." You say. smiling. "Never mind. I brought plenty to go around." Thomas says. Everybody laughs.
"Alright campers, we need to asses the situation, what do we have? how far we have to go, where is the best place to get shit... any suggestions?" "We should hit the gun store, we only have about 500 rounds of ammo." Edward says. "What did you bring Thomas? Is there more at your car?" You say. "Well I brought my girlfriend." Thomas holds up his pistol gripped moss-berg 12 gauge pump shotgun. "A 7.62x54 bolt action rifle, and a beat up .357 revolver I found at a gas station... Altogether about um 300 rounds. I had some hand to hand weapons in the car when I started but I kept hopping for car to car when I ran out of gas, and eventually I just couldn't carry them anymore. So whats in the car is mostly energy drinks and mountain dew." Thomas says with a smirk.
"I think we should check out your neighbors place William, It's a girl who lives there right? She won't have much weapons but we could grab some food and she smokes right?" You say. "Really!... Sounds good to me, we might also get some batteries. What's in the shed out back?" Thomas says. "It's storage for the landlord, He keeps a lawn mower and stuff he uses to keep up on the yard." William says. "We might find some gas." Thomas says. "Alright let's do this, but we have to be careful. Ed I want you to buddy up with William, nobody goes anywhere alone, Tom you're with me." You say.
You get inside the house without any problems. No one appears to be home, you search the living room and find quite a few batteries. You notice a lot of books on medicine. "William, what does she do for a living?" You ask holding one of the books. "She's a nurse." William says. "And you're just telling us now?" Edward says. "It's cool Ed, you guys couldn't really do a lot of running around without me, in case I showed up and you aren't around. Besides nurses don't bring a lot of work home." Thomas says. You clear off the coffee table and start to make a pile of loot. You put the batteries there and a few of the books.
Edward and William walk into the kitchen, while you and Thomas go into the dinning room.
There wasn't much in the dinning room so you head upstairs into the bedroom. You just start going through a bedside drawer when you hear William calling from down stairs. "Hey check out what we found...Everything's fine by the way." You hear a noise coming from the closet. "Jeremy, did you hear that?" Thomas says. "Yeah let's check it out, I'll swing the door open, you get ready with the gauge." You say. "Too easy."Thomas says, standing in front of the closet door with his shotgun pointed at it.
You open the door. "Agh!" "Whoa it's cool, We're just trying to help." Thomas says with his hand out.
You look into the closet. There is a girl sitting on the floor with a half dead flash light, a cell phone and a baseball bat. "Are you ok?" you ask. "Who are you?" She asks. "We are friends of your neighbor, we didn't know you were here." You say. "I heard a lot of yelling and gunshots, I called 911 but they didn't answer, whats going on?" She asks. "Lets get you a cup of coffee and here's a smoke." Thomas says as he holds out a cigarette. "Come down stairs, we'll tell you what's going on." Thomas says, holding out his hand.
You all sit around in her living room, Shara, The girl from upstairs, is sitting on the couch. She is staring at the smoke coming off of her cigarette. You and the guys have told her everything. "So what are you guys planning to do? I mean what can you do?" Shara says. "Well we are gathering up stuff, getting gas and ammo." Thomas says. "That's not what she meant man, there's nothing you can do, you just have to kill them, you can't talk to them, they aren't the people you knew...We are leaving. We have a friend in Minnesota who needs our help, I don't know what we are going to do after that, but you can't stay here. Do you want to come with us?" You say. "What choice do I have? I mean I'm gonna die if I stay here right?" Shara says." "I don't mean to be an ass but yeah, you won't make it here, maybe if we didn't leave you might have a chance but, here by yourself. It isn't going to work." Thomas says. "Ok I'll go with you." Shara says. "Alright but you have to listen to us, If you start doing your own thing we will leave you. We can't risk all of our lives to protect you. Ed's going to give you a gun and teach you how to shoot." You say.
"Ok let's finish with this house and get back over to Will's house. The sun's about to come up and we need to make a plan before daylight." Thomas says.
"Alright we have a few things to think about." Thomas says standing in Will's living room, hanging a map on the wall. "Ed, start a pot of coffee, we have a lot of work to do." Thomas says.
Edward comes back in the room with a fresh pot and refills everybody's cup. "Smoke em if you got em, Alright any suggestions on how the hell we plan on getting there?" Thomas says. "Well let's lay out every option and see what's the best one." You say. "Flying is out, we don't have a pilot, nobody here knows enough to be trusted with a plane." Thomas says. "What about a train? we could get a lot of gas and take it with us?" Edward says. "Not bad Edward, I might be a pain in the ass figuring everything out, and it would take a long time to get it all set but, It might work." Thomas says. "What about the lakes? We could take a boat up Lake Michigan and go around to Minnesota." William says. "Well it's possible, but if we ran out of gas, we would be screwed. And besides, once we get there we would have to jack a car. It would get messy." Thomas says. "Yeah but we would have to jack a ride to get to where Jon is if we took a train." William says. "True. You have a point." Thomas says. "We take trucks. The two most bad ass freaking trucks we can find, we load them up with all the gas we can get. It's our only real choice." You say. "He's right." Shara says. "I know, I just really didn't want to do that." Thomas says. "Let's go to the gun store and get more ammo, maybe we will find a good truck there." Edward says. "After that we should get gas before any survivors take it all. We could find a truck there." William says. "Alright let's make it happen." Thomas says. "No, Ed teach her how to use the .22." You go to the closet and come back with a pair of socks. "Now we can go. We will take Ed's truck and my car." You say.

