Thirty Days Before the Dead

CHAPTER 8: The Armory

 Sullivan’s Outfitters was a low brick building with a mounted elk head over the register and a hand-lettered sign that read WE OPEN WHEN WE FEEL LIKE IT. The shop smelled of gun oil, leather, and old wood, and its shelves were crowded with camping gear, hunting equipment, and survival supplies. Ryan stepped inside with his list folded in his pocket, already calculating what he could afford and how much time he had left before the world changed.

 Eli “Sully” Sullivan stood behind the counter, a hairy bear of a man with a Marine Corps tattoo. He took Ryan’s list and studied it for a full minute without blinking, his thick fingers holding the paper at the edges. As his eyes moved down the page, his expression shifted from curiosity to disbelief, though he made no attempt to hide his interest.

 “Son, either you’re starting a militia or you’re starting a movie,” Sully said.

 “Neither,” Ryan replied.

 “Then what?”

 “Bears,” Ryan said, keeping his expression straight.

 “Bears?” Sully repeated, lifting his eyebrows.

 “Very large ones.”

 Sully’s eyes twinkled, but he did not laugh immediately. He looked down at the list again, then back at Ryan, as though deciding whether the man standing in front of him was joking or simply had more money than sense. Finally, he gave a slow nod.

 “Mm-hm. Bears.”

 Ryan allowed the explanation to stand. He had learned that people were often more comfortable with an absurd answer than with a serious one they could not understand, and he had no intention of explaining that the danger he was preparing for would not be stopped by ordinary hunting equipment.

 He had a clean record, a valid permit, and nothing to hide. The background checks and waiting periods took four days of paperwork and cost nearly sixty-four thousand dollars, a record that, in a world about to end, would be buried under the dust of a thousand other records. Ryan followed the process carefully, signed every required document, and kept copies of the receipts. He could not afford to draw attention by taking shortcuts, especially when the weapons would be essential to protecting his father and everything they had built.

 What he bought, legally and documented, included:

 * 12 rifles, both hunting and tactical.

 * 8 pump-action shotguns.

 * 10 handguns.

 * 52,000 rounds of ammunition across five calibers.

 * 6 compound bows and 4 crossbows, with 800 bolts and arrows, because the dead hunted by sound.

 * 20 fixed-blade survival knives.

 * 4 fire axes.

 * 10 stab-resistant vests.

 * 12 sets of heavy cut-resistant gloves and forearm guards, because a bite was the wound that mattered most.

 * 40 sets of hearing protection, since noise was the enemy and gunfire could draw the dead from a long distance.

 * 15 pairs of night-vision goggles, useful for silent movement even though light itself did not attract the dead.

 * 400 kilograms of acoustic foam and sound-damping curtains.

 Ryan checked the list against the paperwork as Sully rang up the order. The steady beep of the register mixed with the faint clatter of equipment being moved in the back room, and each total made him more aware of how much money he was committing to the armory. He had already spent a substantial portion of his funds on food, water, fuel, medicine, and construction. Every additional purchase narrowed his financial margin, but leaving his father unprotected was not an option he was willing to consider.

 Sully whistled softly as he worked, occasionally glancing at Ryan with renewed curiosity. “You know,” he said, “I had a customer last week. Retired nurse. Bought a hundred N95s and a shotgun. Said it was ‘just in case.’ I asked what in case of what, and she wouldn’t say.”

 “Smart nurse,” Ryan replied.

 “I thought so.” Sully slid the last box across the counter and leaned back against the shelves. “Funny thing is, I’ve sold more guns these past three weeks than all of last year. Everybody’s got this itch. Like something’s coming and nobody’s saying it out loud.”

 Ryan looked at the old Marine, studying the lines around his eyes and the way he spoke without turning the conversation into a joke. Sully had noticed the unusual demand, and perhaps he had noticed something else, too. Ryan could not tell whether the man was merely observant or had some private reason to be concerned, but he knew better than to assume that every person who sensed trouble could be trusted with the truth.

 A man who sees, Ryan thought. A man who’s survived.

 He made a mental note of Sully, though he was not ready to trust him. The coming disaster would reveal who people really were, and Ryan had no intention of making the same mistake he had made with Vanessa and Grant.

 “Sully,” he said, lowering his voice slightly, “if things ever get strange, stay quiet. Don’t draw attention. Keep your doors shut.”

 Sully's expression became more serious. He rested both hands on the counter and studied Ryan as though trying to decide how much weight to give the warning.

 “That’s good advice,” he said.

 “It’s the only advice I’ve got.”

 Sully nodded once, then returned to the paperwork without asking another question. Ryan gathered his documents and left the shop, carrying the weight of the purchase in his mind even after the door closed behind him. The weapons were necessary, but he knew that owning them was not the same as knowing how to use them safely. A careless shot could attract more enemies than it stopped, and in a world where the dead hunted by sound, every gunshot could become a dinner bell.

 Back at the house, he and Walt ran drills.

 Silence was the first rule, so they trained for it. Ryan hung a decibel meter on a hook in the kitchen and watched the needle as they tested ordinary household sounds. A dropped fork registered 62 decibels, while a slammed door reached 78. A gunshot would rise above 140, a dinner bell that could carry for miles and drag every dead thing in the district toward Larkspur Court.

 Walt studied the meter, his mouth tightening as he considered the figures. “So we never use the guns?”

 “Only as a last resort,” Ryan replied. “Bows, bolts, and blades first. The wall does the rest.”

 His father nodded, although Ryan could see that he was not entirely comfortable with the idea of waiting until the danger was close enough to make silence difficult. Neither of them wanted to discover what happened when a frightened person fired a weapon without thinking, especially if the noise brought dozens of dead bodies running toward the house.

 They practiced with the crossbows in the basement, firing at foam heads stuffed into cardboard boxes. The bolts struck with dull thuds, and Ryan concentrated on his grip, breathing, and aim, correcting his mistakes before trying again. To his astonishment, Walt was better than he was, placing bolt after bolt close to the center of the targets.

 “Forty years on a lathe,” his father said smugly, lowering the crossbow. “Steady hands.”

 Ryan shook his head with a reluctant smile. “I suppose all those years of working with machines finally paid off.”

 They tested the silent alarms next. Ryan walked toward the wall with a cardboard cutout, and a small red light blinked on the basement panel without making a sound. The system gave them a warning without broadcasting their position, exactly as he had intended.

 They drilled hand signals and practiced opening the roof hatch. They also rehearsed the tunnel route until Ryan could crawl its sixty feet in the dark in forty seconds, while Walt managed it in two minutes and ten seconds, breathing hard when he finally emerged. Ryan wanted his father to move faster, but he knew that pushing too hard could leave him injured before the real danger arrived.

 In the old life, nobody had drilled. Nobody had even known there was a lesson.

 This time, Ryan thought, we know the exam.

 At night, he stood on the roof of number 14 with the watch in his hand and the dark neighborhood spread below him. The air was cool against his face, and the distant sounds of traffic drifted over the rooftops. Lights glowed in the windows of Larkspur Court, somebody’s television flickered blue, and a sprinkler hissed across a lawn. A couple walked a dog down the middle of the street, holding hands as though the future were as ordinary and dependable as the pavement beneath their feet.

 Ryan felt something unexpected: tenderness. They had no idea what was coming, and in four days, half of them would be dead.

 I can’t save them, he thought. I tried, in the old life. I tried and I died.

 He tightened his fingers around the watch, feeling the worn brass press against his palm. He could not afford to become responsible for everyone in the neighborhood, not when his first duty was to protect his father and keep them both alive. He had tried to help people before, and the memory of how that had ended still haunted him.

 I can’t save them. But I can save the ones who are worth saving.

 He climbed down into the basement, where his father was in the vault room, hanging a poster of a 1967 Mustang on the steel wall. Walt smoothed one corner of the poster with his palm before stepping back to inspect it.

 “What’s that for?” Ryan asked.

 “Morale,” Walt replied. “Man doesn’t live on tuna alone.”

 Ryan glanced at the poster and let out a quiet laugh. For a moment, the fortress felt less like a structure built to survive the end of the world and more like a home that happened to have unusually thick walls. He held on to that feeling, knowing how easily the coming days could take it away.

 On the far side of the basement, a bank of eight monitors glowed with feeds from the cameras. The front gate, back fence, roof, and street were all visible, and the cul-de-sac remained clear. Ryan sat down in the chair, opened his notebook, and began the final inventory.

 STOCK (Day -4):

 * Food: 78 tons of rice, flour, pasta, canned, frozen, and dehydrated supplies.

 * Water: 48,000 bottles and 10,000 gallons in tanks, with 10 filters.

 * Fuel: 6,000 gallons of diesel, 4,000 gallons of gasoline, 80 propane cylinders, and 20 cords of firewood.

 * Power: 3 generators, 12 kW solar, and 8 battery banks.

 * Medical: 14 categories, including a six-month supply of insulin.

 * Arms: 30 firearms and 52,000 rounds.

 * Silent weapons: 10 bows and crossbows.

 * Defense: An eight-foot wall, 600 meters of razor wire, 16 cameras, silent alarms, and a tunnel.

 * People: Dad. And whoever knocks twice.

 * Cash: $48,200.

 Ryan underlined the last two lines and sat back, staring at the inventory until the numbers settled in his mind. He had less cash than he started with, but he had food, water, medicine, weapons, and a place that could protect them. The remaining money would have to cover any unexpected expenses, and he knew there would be some. There was no room for careless spending now, not with the deadline so close.

 Four days.

 On the fifth monitor, a flyer fluttered against his front gate. Someone had attached it with blue tape, and the paper lifted and fell in the evening breeze. Ryan leaned toward the screen, narrowing his eyes as he read the neat printed heading.

 COMMUNITY MEETING TONIGHT, 7 P.M. 12 LARKSPUR COURT. ALL NEIGHBORS WELCOME.

 Below it, in Gary Doyle’s thick black marker, someone had added a single line.

 Especially you.

 Ryan stared at the words, and the faint smile that had lingered after his father’s joke disappeared. Gary had been watching the construction, asking questions, and measuring what Ryan possessed without understanding what it was for. Now he was calling a meeting, and Ryan had no doubt that the neighbors would be discussing the walls, the deliveries, and the supplies they suspected he had stored away.

 He closed the notebook and looked at the monitor again. The invitation was not a friendly gesture, and refusing to attend might only make Gary more suspicious. Ryan had four days left before the outbreak, but the people around him

were already becoming a problem.

 He glanced toward the stairs, where Walt was humming softly to himself, then returned his attention to the flyer.

 “Fine, Gary,” Ryan murmured, keeping his voice low. “Let’s see what you want.”