John O'Brien - Chaos

“Michelle,” I say, “You cover the area around us.”

They nod and Robert moves in a wide circle approaching the gate from the right. I set up in a kneeling stance a few feet in front of the gate. My guess is nothing will present itself due to the lock being on the gate, but you never know. Once at the gate, Robert grasps the lock and looks back at me. I glance back at Michelle. She has her back to me and is looking around the area with her pistol out. I must admit I am quite impressed with Robert’s exceptional choice for a girlfriend.

I give Robert a nod. He removes the lock and drops it to the ground as he lifts the latch. Swinging, the gate open to his left, with the metallic rattling sound common to all chain link fences, he steps back away from the gate bringing his own gun up. I’m greeted by the sight of a dumpster hidden in the shadow of the store. Nothing moves except for the gate slowly swinging closed apparently not being quite level. I approach the gate noticing the left lift door on the dumpster is open to the sky with the right one closed. A couple of smaller cardboard boxes lie open on the ground at the foot of the dumpster.

“Cover me,” I say at the entrance. He moves up behind as I edge toward the open end of the dumpster. A quick move up to my toes bringing my gun to bear toward the dumpster opening reveals nothing immediately apparent other than it being half full of miscellaneous paper wrappings, cans, boxes, and the standard things one would expect in a garbage bin. I feel kind of foolish for tactically assaulting a dumpster. However, if that dumpster were to spring up as some transformer and attack us, we would have had it covered. More so, I wanted to use this to teach tactical operations and this was a safe way to do it.

Proceeding out of the enclosure, I shut the gate behind me. “Michelle,” I call out and she quickly joins us.

We continue around the enclosure along the back of the store. In the middle of the rear wall is a gray, steel door that opens outward. Against the other rear corner is an enclosure similar to the one we just exited. The difference is a small aluminum tube jutting out from the top. I was hoping to see something like this. I guess I never paid very close attention to the surroundings before as I don’t remember seeing this. But then again, I don’t remember not seeing it either. I rather expected something like it though. Out here in the country, there are frequent power failures during storms and winter months with some failures lasting several days. Stores would keep small generators handy in order to keep the refrigeration units going in the event of such failures. This one would likely be attached to those and the emergency lighting. It might even be connected to the gas pumps. Something to think about in the future.

“Same as before?” Robert asks.

I nod and tell Michelle she has the door and the surrounding area. She stations herself in front of the door about twenty feet away and the assault on the generator begins. We go through the same motions and find it is in fact a generator and is clear. Emergency generators are usually set to automatically engage, triggered by the loss of normal electrical power. Some have a manual starter switch for maintenance check purposes. I press the green ‘on’ switch. Nothing happens. The fuel tank with the green ‘diesel only’ placard sits on the front and to the bottom and, as I tap the tank lightly working my way down. A hollow sound follows all of the way down to the bottom. I test the fuel level with a small, square pole sitting to the side of the generator to find the stick reveals only a dark, wet line about a quarter of an inch deep. Empty. I seriously doubt there is enough residual diesel fuel in the hose lines at the pump to power it up. If we want to ever use this generator and the gas pumps, we’ll have to drain diesel fuel from some vehicle at a later point. There’s too much to be done today with the light remaining for us to search for one now.

Exiting and closing the gate, I walk to the steel door. There’s no latch, just a handle and a key slot above it. I give the door a light pull, not wanting to open it, just to test if it is locked or not. It doesn’t move.

We head around the building to the far side. The paved area extends fifty feet completely around the store allowing people to drive away by completing a complete circle back to the entrance. A tree-lined hill, really more of small ridge, abuts the pavement to the rear and leads up to a shellfish plant on the other side of the trees.

Only two things greet us on this far side; an outside door similar to the rear door, and a darker blue four-door Honda parked nearby. With gun in hand, I approach from the front to get a better look into the interior, angling up to the front corner of the car and peer inside. Nothing out of the ordinary and, more importantly, no one inside. I slide around to the passenger side keeping slightly away from the car to find there aren’t any keys in the ignition. Moving closer, I try the front door. Locked. I test all of the remaining doors only to find the car is completely locked up. No keys on the seat or floorboard. This tells me that whoever was driving the car either was picked up in another vehicle, walked out of here, or is still around. Maybe more than one if there were passengers.

I test the steel door in a similar manner as at the back and find it is also locked. We retrace our steps around the building as I don’t want to walk in front of the store just yet. If there is someone here and alive, they most likely know we are here already but I don’t want to publicly announce the fact.

“There’s the possibility of at least one person around,” I say as we turn the corner to the rear.

“How do you know that?” Robert asks.

“The car is locked with no one in it,” I say and relate exactly what I think that means. He nods thoughtfully.

“Looks like we’re going in through the front door,” I say once we are back at the Jeep. “We’ll do a visual check through the side window and then see whether the front door is locked. If it is, then I’ll tape the front door,” I hold my left wrist with the duct tape bracelet up slightly, “and break the glass.”

“Once inside, both of you will be right inside the door. Michelle, you’ll have the door itself. Robert, you cover toward the back of the store. I’ll go right to check the aisles and the Subway station. If it’s clear, I’ll head back. I’ll then check the back and the refrigeration units. While I’m doing that, Robert, you’ll switch to covering the right,” I say outlining a quick plan. “If something happens, our best bet is to just get out. If it does come down to where we have to shoot, make doubly sure you’re not firing towards each other. Make sure you have a clear shot. And,” I say with emphasis, “I mean a very clear shot. Any questions?”

“How do we tell if they’re alive or one of those, well, things if someone happens to be in there?” Robert asks.

“I’ll call out once we are inside. If no one responds, then we’ll assume that anything is hostile,” I say after thinking about it momentarily. “Always know where everyone is.”

“Any more questions,” I ask looking from one to the other. They shake their heads.

“Robert, get the flashlight off the shotgun. You’ll be using that,” I say reaching to pick up my monster flashlight.

Robert returns and I see from the tape still on the light that he chose to cut it off rather than unwrap it. Okay!? I think.

I walk towards the wall a little ways from the window waving them behind. Against the wall, I edge up to the window and peek in the corner. There’s something blocking my view from the inside and I have to rise up until I can see in. The light streaming inside through the door in front reveals the first cash register on the front counter, along with several drawers, and the drink machines by the front door on the other side of the entrance aisle. I’m not able to see all of the way to the floor. Crouching under the window, I proceed to the other side of the window and peek in the opposite corner again having to rise up slightly. I see the interior aisles, or at least where they should be. The light from the windows and door doesn’t penetrate very far in due to the building being angled away from the sun but there’s nothing moving that I can see. The rear of the building and the Subway side remain blocked.