299 Days: The Community

Chapter 86 Hardware Store (May 8)

“You could try the hardware store for some gas cans,” John said. He pointed the direction to the hardware store.

Wes was silent. He was trying not to be pissed at John because they’d be working and living together and needed to be on good terms. Wes lightened up and started to chat with John and Drew as they headed to the hardware store.

On the way, they saw some graffiti. “Don’t Tread on Me” was in yellow spray-paint on the wall of city hall. Interesting.

They found the hardware store. Wes said, “I’ll stay in the truck with the stuff.” John and Drew went into the store.

Drew asked where the gas cans were. The clerk laughed and said, “We sold out two days ago.” Drew and John decided to get all the miscellaneous things they could think of. Things were pretty picked over, but there were still some items. They got duct tape, rope, nails, screws, nuts and bolts. They found some Coleman fuel and some small propane canisters. There were a few packs of batteries left; they got an assortment of every kind they could think of. They didn’t have a list, so they were just guessing what they might need.

John found some work gloves. He put as many pairs as he could into the cart. “You can never have enough gloves,” he said to Drew. “These could save your hands and you’ll need them.”

They went to the checkout line, which was pretty long. They paid for their things. No surcharge there, probably because all the good stuff was gone. They had a little money left over, but not much. It was weird: money didn’t have the same feel it used to. The things in the store were much more valuable than the money.

The hardware store was near the sporting goods store where Mark and Scotty were. They saw Mark’s truck in the parking lot. John and Drew dropped off their hardware store items in the truck and told Wes they’d go over to the sporting goods store to see Mark and Scotty.

Wes was glad to be in the truck, with the AK and scanning for the Mexicans who might be looking for them. Then again, he thought, why would they want to find someone with an AK? All the Mexicans were doing was kicking some people out of their store; that’s not the kind of thing to go hunting people down over. Oh well, even if no one was looking for them, Wes would continue to scan the area for threats. This town was on the brink of being a warzone. Wes could feel it. He was listening to his intuition this time. Bare shelves, no cops, and plenty of sleep-deprived, scared, hungry people who had never run out of anything. This was going to be ugly. But not in Pierce Point. Hopefully.

John and Drew went over to the sporting goods store. It was one of the last local sporting goods stores around. The nearest Wal-Mart was one town away.

The camping and hunting sections of the sporting goods store was picked over. There were plenty of basketballs and golf clubs left, though.

Mark and Scotty had a cart full of fishing gear and crab pots,. Mark had plenty of these things, but he’d need more now that he’d be a full-time fisherman and hunter.

John saw Mark and asked, “Do they have any .280 Winchester?” That was ammunition for a hunting rifle John had. It was an obscure caliber.

Mark smiled, “Yeah, three boxes of it. There’s a one-box limit for the common calibers. But yours is an oddball caliber, so we could have all we wanted. It looks like those boxes of .280 have been on the shelf for a couple years from the dust.”

Scotty was excited about what he found. “Hey,” he said excitedly, “I got ten boxes of .357 Sig. That’s an oddball caliber, for sure.” Bobby had an extra Glock 22 in .40. He switched to 9mm so he didn’t use it much or keep much .40 ammo. But about a year ago, he got a replacement barrel for it in .357 Sig for a hundred bucks from Lonewolf Distributors. It took .40 magazines, which he had. Now, with the .357 Sig replacement barrel, he had a .357 Sig and ten boxes of ammo for his .40 Glock he no longer used. Pretty cool. Scotty thought Bobby was crazy to get an extra barrel in some weird caliber, but now he saw why.

“We could only get one box of the normal stuff,” Mark said. “30-06, 30-30, .270. Oh, and shotgun shells. Forget about it. They’re all gone.” That made sense. Everyone and their dog had a 12 gauge, so those shells would fly off the shelves.

Mark and Scotty’s cart had Coleman stoves and lanterns. Mark pointed to some little packages in the cart, “Best find of all is the water purification tabs. Pure gold.”

They paid and left. It was 11:45 a.m. They headed back to the rendezvous point.

The two trucks and the Hummer gathered and those who still needed to, gassed up. They told each other what they got and what they didn’t, and heard the quick version of the Mexican tienda story. Lisa was horrified. She had no idea Wes was carrying an “assault rifle.” They didn’t have time to be chatting. They needed to get out of town and get back to the safety of Pierce Point.

As they were leaving, there was a disturbance between two gas station customers. They started punching each other. A customer nearby drew a handgun. That stopped the fight. Everyone was on edge. They guy drawing the handgun ran away, leaving his car there.

“Time to boogie,” Pow said. “That guy’ll be back for his car.” They were glad to be on the road back to Pierce Point.

On the ride back, Lisa could not stop thinking about how different things were. Fights, “surcharges” at stores, limits on purchases, people with guns, money not being worth much. And chickens. Lisa hated chickens. They were noisy and stupid. Yet, somehow, she had gone from being a respected physician to an amateur chicken farmer in twenty-four hours.