Into The Dawn

chapter 1:3 West

"WEST? Like, where the cannibals are west??!" Paul yells as he snaps his head over to his sleeping wife, covering his mouth, luckily she remains asleep. And Paul lives another day. "You don't have to go with me if you don't want to, you guys will be safe here if you follow my instructions, you all seem like strong people, you'll manage" Jacob did not seem to like the idea of being alone again, in the few short days he's been with Paul and his family, he has grown to enjoy the company. After a few moments of thought Paul starts to speak, "well that is a big decision to make on my own, I'll have to talk it over with my family in the morning, but for now we should get some sleep" Jacob agrees and they both retire.
The next morning.
Shelah: "are you insane!? Even if the cannibals, and the mutants are just rumors, there's still the radiation, what are we supposed to do out west?" Jacob: "there's no telling what we'll face out there, this journey will be a hard one, I plan to find and bring back any survivors I can." Shelah starts to calm down a bit then she makes a decision. "Well, we were lost when you found us, and through the few days we've been with you Jacob, you've showed us more kindness than we've received in this whole apocalypse. It would be wrong of us not to try to return the favor to other survivors, I can't be of much use in a fight, but I can provide first aid, and I make a mean canned soup haha!" Paul looking very surprised thinks to himself, ""this is the most my wife has talked in months, plus this if half the rumors are true, this is a suicide mission. But if she thinks we can do it, I'm with her"" Paul: "then it's settled, just need your approval Sam and we're good to go. Sam rolls over in bed, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes "huh? Yeah, sure whatever you say dad! I'll follow you anywhere" Sam rolls back over falling back asleep. Jacob: "you guys are amazing you know that? Not many people would follow me after hearing what you've heard" Jacob pats Paul on the shoulder, and nods towards Shelah with a smile, Paul, "I guess we better start packing then!" Jacob: "we've got a lot to do before we leave, first order of buisness, some wheels." Shelah: "you have a car?!" Jacob: "a car is kind of an understatement, follow me!" Sam pops out of bed and Jacob leads the three of them through a series of very large tunnels under the building, Jacob starts explaining as they walk to make things less creepy "this used to be an old mining town, the shafts ran to every major factory in the industrial part of the city, this mine was rich in a few different metals, there are still lots of metals to be mined, but won't do us much good now, maybe someday" Paul interrupts to ask "are you thinking we could turn this into an operation?" Jacob: "well, I wanted it to be a surprise, but I don't know when to stop talking sometimes haha, but yes, I've been doing some surveying of my own, there is lots of iron, deeper down is a decent sized vein of sulfur, and a few other metals scattered around, such as copper, tin, and even some lead." Sam : "if I'm understanding correctly, that's everything we need to make bullets right?" Jacob looked suprised at how quickly Sam caught on, "yes! That's right! If what we've heard about the west is true, we're gonna need as many as we can get, but my problem has always been manpower, that's what I'm hoping to fix going west, I've fortified most entries to the mine, I was able to find the keys to a few entrances around town, which I use mostly for travel right now, it took a while but now I'm the only one with access, well and you guys of course. Ah! There's the door;" Paul shuffles through his backpack and pulls out a cloth containing a keychain with 5 keys, each key marked with a different number, the number written in red paint on the door matched the #3 key, Paul turns the key and opens the door to what seemed like a very large room, but it's too dark to see anything. Jacob: "hold on just a second" the three of them wait patiently as Jacob disappears into the dark, they hear what sounds like a lawnmower starting, Jacob yells to Paul, "feel around for a large switch to the left of the door!" Paul feels around for a minute till he finds it, he flips it on and the lights switch on one by one. As the room lights up their eyes do aswell, it's an underground parking garage with many cars parked side by side, it's mostly military trucks and humvees, and a few smaller civilian vehicles.  Paul : "you are full of surprises! Are these all functional?" Jacob replies with the same grin he had when he pulled the beers out. "Every single one! This was my most recent project, I've been collecting as many as I can in hopes that one day we could bring the world back, it's been about a year since I discovered the garage, ever car in here is either diesel, or converted to diesel, that way I can run it with my home made fuel, I've got many drums full of the stuff waiting to be used." The three survivors gawk at the sight Infront of them barely able to process the amount of work Jacob does, in hopes of one day bringing back society. Paul : "this is crazy! You did all this by yourself?" Jacob : you haven't even seen the half of what I have set up here, I have multiple supply caches hidden around the city, just waiting for the right time" Jacob Sam, and Paul start filling some gas cans as shelah yells "shotgun!" And jumps into one of the humvees, they load the cans into the trunk and they take off through a series of ramps to a gate marked with a #4 Jacob hops out and unlocks the gate as Paul drives the humvee out into the street, Jacob locks the gate behind them with quite a large chain and jumps back into the driver's seat. "We've got one more stop to make, the most important one of all!" They drive back past the home base, and a few blocks down to a building that looked like it had been burned to the ground, the 4 of them get out and Jacob starts moving some rubble, after a few stones, and a large piece of plywood is moved out of the way, a hatch door with a #1 and a #2 written on it is revealed, Paul, Shelah, and Sam all watch captivated by Jacob as he unlocks a series of combination locks, then finally puts both kay 1 and key 2 in, and turns them at the same time, a few loud clicks later and the hatch is open, a long spiral staircase is revealed underneath. Sam says in a worried tone "what's down there?"  Jacob: "nothing to worry about, just more supplies" they follow Jacob down the flight of stairs to the bottom, the same routine takes place to turn the lights on, and they walk into a small hallway, doors lining each side, as they're walking through they notice labels on the doors, the first on the left says medical, Jacob: "we will need some stuff from here" Jacob pulls another ring of keys from his bag, they are labeled aswell, but there are a lot more keys on this keyring. He finds the key for the medical room. Inside there is multiple shelves containing everything from bandages, to saline bags, Jacob grabs a sack in the corner that's already filled to the brim with supplies, he grabs a few other things from the shelves and asks Sam to carry it. Jacob locks the door behind him and moves down the hall, each door is labeled with a different category of supplies, they continue till they reach the door at the end marked Food. Jacob turns to the three of them before opening the door, sporting yet another grin. "You guys ready to do some shopping?" As Jacob opens the door to a much larger room than before, their eyes light up as they take in the sight of what looked like the backroom of a Walmart, there was hundreds of cases of water, boxes of mre's and more canned foods then they could count, All of which had labels on them. After the shock clears Shelah asks "where did you find all this food?!" Jacob replies "it was all here when I got here, this must have been some secret fallout shelter or something, I've been waiting for someone to come along and claim it, but at this point, I can only assume whoever knew about is died a long time ago, and never made it here" Sam : "your not worried that they will come back?" Jacob : "it's been years since I discovered this, if they were out there, they'd be here. There's enough stuff in this shelter alone to supply a whole town of people for years"
              Paul, Shelah, and Sam gather food, and water, and Jacob packs up some camping supplies, anything he thinks they would need, a camp stove, waterproof matches, rain coats, a few tarps, tons of Paracord, and a few tools like knives, hatchets, and even a folding shovel. As soon as the four of them are finished, they take their bags back to the stairwell. "We've got one more room here to go through, in fact it is my favorite room" Said Jacob. They head down the hall and just past the medical room is a door marked Armory, Jacob opens the door and switches the light on. Sam: "NO WAY!" He runs over to the far wall and points at a military grade m4 with all the attachments, there are many like it on the same wall, but this one is covered in camo paint, it has a 4x scope that flips down to reveal a reflex sight, a foregrip, bipod, laser pointer, and what caught sam's eye the most, a grenade launcher, sam's dreams have come true. Jacob: "Now hold on Sam, don't get to carried away, this is gonna be a recon mission only, we won't need anything like that just yet, but I like your style." Sam's shoulders drop but her understands, Sam "so what are we taking from here then?" Jacob walks over to a large green crate, it requires 2 separate keys to open, and inside is multiple different grenades, flash bangs, smokes, and a lot of frag grenades, Jacob pulls a belt of MK2 fragmentation grenades, slings them over his shoulder, and motions for Paul to grab a rifle for each of them, Jacob: "those should do for now, they're merely for show, but they all work, grab 3 mags for each of you, there's vests in a crate under the table, and they have room for 8 mags on each one, 3 for each of us is more than enough. There's a shooting range through that red door on the left wall, it's soundproof so no one should hear us. Let's see how you guys do!" Excitingly they rush into the room with their rifles, Jacob grabs an extra full mag for each of them to practice, Sam is first, they all put on ear and eye protection, and watch as sam takes his first shot, it goes right through the bullseye, Jacob: " Woah, was that a fluke?" Sam takes the second shot unable to hear Jacob cause of the ear muffs, and it goes through the second bullseye, the rest of them stare in awe as sam obliterates the rest of the target, each shot going precisely where he wants it, Sam finishes his mag and turns around to see both his father, and Jacob with their jaws dropped, Sam: "uh, how'd I do?" Jacob : " Don't be modest kid, you know very well you killed that, I've never seen shooting that good, I've got something for you" Jacob runs back into the armory and pulls out a sniper rifle, and joins them again handing it to Sam, he sets the target an 3x the distance and hands Sam 1 round, Jacob: "I want you to hit the target, it's okay if it's not a bullseye, that distance is the furthest shot I've ever seen someone hit." Sam takes the gun and chambers the round, he takes a deep breath, and as he's exhaling he gently squeezes the trigger, BULLSEYE AGAIN Jacob : "Where did you learn to shoot? Can you all shoot like this?" Sam: "my dad taught me everything I know, not much for a kid to do in the apocalypse really, I had nothing better to do than to practice my aim, Im not the best in a fight, so I try to make up for it with my aim" Paul :"I'm not as good as sam, but I've been known to not miss any shots when I'm hunting for food for my family" Jacob : "and you Shelah?" Shelah picks up a pistol and buries three rounds in the middle of the target. "Yeah, I can shoot, I just don't like guns all that much, they're to loud haha!" Jacob, "okay then, well it looks like you guys don't need anymore practice really, we really should get going anyway, go ahead and keep that sniper on you Sam, take the rifle too." Jacob tosses Sam a few extra boxes of ammo, and they head back out to the stairwell locking each door behind them, they all have rifles, and pistols with plenty of ammo, and all the supplies they'll need for their journey. They haul the bags up the stairs and load it up into the humvee, Jacob locks the bunker, and Sam and Paul help cover it with a large piece of concrete nearby. The four survivors are now we'll geared and on their way to go as far west as possible.