Entry 62

Apparently no one in my building read anything other than romance novels. It occurred to me that I might not have to make a trip to the bookstore, I could have the books here in the apartments. I went through the apartments looking for any helpful ones and came up mostly empty. I found a few books which could be helpful down the line. One apartment had some books on electrical wiring. Another apartment had some books on gardening. The book focused more on decoration than food though.

The bookstore was almost a mile away. I felt pretty safe knowing the huge horde of zombies was gone and no more had shown up. But still, I could not help but worry. This time I kept the shotgun at the ready after my abysmal accuracy with the pistol. I did not expect to bring back too many books, but brought along the duffel bags just in case I ran across extra supplies. Figured it was better to not need them than wish I had brought them.

As I headed out and into the parking lot it was a surreal sight. Walking through the beaten and battered cars let me see the dents in the metal and holes through the windshields too far to make out from the apartment. The empty streets and destruction around me really sold the apocalyptic war zone feel. I felt like I was dashing across no-man’s land as I crossed the empty roadway. Some of the shops had taken a beating. Quite a few had shattered windows, but were still inaccessible thanks to the roll down security gates. As I headed to the corner I looked back over the stores for any that might contain useful items I missed the first time.

As I turned the corner I saw a mass of zombies on the ground. I jumped back around the corner before my mind caught up and realized they were probably all dead from the hail. I listened a moment then peeked around the corner. They were all exactly where they were a moment before. I carefully approached watching for any sign of movement. I waited for a few minutes to make sure they were all dead before moving on. From there it was another half a mile or so to the bookstore. Most of the stores looked full of useless stuff. I did however realize there was a pawn shop just a bit past the bookstore. I walked up and looked inside. It had metal bars across all the windows and doors on the outside as well as the security gates just behind the glass. There was no easy way in so I headed back to the bookstore.

I was very surprised to find there was no back door to the bookstore. I had planned to drill the lock on the back door avoiding the front grate, but without a door that was difficult. Around front it looked just like every other store nearby. They were all built at the same time so they all had the same roll down grates at the front of the store. I figured it was worth trying to get through since I had come all that way. I drilled out the lock on the front door, this time I knew to hit it with a hammer and it swung open within a couple minutes. This gave me access to the grate. The biggest problem was the grate was electrically controlled. There was a keypad with an up and down button. There was no obvious key or locking mechanism to let me roll it up manually.

I spent a solid hour poking, tugging, and swearing at the grate. I went back behind the building to check if any of the stores attached to this one had a back or side door. But none of the six stores in this building had any way to get in other than the front door. I considered the roof, but I could recall stories about criminals getting stuck in stores and being discovered in the morning by the owners. I had to figure out some way past the grate without getting trapped.

I walked home frustrated and a bit down. I cannot help but feel like I wasted a day when I could have done something better. If I can figure out a way past those roll down grates I could get at a good amount of supplies. I just wish I had electricity.