Angry Bird

by Thadius0

June 2nd - 31 pills left

Water finally cut out today, which we found out after breakfast. Shame, too, as I'd planned to refill our jugs today. Sorta derailed my plan to open up the solar panels and install them, since we needed to head to one of the lakes and top off on water.

After doing that, I got the bright idea that I needed to pick up another vehicle. One that wasn't so...unwieldy to drive. I had the luck to find a white van in front of an apartment building, meaning I'd have to look through the apartments there for the keys. That promised to be a bit of a chore, so I decided to kill two birds with one stone, and asked Grace to come along.

I picked up a pretty large rock near the front door, and used it to bash the front lock off. Due to the steps outside the front door, she couldn't bring her wagon too close. Still, she managed to raid the ground floor while I did my sweep of the apartments for keys. I managed to find seven sets, which I stuck in the small bag I carry all my small things in. While I tried all the sets of car keys on the door of the van, Grace walked up next to me and watched for a minute.

"Found anything yet?" she asked. As luck would have it, that was when I unlocked the door with the latest set of keys. I cheered in victory as I opened the door, getting situated behind the wheel.

"I am now differently mobile!" I said, testing out the engine and finding it still working, amazingly enough.

"Well, I'll admit it's better than driving that huge truck of yours everywhere," Grace said as she watched me with a little amusement.

"I'll probably use more gas this way," I admitted as I closed the door and lowered the window. "But we can move things a lot quicker now!"

With a small amount of help from Grace acting as my spotter, we got the van to sit in front of the front door, and started looting the hell out of the apartments. Dried goods, bottled water, cans of meat and packages of fish and shellfish (I'm very happy about that one!), and that was about when I noticed something...odd, on the wagon.

A bottle of rum. I poked it with one claw before talking about it out loud. "You do realize alcohol dries you out, right? We can't exactly go drinking willy-nilly anymore. Even though we have a reservoir to draw on for our water needs."

She chuckled and took the thing off the wagon, before walking back into the house with the neck of the thing still gripped between her teeth. I might have to watch that.

Still, we loaded a lot of things into the van, stacking them up like some sort of weird Tetris game. We had just about closed it up and started making our way to the driver's door when Skippy alerted us to something.

Namely, that there was a whole pack of dogs out in front of us, growling and baring their teeth. My new eyes immediately picked out that these dogs were malnourished, I could see their ribs. I didn't think they were into reason either. One of them started barking at us, causing the whole pack to pick up the tune.

"Skippy," I said, easing my way to the driver's side door. "If you can keep them occupied for a minute, I can scare them off."

The dog woofed before he returned to barking at the group of dogs. My goal while he kept them distracted was simple. I'd slipped off the bag I used to carry my small, delicate things while I moved the van to sitting up next to the house. Of course, it had more than that.

At the moment, it also held the handgun I'd pinched from the AFA. I eased the bag open, rooted around in there for a moment, and pulled the gun out before pointing it at the pack of dogs. I deliberately aimed at the ground in front of them and fired off a warning shot, sending bits of concrete and bullet flying through the air, causing the dogs to scatter.

"Yeah that's right!" I called after them. "You'd better run!"

"How many more guns can you possibly have?" Grace asked irritably as she walked up next to me.

"Enough to keep all of us safe," I answered before putting the gun back in the bag. "Good boy Skippy."

He just woofed as the three of us climbed into the van and drove back to the museum. We didn't unload, though. Grace had to get her wagon back, and Skippy and I escorted her, me with that bag around my neck, ready and waiting for any more dogs that wanted to debate our edibility. Fortunately, we didn't run into anything else on the way there or back, and unloading the van went rather smoothly.

"Okay," I said before closing the doors. "I will be right back. I'm just gonna go get one more thing for tomorrow, and then I will be ready to call this a day for now."

"What are you getting?" Grace asked.

"Rocks," I answered before climbing back into the van.

What? Rocks would be useful. Big enough to hold the solar panels down so that they wouldn't blow away in a breeze. Heck, if they were weighty enough, I could use them to bash open any doors we didn't have the keys for. I would just need to get a lot of rocks.

Lowes proved useful yet again, thanks to their garden center. Huge, decorative, weighty rocks were just what I was after, and the pallet and pallet jack were where I'd left them. It took a lot of heaving and pushing to get the bags onto the pallet in the first place, but I figured I could make a few trips. By the time I'd moved all the rocks into the back of the van, the sun was setting, and I needed to get back to base.

Who knew how many things roamed the street at night now, with no humans to reign them in. I pulled up in front of the museum, and managed to move half the rocks inside. I took a break for dinner, then moved the rest off the van to sit at the base of the stairs.

I don't know how I'm going to move those things up the stairs, but it'll be torture, I can picture that much right now. Heck, it'd probably be torture to move the boxes of panels up to the top as well. The first thing I need to do is locate the roof access. Then I can take one rock and bash that door open. We can worry about a new lock later. When there is a later.

"To those of you that can hear us, you are not alone." "I'm Grace." "And I'm Henry." "And if you need help and are in the Denver area, we'll welcome you with open arms." "Right now, it's more important that we work together than stand apart." "Please...let there be somebody else out there."

Comments

[Seeking Dusk]

The inevitable encounter with the packs of dogs. To be expected of course, were have a LOT of pets in cities...

I'd recommend adding a horizontal line before the outro, just so the transition from story to broadcast is less jarring.

---

"Yeah that's right!" I called after them. "You'd better run!"

"How many more guns can you possibly have?" Grace asked irritably as she walked up next to me.

"Enough to keep all of us safe," I answered before putting the gun back in the bag. "Good boy Skippy."

orig07.deviantart.net/4a49/f/2012/247/a/c/being_prepared_by_xeronecross-d5dip22.jpg

Who knew how many things roamed the street at night now, with no humans to reign them in.

Sorry, these were the first thing that came to my mind when I hit those sections.

[Goldfur]

Then I can take one rock and bash that door open.

They don't have sledgehammers at Lowes?

[Thadius0]

6496560
He also doesn't have a frying pan yet.
Tools, he might need them. I agree.

[bluemoon1996]

6494826
You know a way to a Texans heart is though his magazine.... Or was that barbeque I don't remember

[bluemoon1996]

I just want to say that I'm really liking this story man

[Jake Witt]

6496948 I'm from The Lone Star State yet I can't answer that! I'm sure its barbeque, but dang do we have gun-crazed people out here!

I was watching the News one day to learn a man shot a person from a hoverboard and got away.

[Dances With Unicorns]

6496560

Or crowbars?

If they find any Earth ponies or Unicorn ponies, they should get K-9 Ballistic Vests from local police departments and military bases. A vest for a big dog should be able to fit a pony.