Dash Dash Dot Dot

The Shops

"Hold it right there. Don't move a muscle." A voice floated out of the darkness of the shopping centre. "Hands up, weapons down." Everyone looked at Piper who nodded and bent down to place her machete on the ground at her feet. The other four followed suit then raised their hands above their heads. "Well good, at least you're survivors and not those monsters out there. How did you even get past them?" Willow still didn't see the owner of the voice, without electricity the shopping centre was quite dark inside.

"Look, we don't mean to intrude but the last time we came here there was no one camping here." Piper spoke, taking a step away from the door. "You seem to have done pretty well. We are from the Karabar High School Faction. As a representative I can offer you a place in our faction. We have plenty of space for you and anyone else here, including fresh vegetables from our gardens, eggs from our chickens and soon we will have meat from them as well."

"Well that certainly sounds nicer than all the tinned crap thats here. All the fresh stuff has just been rotting away." The owner of the voice stepped forward into the small amount of light streaming through the glass doors behind them. The windows had mostly been covered but there were rips in the newspaper in places. He looked to be mid to late forties, he wore a football jumper and faded jeans. "Come on in." He lowered his weapon to his side. It was a shotgun of some sort. The first gun Willow had seen during the outbreak. "Sorry that I aimed my gun at you lot, but you can never be too careful in this new world. My name is Thomas."

He lead the group to the grocery store while Piper introduced everyone to him. Thomas flicked on a battery powered lantern which lit up the front service area and then handed everyone a small torch from one of the drawers. He must have turned the lantern off when he heard the commotion at the door. He hopped up onto the counter and smiled at the group, then turned his gaze on Piper.

"Help yourselves to whatever you can find, a lot of it has already been looted, but there's also quite a bit that can still be salvaged. It's only me here, once I made sure the place was clear of the zombies I boarded it up, I figured there was enough supplies here to keep me going a while. I had heard about the factions on the radio but whenever I tried to head towards one, I just kept getting pushed back, zombies were always in my way. You guys seem pretty resourceful considering you got in the front door where all those zombies were. If the invitation is valid then I accept, it'll be nice to have some human interaction after all this time."

"Yes, of course the invitation is valid. The more hands we have to help the easier it is for everyone in the faction. We try to avoid guns as they are loud and have a tendency to draw the attention of nearby zombies, as well as the fact they are harder to come by like ammo as well. Bows and arrows are our distance weapons and then there is a large range of close combat weapons too. One of our committee members, John, looks after and maintains our weapons, keeping the blades rust free and sharp, as well as making sure we are well stocked with arrows, we salvage where necessary provided the arrow is undamaged." Piper explained.

"Of course, it's the only weapon I had access to at the time, but you're right, it is very loud and does bring more zombies when I use it, hence that crowd that was out there. But I'm sure I could find something in one of these shops that will be better suited and quieter." He stood and walked out into the small shopping centre. "I bet the hardware place has some suitable weapons, I'll be back." Then Thomas headed down the stationary escalator.

"Okay everyone, let's see what we can find. It looks like this place can be put on the no go zone soon, it's looking pretty empty, but Thomas has a point, we need to check out the whole place, not just the grocery store. You never know what secrets the other stores are hiding. Just be careful, I know Thomas said he checked the place out but anything can happen these days. Now go, search, collect anything you think will be useful. I'm going to go find our new friend," Piper instructed and then strolled out towards the escalator.

"Alright everyone, you heard the lady, lets go." Jonesy said. He and Tahla headed to the newsagents in the shop next to the grocery store.

"Looks like we get the grocery store then." Matthew said. "Aisle by aisle and see what's left on the shelves?" Willow nodded in agreement then they flicked on their small torches, for their size they had very bright beams of light. "Awesome. Come on, lets take a look at this place." They walked the aisles side by side, one torch focused on the left side and the other on the right side.

"Hey, I bet Nirmala would like some new spices and herbs." Willow opened her backpack and placed it on the ground, she grabbed handfuls of spice packs and tossed them into the bag. "We should also check the gardening section and grab all the plant seeds we can find, I bet Heather and Banjo would like some more variety for the harvest. The more fruit and veg the better for the faction, right?"

"Right," Matthew laughed. "No wonder you survived out there by yourself, you think pretty laterally, which is an awesome trait. I'm so glad you came to our faction instead of one of the others. I heard Tiffany talking to some of the others that from where you were you could have gone to a couple other factions before this one. Why did you choose to make the longer trek here?"

Willow paused before dropping more spices into her bag. "Well I attended high school at Karabar and figured since I knew the general layout of the school it would be an easier transition rather than going to one of the other schools that I know nothing about. Kinda silly really but I felt more comfortable to come here." She shrugged. "Okay, I think that will be enough of those for now." She hoisted her bag onto her back and the pair continued moving up and down the aisles. "What about you, why are you at Karabar?"

"It was the closest faction to home, I mean, I did go to school there too but the distance was a big deciding factor. I arrived very shortly after the outbreak hit the shores of the country so I helped set a lot of it up. John offered me a spot on the committee but I thought that people wouldn't listen to me because of my age so I said no. I do have a little say in some of the bigger things though."