Chapter 42 - 42

Words : 1386 Updated : Sep 10th, 2025

It was an understatement to say it was a lot of guns. It was more than alot, it was a fully stocked backroom. Rifles lined the rifle racks, pistols dotted the inside of the glass case where the cash register sat, the entire right side wall was full of ammo of all types. It was a motherlode. The only thing that could be disheartening was that this half of the room only accounted for about 25% of the store, so there was not a lot of room in the part that remained unlooted. Still, it was a massive find. The real issue was how to get it all home. Adam only had one backpack. That was his true weakness. He was only one man with only so much carrying space. He truly could not bring this all back, not, at least, without a lot of effort. For the moment Adam needed to do some inventory, so before he even began to loot he walked into the backroom of the shop to see what he could find. Largely it was as he might have imagined, there were a few guns and ammo back here, probably overflow and kept for restocking but it was pretty much just an office, there was a desk with a computer on it, turned off with no power, filing cabinets, a safe, and a duffle bag. Perfect. Adam walked right over to the duffle bag and found it already partly filled with guns, ammo, food, and a few other things. This was likely a bug out bag. Poor guy didn't have time to grab it. But his loss was Adam's gain. Adam emptied the bag of things he didn't need. While he felt bad about taking out the picture of the shopkeeper's family framed in a 8x10 wooden picture frame, he really didn't need it and needed the space more. Once Adam had made more space within the bag he took the guns from the backroom and threw them into his bag along with anything else of value from the office in the back and then returned to the store front. Looting came shortly after. The problem was, even with his new duffle bag, there were simply too many guns, too much stuff for him to take. It was a good problem to have but it still stung to have to leave some of it behind. Still, with concerted effort Adam had stuffed his bag to the brim with guns and boxes of ammo. Neither his backpack nor his duffle bag were able to zip up properly now, gun barrels were practically spilling out the top of his backpack, the duffle bag was one more gun away from ripping, and there was no chest space left for Adam to throw another strap on. He was truly overencumbered. But even after all this looting he had not taken everything. There were still a number of guns left behind, but there was nothing he could do about it, he was in no condition to take anything more as is. He would simply have to come back later. Besides, maybe there was an advantage to knowing about a stash of weapons left untouched outside the walls, he might never know when he needed it again. But he had stayed long enough and completed his objective. Now he wanted to head back, after all he didn't want to stick around for the ants to change their minds and attack him, or worse, have to sleep outside unprepared again. So, with the last swig of his bottle of water he set out to leave and head back to Naper, a successful scavenging run complete. However he paused at the door and then sighed as he turned back around. With some effort he put his backpack down because crouching with it on was practically impossible and then knelt next to the control panel again. He connected his pip-boy once more and then selected [Close Shutters] With a mechanical whirl the shutters began moving once more, ensuring that this little secret of Adam's will likely remain secret until he needed it again. Then, finally, with even more effort to get his backpack on and a groan of strain he started, slowly, making his way back to Naper. Adam had considered, for a moment, if he could get that motorcycle he found to run and use it to get back instead. Unfortunately he was already strapped to the brim with guns all over his body, his mobility was incredibly inefficient. Besides, he did not have the key to the motorcycle. While it might have been possible to jury rig it to work without a key, Adam did not know how to do that off the top of his head, he'd need to pull it apart and take a look inside first, and the motorcycle was sitting in sight of the door that led to the ant burrow. Overburdened, overtaxed, and in no mood to take chances with the ants he decided to leave it behind. The first part of the trip was as uneventful as he might have hoped. The ants did not leave their building to bother him, though he did make an effort to leave as far from them as possible. And for a while the trip was quiet. If not for the fact his entire body was screaming at him for over exerting himself like he was it would be peaceful. Still, he needed something to distract him while he was making this march, a far worse march than even during the hellish days of bootcamp. So he finally made use of a feature his pip-boy had that he had neglected until now. The radio. Right now, he needed something to distract him from his screaming muscles, if anything he could think of it like a workout but a little bit of music could go a long way for him. He scanned through the frequencies his pip-boy was receiving. One seemed to be a deep voiced man rattling off some sort of political stance about change? Adam didn't stick around to listen long, he wanted music. The next he found seemed to be a station specifically dedicated to old world commercials, like, exclusively. There was no music, no talk shows, just the radio ads you'd hear between those things, but forever. It was weirdly charming, but for the moment he wanted music not to be sold on a product that hasn't existed for over 200 years. So he kept looking. Next was a classical music station, it was nice and all, and was music, but truthfully, Adam wasn't big into classical music so he kept looking, planning to return to the classical music station if there was nothing else. Then, as he reached the upper limit of the frequencies he could scan for he found a radio station. It seemed to be hosted by an energetic and charismatic DJ called Silver Ray Johnson and his station played a mix of music, but namely stuff like Frank sinatra, Nat King Cole, the Ink Spots, Billie Holiday and a bunch of other artists Adam was familiar with, it was almost exactly the same sort of station that he would listen to when driving to work. Furthermore his search for, and subsequent enjoyment of, the perfect radio station to listen to on this arduous trip back had killed a lot of time, he was over halfway back by the time he had started to pay attention to his surroundings again. Truthfully this was a bad thing, he had dropped his guard, if someone or something ambushed him he might have been killed without a chance to react, luckily that didn't happen, but such was the dangers of travelling alone. However as he was regaining his awareness of his surroundings he began to see and hear gunfire from up ahead. Adam went wide-eyed. This was the worst case scenario. He was overencumbered at the moment, if he were to be attacked he would lose handedly. He was in no condition to fight back, he could hardly lift his pistol in this state let alone fight someone rushing him in melee. He had no choice, he had to hide.

Chapter 42 - 42

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