Aurora Sky: Blackout (Completed)

Chapter 15

The beams of their headlights led the way into the darkness, bouncing the light off of the trees and the field of corn stalks that lined the road. The trees and crops in the fields all sagged towards the earth from the below freezing temperatures and lack of sunlight. The clouded sky was still painted black, and no sign of the sun was in sight. Even at its highest point in the sky, it was never more than a faint glimmer in the clouds.

They drove speedily on the baron roads passing the aggregates to the left, the town cemetery to the right, and dozens of vacant houses on both sides of the road. In less than ten minutes they had arrived at the gun store. Isaac put the transmission in park and went around back to open the walk ramp and sliding door to his truck, then stood by as he waited for the others to park and do the same.

Before they reached him, he shined his flashlight on the broken glass windows of the storefront. The store sign had been torn off from the roof. Shards of glass from the windows and doors were scattered on the ground and reflected like broken diamonds in his light. Many of the guns mounted on the wall had fallen, only the best and most securely bolted remained standing. Clothes racks filled with camouflage apparel lay sporadically throughout the back half of the store. It seemed as though only the storm had been through here.

The town around him felt as if it were empty and abandoned. Isaac had a chilling tickle travel down his spine as he scouted around. He thought about the townsfolk on the night of the fourth, wondering if any of them had stayed here or if they all had decided to run. Where is everyone? People or infected? I know this town is small but there's no sign of anything here. He wasn't sure what to make of the situation, but he was becoming increasingly thankful that he might not have to kill anything today.

Just when he thought he was alone, he saw a white and black spotted Pitbull strolling and sniffing down the street. The dog stopped sniffing and looked up when he noticed he wasn't alone. The two stared at each other for a few seconds, and then something let out a sharp scream to the north. It was hard to discern what it was coming from, but it was definitely a sound of distress. Either way, it startled Isaac as well as the dog, who ran off into an abandoned house down the street.

Larry and Jess were the first to come over to Isaac who was busy staring off into the north. "You heard that right?" Larry asked

"Yeah. We're not alone." said Isaac wide eyed.

"Let's be quick about it then."

Cameron trotted over from the back of the group over to Isaac and asked, "Hey, got a second?"

He pulled his friend over to the side, "What's going on?" he asked back.

"Did you know we passed a construction aggregate on the way in?"

"What about it?"

"I don't know how I missed it when we were leaving your house on the fourth, I guess I was too distracted by everything going on. But if I had known that was there, then that would have been the first place I would have suggested to go to for supplies for the wall. We should go there today or tomorrow and see what it has that we can take. It'll definitely have the lumber for the extra guard towers, and maybe even enough to build the wall a little higher. Not only that, but they'll have tons heavy machinery that we can use. We could move some gravel to the fort and fortify the inside of the walls with some dump trucks, dig trenches outside of the walls like a moat with some excavators, that would solve the potential climbing problem. And I know I'm getting ahead of myself here, but if there's enough lumber and cement trucks, we might even be able to build an inner frame to the wall to pour cement into. Then we could legitimately be living in a fortress of stone walls."

Isaac marvelled at the idea. "That's incredible. I didn't know it would have all that. Honestly, I didn't really know what they did there. But I promise when we get home to talk about our next move, I'll back you up on it."