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// June 6th - 27 pills left 
// Story: Angry Bird 
// by Thadius0 
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More people!  I am always excited about more people!

This morning was spent helping Grace recover from her hangover, which called for copious amounts of water.  I would have let her had some headache pills, but I wasn't sure what a proper dosage for her would be anymore.  If she were human, I'd just give her a couple of some sort of generic headache medication, but I didn't know how they'd affect her new body.  In the end, I merely prescribed her a load of water and monitored the radio.  No new transmissions coming in, sad to say.  Once noon rolled around, Grace said she felt a lot better and took over the radio from me.

Another issue was made plain to me today, though.  Without water for the plumbing, we're going to need somewhere to, uh, go.  The restrooms won't work anymore.  The order of the day was port-a-potties and shovels, so I got my truck and drove over to Lowes.  It took a lot of work to get even one of them on the handy pallet jack, but I managed to get two port-a-potties into the back of the truck.  Took me a lot of heaving and grunting, though.

Then I decided, while I was out, why not pick up a few more supplies from Wal-Mart?  I loaded up a cart with some things from just about everywhere in the store.  A frying pan for the smaller meats, another bag of kibble for Skippy, a nice and big sledgehammer, for breaking doors in, some dry and canned food for the both of us...

Then I went and grabbed a charcoal grill, for the larger meats, and a nice big bag of charcoal.  I had space, why not use it?

On my way back, though, I saw a pack of dogs in the streets, chasing two ponies.  I was ever so thankful I never went anywhere without my shotgun.  I put the truck in park, grabbed the gun, and hopped out before firing a blast into the air.  The dogs scattered, while the ponies breathed a sigh of relief as they did.  Once they turned to me, though, I could tell they were slightly confused.  As was I, by one of them.

One of the ponies was orange in color, with a red mane and tail.  Said pony also had green eyes, and no wings of any sort.  The other was yellow, with a blue mane and tail that had lighter blue streaks running through it.  And that pony had a horn jutting out of its head.  It wasn't until they spoke that I managed to place a gender for either one of them.

"Thank you," the unicorn pony said with a sigh, revealing that it was female by the voice.  At least, I hoped it was a female, I couldn't imagine a guy with that voice.

"Yeah, but what are you?" the regular pony said gruffly, indicating to me it was a male.

"I'm Henry the Griffon," I said as I pointed my shotgun at the ground.  Rule number one, never point at anything you don't intend to shoot.  Rule number two, finger off the trigger unless you intend to shoot.  "Used to be a human, woke up with a day missing and a body not my own."

"Sounds like us," the male of the pair said.  "We both lived in the same set of apartments and woke up recently.  What day is it?"

"June 6th," I answered, causing them to look at me in disbelief.

"It...it was the 23rd just a day ago," the unicorn of the pair whispered.

"Missing time isn't unusual, though you're the first two to be missing so much that I've heard of," I said to them.  "I was just missing one day.  You two seem to be missing two weeks."

"So, what, are you the only person to have pulled through?" the normal pony asked.

"Nope, I know of more down south, and there's somebody else hanging out with me at the Museum," I said.  "I'll give you a lift there."

"I'm Chris," the male of the pair said.

"I'm Yvonne," the unicorn introduced herself.  "And thank you so much for doing this."

After that, it was a short drive back to the museum with my two guests.  Yvonne took the front seat, while Chris had the thin, narrow back seat all to himself.  Once we arrived, I told the pair of them that Grace would be easy enough to find and to introduce themselves.  Meanwhile, I had a small bit of unloading to do.  I'm not stupid enough to bring in a grill to an enclosed area, I'd probably just...huh, no electricity for the bigger stuff, right.  So maybe I wouldn't set off the fire alarms.  Still, it'd be safer to just leave it outside where it is.  I still have a fair bit of meat hanging around, so I won't even need it for long.  I mean, not unless I take up hunting.

...There's an idea.  I'll have to think about it later.  The Springs did see their fair share of deer this time of year...

Then I managed to slide the port-a-potties out of the truck, along with the really big shovel I picked up to help me dig a fair hole for them.  It took me half an hour to dig what I thought was an acceptable hole for both of them, and a few minutes longer to get both situated over their respective holes and facing the Museum.  After that, it was just the food and tools I had to drag into the museum.  I left the sledgehammer by the front door, so that I'd know where it was if we needed it.  The frying pan went up to my camp, and the food for ourselves and Skippy went to the kitchen.  The mutt came up and licked my face multiple times after I finished unloading everything, apparently having finished greeting the others for the time being.  Chris and Yvonne brought Grace with them, and the four of us chatted about our plans.

Chris was a construction worker before the great shift, while Yvonne worked in customer service for Lowes.  Grace divulged that she used to work as a stocker for the local Wal-Mart, and I was just an attendant for the local gas station.  Our pasts divulged, we talked about the future.  I told our new faces about the set-up we currently had, with most of the basic necessities seen to.  Chris said he had a small garden at his home, just something to help him grow spices that he'd rather not buy, nothing not in a plant pot.  Yvonne agreed that she'd help him with farming, and I showed them where the seeds and farming equipment were.

"Try not to plant them all, though," I said.  "We might not be staying in this city forever."

"Really?" Grace asked.  "News to me."

"The dogs were chasing these two," I said to her.  "Plus I'm surprised the animals from the zoo haven't gotten loose yet.  Who knows when they might try for us?"

After that, they fell silent and all made their ways to the Space exhibit, probably to socialize a little more.  Fine by me, that gave me more time to keep watch outside and practice moving my wings.  I can flap them for about five minutes now before I get tired, though I seem to be recovering faster.  Who knows.  Maybe soon I'll actually get airborne.  That'll only leave the all-important step of coming back down to work on.  I mean, gravity might work on that for me, but I'd like to be able to go up and come back down without breaking anything.

Dinner was a nice affair, even if I did have to leave halfway through to start up the other half of my dinner.  Still, the mood was celebratory, thanks to doubling our population.  And hey, now we had goals and a schedule that would go into effect tomorrow.

In the morning, Grace and I would monitor the radio, while Yvonne and Chris would tend to the farm that we would set up in the museum's lawn.  Come afternoon, we would switch who was monitoring the radio.  Meanwhile, Grace and I would go out to find a place for her to raid, applying brute force as our lockpick of choice.  Once I saw to that, I'd come back and drive a vehicle around to get supplies en masse.  Tomorrow, my shopping list is beds.  I know there's a Serta store around here somewhere...

Of course, tomorrow morning is going to see me helping Yvonne and Chris with the farm to begin with.  I'm probably going to do a lot of digging tomorrow...

"We send this message out to all who can hear us.  I'm Grace.  And you don't have to be alone."  "I'm Yvonne, and these guys have been very welcoming and helpful to us."  "It's not so bad, I guess.  I wouldn't have thought of living in a museum."  "If you are out there and can hear us...please, answer us."