The Fall - Ch 8

         After they finished breakfast, Mike walked her through the General Store and outfitted her for hiking. He grabbed jeans, boots, warm socks, shirts, a fleece pullover, and a down jacket for her. He figured that anything they forgot they could get at another town. There would be no shortage of gear in most of the towns, and Mike didn’t think money was even useful anymore, let alone required.

         Then they headed back to the bed and breakfast so they could drop off the stuff they got for Amanda. Then they sat in the dining room and Mike showed her how disassemble the Beretta, and how to clean all the pieces. Mike then put the gun back together and ran through a quick function check. He went over basic gun safety with Mandy as well, like always treating the gun as if it was loaded, and how to open the slide to see if a round was chambered.

         Mike handed the Beretta back to her, and was pleased to see her pull back the slide and look in to verify that it was not loaded. She then quickly disassembled the gun, put it back together and did a function check, just like he had.

         “I’m a fast learner” she said to Mike with a very sarcastic smile.

         “So I noticed” Mike said with a laugh. “Now comes the harder part.” Mike picked up the handgun, slid out the clip, slipped in 5 rounds, pushed it back into the grip of the gun, and jacked a round into the chamber. He handed in to Mandy and watched her double check that the safety was on.

         “Now what?” she asked Mike.

         “Now we see how well you can shoot” Mike said with a smile.

         They walked out behind the bed and breakfast and Mike pointed to the bottles that he had set on the posts on the split rail fencing. Mike stopped Amanda when she was about 20 yards from the fence.

         “This is the farthest I ever want to see you shoot from. Anything beyond this and you have no idea what you are shooting. Now bring the gun up smooth and grip with both hands...” Mike started, giving her the same instructions that his sergeants had given him many years ago. After about an hour, Mandy was able to consistently hit targets with about three of every five rounds she fired. Not a bad percentage, but then again, bottles didn’t shoot back.

         “So do you think we can leave tomorrow?” Mandy asked Mike, when they went back to the general store that night for dinner. Mike was relaxing having finished his steak. He was still amazed at finding the pack of frozen beef steak in the freezer. The only thing that could make this better would be beer, but Mike didn’t want to dull any of his senses.

         “Actually, I was thinking we might try to travel tonight. I’m starting to worry that those soldiers might try to come back. Even in a rouge unit, someone will notice that soldier missing.” Mike said. He had been thinking about this for hours. He still wanted to travel at night, but was worried about how Mandy would react. Most of their travel would be through woods or overland, and it would be the blackest kind of dark since the trees would filter out most of the moonlight.

         “Sure, but where are we going to sleep? And how are we going to get wherever we’re going? And where are we going?” Amanda started to rattle off questions, her excitement at what she saw as an adventure starting to show.

         “We’ll take the ATV as long as we can keep gas in it, and then figure something out after that. We should leave soon if we are going to get anywhere tonight.”

         While Mandy was in the rooms getting everything put into the packs, Mike took the ATV to the gas station and thought about how to fill the tank. Since there was no electricity, the pumps themselves wouldn’t work, so he started looking for a way to get gas out of the underground tanks.

         When he looked through the dusty glass panes on the garage doors he saw what he needed. There, next to the free-standing red toolbox, there was a ten foot black rubber lawn hose. Mike used a rock that was out near the road to break out the big picture window in the store section of the Exxon. Once he broke out the biggest pieces of glass and climbed into the store.

         As he walked through he realized that grabbing some of the chocolate wouldn’t be a bad idea, if for no other reason than because he didn’t know when he would be able to get it again. He would cross that bridge when he came to it. He walked through the store area and into the garage bays.

         He walked across the grease spotted concrete floor and over to the toolbox. He picked up a knife from the top of the toolbox and went to his knees next to the hose. He decided he wouldn't need more than a five foot length of hose to get the fuel to siphon into the four wheeler. He grabbed a crowbar from against the wall on his way back into the store area, so that he could open the filler cover to get to the gas.

         Once back outside, he crouched next to the cover and slipped the crowbar into the notch that was there and leaned on it to get the cover to pop. When it came up the vapors from the gas hit him squarely in the face, making him choke. He dropped the end of the hose into the underground tank and started to suck on the end of the hose until he heard the gas starting to bubble up, then he pushed the end into the gas tank quickly and spit a few times to get the tasete of gas out of his mouth.

         When he no longer felt light headed, he looked up in the direction of downtown and was amazed to see Mandy heading towards him. She had both backpacks over her shoulders by one strap each. When she reached him she looked into his eyes with a smile.

         "So, we ready?"