Chapter 5
The group made good time speed walking down the road and after fifteen minutes or so, Cooper pointed out a big sporting goods store in a shopping area that was next to a home improvement store and some restaurants. They weaved in between crashed cars and groups of people standing around talking and crossed the street to the shopping area. Once they were alone in the middle of the parking lot, Alex called them to a stop.
“Okay, guys. I’m guessing we don’t want to steal anything if we don’t have too, so let’s check the money situation. Mrs. Moore gave me all of her money and Mr. Carter’s too but I haven’t counted it. Let’s get a count and just pool it all to offer to the staff in the store.”
Everyone agreed to that so they pooled the money and Alex counted it out.
“Holy crap! We’ve got almost five thousand dollars here!” she exclaimed. Mrs. Moore and Mr. Carter must have had a lot of money on them because the students had only a couple hundred dollars each.
“Well, this should make things easier. We just offer more than the price tag and no one will say no to that. Alex, put two thousand in a different pocket and don’t mention it to anyone in the store.” Quinn instructed. “Cooper, do you want to try to do the deal? You’ve got some smooth ways, my friend,” he asked.
Cooper wasn’t even listening. He was staring at a cop car over in the corner of the parking lot. Both of the front doors were open but no one was around.
“I think there are police over there on the ground,” he said quietly.
They all had a good respect for the police in their town and Alex’s brother was an RCMP officer and Dara’s dad was a city cop. After a quick look at her friends, Alex started to move towards the cruiser and they all followed her. The closer she got to the car it was easier to see that there was an officer on the ground. He had been shot and his chest was a mess of blood. She quickly checked him for a pulse and found none. The shock of seeing a dead body wasn’t as intense for her after being in the car with Jack’s mom. Alex guessed there would be plenty more bodies in the days ahead. Looking up at Dara she gave a shake of her head. The officer was young and had a surprised look on his face. Alex was going to move away when something made her freeze. His handgun was still in the holster on his belt. Dara must have been thinking the same thing because she squatted down beside the body and looked Alex in the eye.
“If people are already shooting cops, what chance do we have? We should take his gun and anything else we can use. We have to start thinking about protection, right?” Dara asked.
Alex found herself nodding. Guns didn’t bother her at all. Growing up on a farm you got used to seeing and respecting guns. Alex was a pretty good shot with a rifle and not bad with a shotgun, but had never fired a handgun before. She reached over and unsnapped the holster and removed the gun. There were other objects on the belt and she quickly made a pile of extra clips of bullets and a can of mace. The flashlight didn’t work and Alex didn’t think the baton was something they needed. Meanwhile, Dara had pulled up the officer's pant leg and was unstrapping another smaller holster and gun off his leg. She then got in the front seat and popped the trunk. As she got out of the car the boys came around from the other side of the car where they had been checking on the other policeman on the ground.
Quinn spoke up, “We should take…” and stopped when he saw the pile of goods beside Alex. “Good thinking. We stripped the other cop as well. This feels so wrong but I think we will need it more than they will now. Let’s check the trunk and see if we can find a bag to carry this stuff until we get into the sports store,” he said.
The trunk had a large first aid kit and more ammunition for the guns. There was a gym bag that they emptied out and filled with all the equipment they had collected. There were also some folded blankets so Alex took two and went and covered the fallen police officers. She tucked the blankets under the bodies to anchor them and briefly bowed her head and said a quiet, “I’m sorry,” over both. She tried not to think of the men’s families and said a quick prayer that they would be alright.
When she stood to go, the rest of the group was waiting and they made their way to the big doors at the entrance of the store. Just as they stepped up onto the sidewalk, a guy wearing a golf shirt with the store's logo came out and turned to lock the doors behind him.
Cooper approached him while the others hung back. “Hey, man, are you the manager?” he asked.
Without even turning to look at Cooper, the guy said, “Sorry, the store’s closed. Try back tomorrow,” and turned to brush past him.
Cooper put his hand up in a hold-on gesture and said, “There won’t even be a store here tomorrow. Don’t you know what’s happening out here?”
The guy gave Cooper a weird look and said, “There’s a power outage. I sent everyone home earlier and have been catching up on paperwork. I’m sure it will be back on by the end of the day.” He moved to get by Cooper again.
“Listen, man, it’s a country-wide, maybe continent-wide outage. We really need to talk.” Cooper tried again. The man gave Cooper a look like he was a weirdo and went around him heading for the parking lot.
Cooper called after him, “Okay, but when your car won’t start come on back and I’ll tell you what’s going on.”
The man didn’t even turn around, just headed for his car at a faster pace. The group waited on the sidewalk and watched the store manager get into his car. After a few minutes, he got out and stormed his way back to the kids.
“Alright. What did you do to my car?” he yelled.
“We didn’t do anything. I tried to tell you but you didn’t want to listen. Come over here and I’ll tell you what we know and what we’ve seen.” Cooper steered him over to lean against the wall of the store and proceeded to explain to the man what had happened earlier that morning and what they had seen on the trip so far.
The man didn’t want to believe him but after looking over at the standstill traffic and many car crashes, he started to waver. It was when he tried to use his dead cell phone and the kids showed them their dead phones that he finally seemed to believe. As he stood there stunned, Cooper told him what they wanted.
“Look, the best thing for you to do is go stock up on all you can from the store and then get home to your family. That’s what we are trying to do. This place is going to get hit by looters anytime now but that’s not us. We have three thousand dollars to pay you. Let us in and we can stock up, get some bikes and get out of here. So what do you think? Make some money or watch it all get stolen by the next group that comes by?”
The man just stared at Cooper for what seemed like forever and then finally said, “Do you have cash?”
“Yes, sir!” Cooper smiled.
“Then let’s get busy,” he said as he turned and unlocked the door and held it open for the kids to go on in.
The store was dim, but with many skylights in the roof, there was ample light to get around and find what they were looking for. Cooper was telling the manager where they were going and what they needed for bikes and supplies as Alex approached them with the money. The manager counted it and stuffed it in his pocket and told the kids to take whatever they wanted and that he was going to pack his own supplies. They all headed to the bike section and picked out bikes and helmets. They found saddlebags and storage containers that fitted on the bikes in different ways. After that was done, they all headed to the camping section and picked up backpacks and other gear. They grabbed freeze dried camping food, two small camp stoves, fuel and three lanterns. Sleeping bags, ground mats, two tarps and inflatable pillows went into the cart. After the camping gear was taken care of, they all headed into the clothing and footwear departments.
Alex kept thinking that it would be a fun shopping spree if only the world as she knew it wasn’t changed forever. After finding some wet wipes and a change of clothes, she headed to the change rooms. She felt sticky and stinky. Her shirt was stained with Jack’s pee and her pants had blood on the knees from kneelin
g by the bodies of the police officers. Alex quickly stripped down and washed as best as she could with the wet wipes. Feeling much better, she pulled the tags off of her new cargo pants and tee shirt. She had on her favourite low-cut hiking boots and would keep them. A Tilley hat completed her outfit.
When she got back to the others, they had all the bikes and gear close to the front door. It was obvious as they tried to divide the gear up that they couldn’t take it all. They were trying to decide what not to take when the manager pushed his own bike towards the doors. Attached behind the bike was a double child carrier that was packed full of supplies and its clear plastic windshield on the front was zippered closed. Quinn and Josh looked at each other and headed back to the bike area to get one as well.
Cooper was looking thoughtful about something and said, “Be right back.” Before the girls could say anything, he headed out the front door.
“Where do you think he’s going?” Dara asked Alex.
“I have no idea but if the other guys can rig up a carrier, we could have room to take a couple of tents.”
As the girls got up to head back to the camping section, the manager stopped Alex.
“Here take these,” and handed her the store keys. “I’m not waiting around for you guys, so lock the doors when you leave and drop the keys in the mail slot. If looters come for the store, the door locks won’t stop them anyway. Good luck getting back to Canada and thanks for paying me instead of just stealing things.” With that, he was out the door.
Alex dropped the keys by the supplies and she and Dara grabbed another cart and went in search of tents. After finding what they were looking for and a few more things that they thought would come in handy, they went back to the bikes. Quinn and Josh had gotten two child carriers and almost had them on the bikes. Cooper came in the front door carrying a few things and when he got to the group he dumped his stuff with the rest.
Seeing that he had been outside, Quinn was surprised and asked, “Where did you go man?”
With a cocky grin, Cooper announced, “Just doing a little looting for the common good. I went over to the home improvement store but there was no one there so I broke a window and grabbed some stuff we might need.” Nodding down at the stuff he brought in, he explained, “We might need to get around roads if they aren’t passable so I got us some wire and bolt cutters as well as two crowbars. I was thinking of chain link fencing and padlocks.” He bowed for applause.
Alex couldn’t help but smile at his cocky attitude and in truth, it was good thinking on his part. The others thought so too and applauded him.
“Great job, man, that stuff will really save us time if we get stuck,” Quinn praised. “Okay, guys, that’s it. Let’s load everything up and we can spread some of it around the backpacks. Everybody make sure the water bottle holders are full and take an extra bottle in your pack. Also, we have four guns and a can of mace, so let’s figure out who’s going to carry them. Does everybody know how to work a gun?” He looked around to take a poll. All three of the boys had fired handguns before and Alex was surprised when Dara said she had as well.
“I guess that leaves me out of the club,” she said. “I can shoot rifles and shotguns but I’ve never shot a handgun before so why don’t I carry the mace and you guys take the guns. When we get out in the country we can have target practice.”
“Sounds good,” Quinn said, “You shouldn’t have any problem learning the difference and I know you’re great with a rifle so we can sort that out when we hit the countryside.”
They all got waist packs and stored the weapons and extra clips in them, except for Cooper who had taken the holster and belt off one of the cops outside. He pulled his shirt closed to cover it and then everybody got busy loading gear up. Within ten minutes, Alex was locking the front door and dropping the keys in the slot.
“Well, shopping spree is over,” she thought, “Now it’s time to physically pay for it.” Hitching her backpack into a more comfortable position and tightening the straps, she climbed onto her bike and followed the others down the road.