Phillip and Callie pulled into a semi-busy grocery store parking lot. Phillip circled the lot a couple of times before deciding to park far enough back that it would be unlikely for anyone to park close to them. But also in a spot that would be hard for someone to conceal themselves.

  “Ready?” Phillip asked Callie as he turned off the truck.

  “I think so,” Callie looked scared as she said it, but looked Phillip in the eyes.

  Phillip looked around and, not seeing anyone else carrying a rifle, decided to conceal the firearm and opted to have his pistol at the ready in his waistband instead. When he was done concealing the rifle under the back seat and had repositioned his pistol, he looked one more time at Callie. Seeing a calmness with a touch of fear in her face, he smiled and opened the truck door. Phillip quickly moved the gas canisters into the cab of the truck and then walked next to Callie to the store entrance.

  Callie grabbed a shopping cart and the pieces of paper she had compiled out of her purse and started towards the produce area. Although the store was definitely picked over, Callie still managed to fill the shopping carts' worth of items, and they weren’t even halfway through the lists. Phillip walked with her back to the front of the store to grab another cart. He pushed the filled cart while keeping his head on a swivel. The store was busy, but the bulk of the customers looked like terrified people quickly maneuvering around others to get what they needed and getting back out of the store.

  As they worked their way to the meat and freezer aisles, it looked like they weren’t going to get everything they needed. Callie sighed, looking at Phillip.

  “Stay here, I will be right back,” Callie said with a slight smile to Phillip.

  “Wait, don’t go off by yourself!” Phillip quietly called after her, but she either didn’t hear him or ignored him.

  Not sure what to do with the two full carts, Phillip stayed where he was, watching carefully every person who walked by. Callie returned about the point where Phillip was starting to panic and wondering if he should go after her. She had an employee following her, and each of them was carrying a box. Callie had a big smile on her face.

  “Don’t ask until we are out of the store,” Callie quietly told Phillip as she walked past and put the big box at the bottom of her cart. Callie directed the employee to put the box at the bottom of Phillips' cart. She thanked him as he handed her a couple of pieces of paper, then the employee walked back in the direction they had come.

  Callie took one look at Phillip and then started pushing her cart forward again, looking at her lists. Phillip started to follow and was shocked at how heavy the cart suddenly was. Whatever was in that box had to weigh at least an extra 75 pounds on the already loaded cart. Callie grabbed a few more items from the aisles, then looked back at Phillip and gestured to head to the front registers.

  The checkout process was pretty painless. Callie had struck up a light conversation with the cashier, asking her seemingly nonchalant questions, but Phillip quickly realized Callie was getting information about the last couple of days from the gal. From the small conversation, they figured out that there were seemingly gangs popping up everywhere around town; some were helping, but most were asserting authority and causing problems. The large grocery store had been slammed with frantic people the first two days after the Rift had opened, but it had drastically slowed down today. Phillip heard the cashier's astonishment at the boxes of what was apparently cheese and meat. Callie had thought to ask for two things no one else had thought of. Phillip smiled as Callie gave him a side smile of her own.

  After they checked out, Callie thanked the gal, told her to be safe as she started to walk away. The cashier replied in kind, and they left the store. On their way out, Phillip noticed a group of men in their young twenties at best with rifles on their backs entering the store from the other entrance. The men were laughing and making crude comments as they went. Phillip moved next to Callie, who just nodded, letting him know she saw them. They both kept their eyes open as they moved towards the truck and then started loading the haul.

  “They were out of most of the medical stuff. Do you want to try one of the pharmacies?” Callie asked as they were loading the last couple of items into the truck bed.

  “We are going to have to,” Phillip sighed, “Where would you recommend?”

  Callie took the time it took to get into the truck to think and then made her recommendation. Callie gave Phillip directions. When they pulled up, the pharmacy had shattered glass, and through the windows, the store looked devastated.

  “Anywhere else?” Phillip asked not stopping the truck and immediately pulled out of the parking lot.

  “I guess so,” Callie said, scrunching her forehead in thought before giving him directions again.

  The next two stores they went to were in the same condition. The fourth store, however, had a group of men in front of it. Phillip gave Callie a concerned look but pulled up to the men anyway, one hand on his pistol.

  “Hey, is the store open?” Phillip shouted out of the partially open window.

  “Yeah, we got hired by the owner to look scary,” one of the guys said, taking a step closer to the truck, “Store is closing in about 30 minutes though, can’t stay open past dark with the monsters. Human or otherwise.”

  “Okay, we won’t be long," Phillip said, rolling his window back up and pulling into a spot in the parking lot.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” Callie asked.

  “No, this is a horrible idea. You stay here, give me the list," Phillip said.

  “Why am I staying?” Callie asked with an angry tone.

  “Because Kane will bring me back from my grave and kill me all over again if something happens to you,” Phillip said, opening his truck door but leaving the truck running, “Scoot into the driver's seat after I shut the door, if I’m not back in fifteen minutes, leave me.”

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  With that, Phillip shut the door and walked towards the building.

  “30 minutes,” the same guy said as Phillip walked past.

  “Thanks,” Phillip said absently as the automatic doors opened.

  There was a single cashier at the front counters, but there was a guy in a polo and a name tag walking towards him.

  “Can I help you?” obviously, an employee asked.

  “Yeah, we need to restock for the end of the world,” Phillip said, being a smart ass.

  The employee paused with a stunned look, then started laughing.

  “I don’t know if I have enough for that, but I’ll help with what I can.” The guy looked relieved as he continued to laugh, “What’s first?”

  Phillip smiled and then handed the guy his list. The employee gave another stunned look before saying, “There are a few things I know I’m out of, and there are a few more that, no offense, I’m not going to give you because I need them for myself and my employees.”

  “I understand, we will take what we can get though,” Phillip said as the employee nodded and started walking to the back, grabbing a basket as he went.

  About ten minutes later, the employee had filled the basket and was handing the last couple of items to Phillip to carry to the front.

  “That's the best I can do,” the guy said.

  “I appreciate it,” Phillip said as the guy led him to the front.

  Phillip checked out, he tried to ask the cashier and employee questions like Callie had, but both were pretty tight-lipped. Phillip eventually gave up, and the rest of the process was done silently. Phillip thanked both of them and walked out with his full bags. He nodded at the guys with their rifles and then walked towards the truck.

  There was a group of men walking down the sidewalk. They made a beeline for Phillip, but two of the riflemen from the pharmacy entrance got between Phillip and the group. Shouting ensued, Phillip threw the bags in the backseat of the truck and grabbed his rifle from its hiding place. By the time he had turned around, the group of men was backing away but still hurling verbal insults at the two men.

  “Thanks for that,” Phillip said after the men were a ways down the sidewalk.

  “Anything for a brother in bat,” one of the men said, lifting his sleeve to reveal a ranger dui tattoo on his forearm, “Saw your tat on your way in.”

  “Rangers lead the way,” Phillip said, opening the truck door, seeing that Callie had already slid back over.

  “All the way,” the guy said as the two of them headed back to the front of the building.

  “Let’s get back to Mountain Man,” Phillip said to Callie as he shut his door and started to buckle in.

  Callie nodded and started giving him directions as they headed out of the parking lot.

  Thankfully, the rest of the trip back to Mountain Man’s was uneventful. Phillip intentionally drove around the block of Mountain Mans so he could take a look at the store and make sure no one was waiting for them. Then pulled up to the back door. Stern and Kane weren’t back yet, which worried Phillip a bit, but he knew he needed to get the truck unloaded. He called Carlie so she could move the pallets and then got out of the truck, grabbing the items from the backseat.

  Steven and Anthony came out the door to help them unload. Carlie joined them to help shortly after. Steven had pulled out some fold-up tables in the middle of the backroom, so they unloaded everything onto those tables. Phillip knew at least half of the items would be going back into the truck, but he didn’t know which was which.

  Once everything was out of the truck, Callie took the lead, and she and Carlie started directing the group into organizing what was going back to the homestead and what needed to go in the fridge in the breakroom. Phillip wasn’t wrong. When they got to the heavy boxes, one was full of 2 lb blocks of cheese, and the other looked like whole roasts. Callie quickly explained her idea of cutting down the roasts into steaks, ground beef, etc. Phillip couldn’t help but laugh. Of course, why hadn’t he thought of that?

  About the point that they had everything sorted and put away, Phillip’s phone rang. It was Kane telling him to open the back door. Phillip did, and four, not three, men walked in. Kane quickly explained Doc to the group. Then Phillip, Stern, and Kane headed to the office to talk.

  Once it was just the three of them, Stern and Kane told Phillip what they had encountered at the apartments. They also told him about what the neighbor had said. Phillip sat in silence, listening as they recounted what they thought he needed to know. Phillip then took his turn and told the two of them what Callie had managed to get out of the cashier at the grocery store. The three men sat in silence, thinking until someone knocked on the office door.

  “Guys, Connie’s husband and daughter just got here,” Callie called from the other side of the door.

  The three men got up and walked back into the back room with the rest of the group.

  Connie’s husband looked older than Kane remembered him. He also looked a lot more tired. Their daughter was standing next to her dad with her head down and arms crossed, not in a teenage defiance way, but more in a defeated, scared way.

  As they walked up, they heard Connie explaining that they were staying at Mountain Man’s for a while.

  “How can we stay here? This is a store, not a hotel or apartment,” Sam, Connie’s husband, just sounded tired.

  “We are pulling in cots and blow-up beds. I haven’t quite figured out how to divide up for bedrooms and privacy, but we will figure it out. It is safer than being out there,” Steven was trying to explain.

  “This benefits me too, I need to make sure the store is safe and is a stockpile for us,” Kane said, hoping it gave Sam a sense of purpose and a better reason to stay.

  “I don’t think my back could take another night in the van. Okay, what do you need from me?” Sam finally sighed after a few moments of contemplation.

  “I could use some help setting up the sleeping situations,” Anthony offered, finally taking his eyes away from Peggy, who hadn’t looked up at all during the conversation.

  “Okay,” Sam said wearily.

  “Steven, what more do you need from us? I want to get home before it’s dark,” Kane said, turning to Steven.

  “Umm, I think we are good. Do you want to try the backup radios before you head out? I pulled them off the shelf and started charging them. I figure at some point the cell towers won’t work, and we need a backup way to communicate," Steven said, walking over to a shelf where a couple of radios were charging.

  Steven had been a comms guy in the Army; he had only served four years, but he had a good head on his shoulders. Kane just smiled as he followed Steven. It was good thinking, and he wished he had thought of it.

  They quickly got the radios set up, but realized they may not reach all the way to the homestead. Kane quietly had told Steven what they ran into and what they heard at the apartment. Steven, for his part, listened quietly and just nodded until Kane was done. They quickly formed a backup plan for if they needed to abandon Fort Mountain Man, as they were affectionately calling the store. Kane gave Steven the address for the homestead, so worst case, they could retreat there as needed.

  While Kane and Steven had talked, Phillip and Stern had gone into the store and had grabbed the items they had originally come for. The group then quickly packed up the trucks, said their goodbyes, and started heading back to the homestead. Thankfully, they got out of the main part of town without much difficulty. The two trucks made it all the way to Academy Blvd before problems started arising, again.