The next day Janice was already feeling much better and was almost on perfect condition. Yet, the group decided to remain one more day inside processing their gains while waiting for her to make a full recovery. Danny wanted to go outside that very same day, but he was alone in this vote sadly

While Carl was still secretly fretting over his girlfriend’s close brush with death, and hoping to give her the longest recovery period they could, the rest felt that since they already had waited one day, they might as well wait another to make sure they were on their best physical and mental state before going out.

They spent the whole morning and afternoon going over what they had learned the previous day from Carl while getting more familiar with handling their guns at the same time.

No real bullets were shot by any of them though, since they did not wish to make too much of a commotion and attract unwanted attention, neither they wanted to waste their limited ammunition, limiting themselves to merely go through the motions of loading and unloading, taking aim at an imagined target over and over, while also taking pointers from Carl from time to time and clearing any doubts that popped up with him on how to do this or that.

As the hours passed, they talked about many things, ranging from when the rescue might come, what could be preventing the government from taking action thus far, what the situation at the downtown looked like and how their families fared in those circumstances.

However, no matter how much they spoke, they could not answer any of those questions. They were not seeking to either, merely saying those questions out loud to chase away their own insecurities and seek comfort in their shared worries.

Two days after their first foray, they were finally about to move out again. Danny was already getting impatient at the delay and the rest of them also knew they had already dragged their feet for as long as they could.

Their next chosen objective was the mini-market. From the options they had, the mini-market provided them with the most urgent of their needs: food and water.

They still hadn’t touched their stock of bottled water as they still had running water for the moment, but how long that would remain was anyone’s guess. Their food situation also was okay for now, given it would still be able to last them for weeks, but it was still their most pressing need by comparison.

While medical supplies were relevant as well, they were only consumed in a need-to-use basis, and could last them indefinitely theoretically, as long no one got injured anymore that is.

Food on the other hand was spent daily and each day passed was one day’s worth less they had on their stock, so making the call on where to hit first was fairly straightforward.

There was only a minor concern on their minds. While both the gun shop and the medical clinic were already closed when the quakes hit, given that it was already night time and they were at the fringe of the town, thus having less traffic of people, the mini-market was different: it was still operating.

That in itself could mean a lot of things. They did not know the state of the place at that time, so it could have been completely deserted save for the employees or it could have been filled with customers.

So far, they had not encountered any survivors but if anyone managed to stay alive there, that might soon change. Otherwise, they could be faced with an even bigger number of zombies. It could go either way.

No one, not even Donovan knew the place well, so they could not even make an educated guess about the usual state of thing of the place at that time and day of the week. Whether the place was packed with regulars doing their daily purchases or empty, they would have to get there and scout the place themselves to find out.

Fortunately, they had cleaned the zombies that were blocking the main entrance two days ago, and it had remained unobstructed since then, thus allowing them to safely leave the property the normal way. There would be no need for jumping over walls this time.

The undead that had previously gathered on the west walls after chasing them there did not circle around the property and slowly scattered towards the west as time passed. As of now, only a few stragglers remained rooted at the same spot.

They would not prove to be a problem though. The group left through the gateway before softly closing it behind themselves. They then proceeded to go to the left in order to deal with the creatures that remained behind.

Given that they would have to go through the corner street to the left to reach the mini-market, they felt it was prudent to get rid of those remaining annoyances beforehand so that they could not pose a problem later on. There were only four shambling undead still by the west walls at this point.

The group left the house adopting the same formation as always, this time with Danny in the lead followed by Carl, and with Janice bringing up the rear, while the other three were sandwiched in between them.

Armed by their previous experience and knowledge on how to deal with those creatures, Danny, Carl and Janice each went for one individually while the other three teamed up against the last remaining foe. At the moment no one was burdened with anything other than their own equipment, so they had all hands on deck available to deal with any threats.

The fight ended swiftly as expected, as they made quick work of their adversaries. The group then stood quietly in place and completely still, listening and watching to see if their commotion would attract any unwanted attention, but the caution soon proved to be unnecessary.

They then slowly and carefully made their way towards the street crossing, before turning to their left and advancing towards their destination.

This time they adopted a different approach to the zombies as the last time. If they encountered a low number of zombies spread around along their way, they would make an effort to take them out preemptively to stop the creatures to amass into a horde that would later cause troubles for themselves.

On the other hand, if they could not take out the enemies without attracting too large of a crowd, then they would try to bypass the enemies stealthily, avoiding tangling with them altogether.

They progressed in this manner for a few dozen meters until they found themselves at the entrance of the mini-market.

From what they could see, the place had definitely seen better days. The glass front walls were completely shattered, leaving not a single piece intact remaining, broken fragments all over the floor.

The only thing that remained of the previous front-side of the store were the steel poles that previously stood in-between each panel of glass and a dangling sign at the top of the storefront containing the name of the place that was hanging there by a thread.

On the inside there was a chaotic mess of shelves turned and numerous products spilled over the ground, mixed and mashed as if a stampede had occurred inside and trampled over anything that dropped down.

At the end of the first corridor the group could see more than a dozen zombies piling up against a door, showing that something on the other side deeply attracted them.

Noticing that the situation inside the shop was more complicated than what they had anticipated, the group retreated to a safe distance in order to decide what their next course of action should be.

“Do you guys think that there is someone inside that room?” Donovan asked softly.

“Probably. Either that, or there used to be someone in there” Janice said plainly.

“What do you mean used to be? You think they left, like, through the ceiling?” Carl asked.

Janice merely stared at him as if that was the dumbest thing she had ever heard. After being gazed like that, Carl realized that Janice meant that whomever was locked in there could already be dead and immediately blushed, coughing softly to hide his embarrassment.

“Whether there is someone there or not is not important, what is important is to decide whether we keep going with the plan and deal with the threat, or if we give up on this place and look for easier places to loot” Chris said, coming to rescue his friend from the embarrassment.

“What do you mean it does not matter? If there is in fact someone there, we have to help!” Jane said while frowning at Chris.

Noticing Jane’s stare, Chris went back to his shy demeanor and lowered his head, not daring to keep eye contact. He had progressed a lot those last few days in overcoming his social awkwardness, but it had only been a couple of days. Habits were hard to change.

“Chris is right Jane. Whether there is someone there or not does not matter. We were already coming here anyways, so either we are able to deal with those enemies or we are not. Saving a person in the process does not change that.” Danny said matter-of-factly, helping Chris to get out of his predicament.

Jane grimaced at the callous remark but did not say anything else. They should not bicker about their choice of words right now, what was important was to figure out how to solve this problem.

“Also, I think this is also an opportunity.” Danny added.

“Oh, how so?” Janice asked interested.

“All this time we have been mostly reacting to these zombies without really knowing too much about them or taking the initiative to figure something out on how to deal with them. Sure, we already know how to kill them for good, but what else do we truly know?” Danny said before continuing. “Now that we have all those zombies gathered together and distracted by something else, wouldn’t it be the perfect opportunity to make some simple tests? If things go sideways, we can always back-off and come back later or even entirely give up on this place”.

Janice merely nodded showing her understanding, while the others also realized what Danny meant, and started thinking about the possible actions they could take to get some answers.

“Although I don’t agree with giving up, what would you have us do then Danny?” Jane asked, clearly impatient to take action and offer assistance to the trapped person.

“It is nothing so elaborate that you guys haven’t probably thought of it yourselves already. I was thinking of trying to provoke them in various ways and see how they react. Of course, the fewer of them we end up attracting the better. If we can draw them in small groups and take care of all of them slowly and separately like that, it would be ideal.” Danny concluded.

“Okay then, let us do it like you suggested then.” Carl agreed immediately and soon after the rest also gave their assent.

The first test they did was an unavoidable one. As they approached slowly, Danny placed his feet over the broken glass and listened the crunching sound it made when he increasingly placed his weight on top of it.

However, that was not enough to attract the attention of the zombies that were a dozen meters away from him. Be it because the sound was not loud enough, or any other cause, the zombies remained facing the closed door while Danny prepared himself to do the second test.

He first retreated and stood just outside the shop before grabbing an object from the floor and throwing it at the zombie at the back of the line and closest to him. Seeing that his aim was true and that tracing that trajectory the object would hit the creature, Danny ducked around the corner and got outside the vision range of the zombie as it turned around.

The group waited there with bated breaths while waiting for something to happen but in the end, nothing came out of the store. Seeing that merely hitting the monster was not enough to divert its attention, Danny placed himself at the same spot and grabbed another object to throw.

He repeated his action, but this time remained at the same spot. The offended zombie turned again and upon seeing Danny, started making his way towards him.

Realizing he had this one’s attention; Danny left the store again disappearing from its sight. Danny then hid behind a dumpster not far away while his friends stood at another spot observing the situation and waiting to see how the undead would react when it reached Danny’s last seen spot and could not find him anymore.

They kept performing those small experiments for a while until they could no longer think of any new ways to make use of the opportunity.

Afterwards, they started baiting the zombies one by one, before they finally managed to take them all down without a hitch. Now that the store had been cleared of enemies, it was time to finally check out on what was behind the closed door.