Entry 26

It is interesting how what is valuable has changed. A couple months ago a utility closet was full of junk as far I was concerned. Today, it is more of a precious vault of materials. Sadly, calling it a vault is a bit more accurate than I would have wished.

I slept so well last night. I finally forced myself out of bed after the sun had been up over an hour. I had not expected it to take long to get into the utility closet so I did not feel pressed for time. I checked to make sure the door braces were near the doors as I walked to the apartment next to the utility closet. Once I was there I set my gun nearby and began to cut.

I had cut maybe 6 inches when I hit something that made a metallic sound. I tried cutting a bit lower and hit whatever it was again. I broke away a small section of the drywall to see what I was hitting and was almost floored by what I saw. In this wall there were two sets of wires and a copper pipe running through the wall. I was so lucky I had hit the copper pipe first and not one of the wires. There were extra studs going horizontally which supported the copper pipe right in the middle of the normal studs. There was no way I could go through that section of wall.

I decided to try the next set of studs to the right. This time I used the tip of the blade to cut out a small square without cutting very deep. I had to go back to my apartment to fetch a flashlight, and with it I could see there were no pipes or wires in the wall here. I finished cutting the drywall on my side and began to try to cut the drywall on the other. The saw blade pushed through about half an inch and stopped. No matter how many times I tried to push the knife through it would not go through the wall.

I had never actually seen inside the utility room. I had seen the door open before but as its door faced a different direction than my apartment I had never had any want to peer inside. Now I wish I had just glimpsed into the room once. There must have been something against the wall. Without any luck in the bathroom I moved to the front room. Being ten feet further down the wall would get me past whatever was blocking the wall I thought. This almost worked.

I first cut a small hole to check for wires or pipes between the drywall. Without any, I tried to cut through the drywall on the other side. I let out a sigh of relief when the saw pushed through the wall to the other side. I began cutting the hole until the knife hit something metal. I removed a small section again so I could peer inside. I saw a metal topped workbench was against the wall. Rather than try another spot I cut upwards; I would just have to climb over the workbench. I got a few feet before I hit something a bit hard. The vibrations of the saw against what I discovered a bit later was a pegboard had managed to knock off a bunch of tools making horribly loud, clanging sounds.

I held my breath and listened. After twenty or so minutes it seemed by some miracle that they had not heard it. I finished cutting the hole, staying between the pegboard and the workbench. It did not give me too much room to crawl over the workbench but it was enough. When I finally was able to examine the contents of the room it looked better than a vault of gold.

The apartments were rather old and often required repairs. Apparently, they knew this and had stocked this room with quite a stash of supplies. Tons of raw wood and some metal were in the room along with tons of tools, screws, and bolts.

I walked over to the utility room door to see about blocking it off and realized this door, unlike the apartment doors, was made out of steel and had two large deadbolts on it. I figured it was at least as strong as any brace and left it alone.

I spent the rest of the day going through all the supplies in the room. I have no idea what to do with some of them, but I am sure in the coming days I will find uses. Best of all, I may just have what I need to try and make the top two floors my anti-zombie fortress.