Chapter X: Missing the Signs

AN:

Hey there, Fan-fic-folks!

I don't really have anything new to say here: this chapter wasn't that hard or easy to write, I've no real life-news, nothing at all. So, just in case you aren't following The Blackwell Job or haven't read any of my new stuff, I'm just gonna recopy the 'ole "Hey, I'm back now!" message.

Finally done with my first year of uni! Last essays handed in, last exams suffered through, fuck yeah! I know why students get the whole lazy and unenergetic reputation now. Learning things is EXHAUSTING. I think I did okay though. Good enough to get into my second year, anyway and that's all I need. How are the rest of you doing? Finals and exams are happening/have happened for a lot of people and all.

Thanks for reading and, as always, please review.

ilovebender101:

Hey, new chapter, woo! Sorry for the delay. Exams take too damn much time.

Oh... fuuuuck. Every muscle in my body is pissed off at me right now. Seriously, I'm pretty sure this is how I'd feel if I just sprinted a marathon. I think I'm gonna die. Am I gonna die? I haven't felt this bad since hiking up to this place on the first day.

Somehow, I manage to stumble my way up to the lookout and pull myself up the stairs, one by fucking one.

Okay, so I wasn't that bad, but still. Hella pooped. You try running away from a pack of wolves through a hella dense forest. It's hard.

I flop down on the floor of the landing and just stare up at the stars and breathe.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

In...

Out...

Aargh.

When I finally recatch my breath, I pull out my radio. "Hey Max?"

"Chloe! I'm so glad you're okay. What happened?"

I snort. "Well, I found the wolves. I think. It was hella dark and I never saw any of them, but yeah." I hold up the little metal box thing and take a look at the screen. "And I think I worked out how the poachers are always where the wolves are."

Max sits up. "Oh?"

I described the Box and what happened with the wolves. I can hear Max opening a bottle and sitting down on something. "It tracks them?"

I shrug. "I think so. If the poachers have another one, we'll be able to track the same shit they can track, right? We'll find them hella easy."

"Hella easy. But only if you're actually awake enough to find them."

I blink. "What?"

"Go to sleep, Chloe."

"Aww... but Moooom." I groan.

Max tries to stop herself laughing, but I can hear it in her voice. "No, Chloe. You need to sleep. Big day tomorrow."

I sigh. "Fiiiine. Night Max. Spoilsport."

"Goodnight, Chloe!" She singsongs, before signing off.

I lay back down on the landing again and stare up at the stars for a while.

Eventually, my ass starts to hurt, so I pull myself to my feet and head inside. The two dumbasses are still passed out on the floor. It's cute as shit. Taylor is drooling on her mattress and Victoria has her arms crossed over her chest so she looks like a fucking vampire.

I step over them and flop onto my bed.

"...loe! Chloe! Wake up! CHLOE!"

I fucking jump awake and almost roll out of bed straight into the blonde stood next to it shaking the shit out of me. I manage to stop myself at the last minute and rub at my eyes, throwing a hella bleary-eyed glare up kinda in her direction. "What?!"

It's Taylor. She points back to my desk. "Uh, Max keeps calling you on your little, um, walkie talkie thing."

I nod and rub at my eyes some more. Taylor rubs the back of her neck, looking hella nervous, then continues. "Uh, she said it was important..."

I glare back up at her again. "Dude, I need a fucking minute." When her face goes hella pale and her mouth drops open slightly, I know I hella need to calm down. My shoulders slump. "Sorry. I really fucking hate mornings."

She nods, then scurries off outside to the balcony, where Victoria is looking out from the top of the tower. They start to chat. I push them out of my brain and head over to my radio. "Hey Maximus. Taylor said you had something important to say?"

She answers immediately. "Yeah, I do. So, I called out for a fire-suppression team and they're flying in today. I managed to get them to let your two blondes hitch a ride when they go back."

I flop down on my bed and peer out the window at the two blondes, still chatting, both hella oblivious to my creepy-ass stare. "Fan-fucking-tastic. It'll be awesome to have my lookout back to myself."

She snorts. "Pfft. I bet you'll miss them really."

I scoff. "Yeah fucking right. After the shit they've pulled?"

She laughs. "Well, nobody ever said you had good taste."

I roll my eyes. Har har, Max. "So, when do they get here?"

Max shuffles some shit around. "Uh... about an hour, I think. I'm not really sure. The phone line isn't working properly yet so I'm not really in the loop right now." She grumbles lightly to herself like that dog from Wacky Races. "Wowzers, the repair guy was useless. He promised someone else would come out to finish the job, but of course that never happened."

I laugh. She's so fucking cute sometimes. "Ok, so where do I need to get the dumbasses to?"

"There's an old Scout Camp south of your lookout. It's signposted, so you won't get lost."

I can hear the smirk in her voice. "Hey, my sense of direction is hella good!"

She snorts. "Whatever you say, Chlo. Just remember to be there when the chopper gets here."

"Will do, Supermax." I hop up and wander over to the kitchen, rifling through the cupboards for some more jerky. It's shit stuff, but I'm hungry. "So, any, like, sights on the way?"

Max shuffles some papers. "Uh, there's Ruby River. And before you ask, no, nobody ever found rubies there. I..." She stops. I can almost hear the little confused frown on her face. "I... I don't actually know where that name came from."

"Wow, Max... You don't know? And you call yourself a firewatcher."

She snorts, hella indignant. "Hey! I AM a firewatcher, thank you very much. And whatever, I can't know everything. Jeez."

I laugh. "Pfft. You spent three fucking days trying to remember the word 'boiling'. It's gonna drive you hella insane 'til you find out."

Max is quiet for a second, then I hear a thud. Max's voice is muffled. "Dogdamnit."

I laugh louder and Victoria looks back into the Lookout, one eyebrow raised. I meet her eye and stick my tongue out. She stares at me for a second, then rolls her eyes and looks back at Taylor, who hasn't stopped chattering the entire time.

"It could be..." Something chimes in the background and Max swears again. "Fuck. I've... I've gotta go, Chloe. Talk to you later."

Huh. Well, that was hella sudden. "Bye Max." I drop the radio back in the little socket thing and head outside. Time to see what the dumbasses are talking about.

thukka-thukka-thukka

I look up to see the helicopter flying over our heads. Fucking finally. I head back into the lookout and pull on my pack and all the other shit I've gotta carry about without thinking, calling out to the others "Hey dumbasses, time to go." I leave the little metal box in one of the drawers.

Taylor looks in at me. "Huh?"

I tighten another strap. "Max called in a Helicopter to pick you two up. They're gonna get you outta here." I smirk. "Or did you not hear the loudass noise?"

Victoria's head shot up. "We're leaving?"

I shrug. "Unless you piss someone off and they throw you out of the helicopter, yeah."

Victoria glares at me and I smirk. "Yeah, you're gonna get to go home. My bosses will probably wanna talk to you about what happened, but yeah. You're gone today."

Taylor steps forward. "What about Courtney? We can't just leave her!" Victoria, after a second, nods and looks over at me expectantly.

I shrug. "We're gonna keep looking for her. But this place is getting hella cramped and you two idiots have fucked up this place enough." Victoria glares at me, but I ignore her and keep talking. "So, leave it to us. We know what we're doing." Sort of.

Taylor's mouth creases up as she thinks. After a couple of seconds, she nods. "Okay. So, we're really leaving?"

I resist the urge to roll my eyes. "Yeah, you're really leaving."

Taylor sighs. "Oh, thank God! I miss my bed so much." She heads inside and starts picking up her stuff.

"Jesus, Taylor." Victoria rolls her shoulders and follows Taylor inside. "I'd think you'd want a fucking shower first."

She shakes her head. "Nope. Bed. When we get home, I'm gonna sleep for an entire week."

Victoria snorts. "Eurgh. Jesus, no. I have to get clean. We've been out here way longer than we were supposed to be. And there's no way I'm getting this gross forest-stink all over my Egyptian Cotton sheets."

They're still bickering when they walk out the door. I top up Turt's food and water, then roll my eyes and follow them out. Fuck, it'll be great to finally get some peace and quiet around here.

Eurgh. 3 months of this cross-country shit and I still hate climbing. Taylor and Victoria do it all without any bitching, which is hella weird. Pretty sure Victoria would find something to bitch about if you saved her life. Probably just that desperate to get outta here.

The path south took us down across a patch of burnt trees. Shit. I pulled out my radio. "Uh, Max? You there?"

"Yep." She answers, popping the p.

Weird... Anyway. "So, we just hit this patch of burnt trees. Is the fire this far over?"

"No, no. That's just a back-burnt patch for the Flapjack Fire. So, if the fire comes this way, it's got nothing to burn."

Huh, that's... weird. "They actually fight fire with fire?"

Victoria rolls her eyes almost audibly. Max and Taylor both laugh. "Yeah, I guess. You can ask the guys in the helicopter if you wanna know more. They're actual firefighters, so this is kinda their jam."

"Their jam?"

"Yeah. Their jam. Like, their thing?" She sounds unsure. "Am I using that right?"

I shrug. "I have no fucking clue, dude. You say the weirdest shit, sometimes."

"That's so rude. Like, wowzers, Chloe." I can practically hear the fucking smirk.

I laugh. "Thanks Max. We'd better get moving. Talk to ya later."

I stow the radio at my belt again and we keep going through... I check my map. Cottonwood Creek? Seriously? Wowzers...

Oh shit, I can't fucking believe I just said that. Kill me now.

We hop the river and keep going on.

"Uh, Chloe?" Taylor's voice pulls me out of my suffering and I look over. She's staring at this muddy pool with, I kid you not, two fucking jet-skis floating in the middle of it.

I... what? "Uh, Max?"

"Chloe! It's been so long, how are you?"

I snort. Funny. I know I call a lot, but... "Ha ha. Wise-ass."

"The wisest. So, what can I do for you now? Found the snowmobiles?"

"Shit, is that what those things are?" I rub the back of my neck. "I thought they were jet-skis. How'd you know?"

"Uh..." Her voice is hella 'duh, dumbass'. "Because I know where you're going? It's on your map."

"It's on the map?" It wasn't. "Ok then, what's this place called?"

"Pork Pond." She answers immediately. Ok, maybe it was on my map. How was I supposed to know what this place was called? I couldn't see 'jet-ski puddle' on there, so...

"Shouldn't there be a sign or something? Cotton-whatever creek back there had a sign."

"Cottonwood Creek." Max pauses. "And, uh, yeah! There was a sign. But people kept stealing it."

I rolled my eyes as Victoria snorted behind me. "Seriously? Just 'cause it's fucking called Pork Pond!"

"Hey, it's a dogdamn good name! That sign would look great in a den." She pauses. "Or, y'know, anywhere..." She trails off, then coughs. "Anyway, shouldn't you be going? I can hear that chopper from all the way over here."

I laugh. Never fucking change, Maxie.

We head past the pond and off towards this pile of rocks, following the path to the scout camp. That's when I get my first look at the chopper flying over the trees. It's pretty big. That wasn't really that surprising, I mean, it'd have to be, right? To be a rescue helicopter? Be kind of shit to turn up to help people and find out you can't fit them all on.

Suddenly, a scream echoes through the forest around us. We all look up to see what the fuck is making all that noise.

Something hella fast launches from one of the trees and lands on the side of the helicopter. It starts to spin, faster and faster and I swear, using mostly words I learnt from Max, and watch as the helicopter gets dragged out of the fucking sky until it hits the ground with a hella loud explosion.

I run forward first, not even thinking about the two dumbasses as I charge forward. I have no idea what the fuck I'm doing. The helicopter exploded, what am I gonna do? There's no way anyone survived that, right? But I keep fucking running, my lungs burning and my heart pounding, until I get to the crash site.

Turns out that when Helicopters explode, they really explode. I had to stop before reaching the clearing where the helicopter had crashed because everything was on fucking fire!

(AN: Cool Helicopter Fact, did you know that the entire rotor assembly is held to the main body of the helicopter by a single nut? If that nut falls off, the blades will detach from the helicopter. It's called a 'Jesus Nut' because if it falls off, all you can do is pray to Jesus. Americans. You do come up with the most charming names.)

Huh. We are pretty bad for this forest. I mean, I've been here three months and we've had three fucking fires. The Flapjack Fire, the one the poachers set, and now this one. As Max would say, Wowzers. That thought runs over and over in my head as I push into the clearing, trying to find any survivors. "Hey! Anyone?! Are you..."

I catch someone coughing hella hard and charge towards them. Everything around me is burning and smoke is pouring into my fucking lungs, but I manage to keep going until my foot slams into something that my hella advanced fire-watcher training tells me is a person.

The loud swearing helped too. I look down and, there's a guy flailing about on the ground and coughing even harder than I am. I loop my arms under his shoulders and drag him outta the clearing.

The two dumbasses are still hanging around at the edge of the clearing when I just appear out of the smoke and shove a coughing dude at them. "Get him back to the pond!" And then I turn and run back in. This time, I head straight for the chopper.

The windshield, weirdly, is still in one piece, but it's covered in cracks and blood. It looks like the pilot's head slammed into it in the crash. I swallow down the vomit and keep looking, concentrating on finding anyone still alive.

I don't.

I turn and head back to the pond. The smoke and fire is pretty heavy now, and I can barely see a foot in front of my face, but I manage to keep myself going in the right direction pretty well. That's when I run into someone, who squeaks and flails back away from me. I hold my hands and yell out "It's okay! It's okay! I'm just here to help!"

Whoever it is reaches forward and grabs onto my arm, pulling me closer to them. They start to yell in my ear, but end up coughing so much I only understand a couple of works. "Helicopter... Engine... Gas... Run!"

That's all I need to hear. I loop my arm under the person's shoulders and we run as fast as we can for the Pond.

We hit the edge of the clearing just as the helicopter explodes. I can feel the fucking heat on my back as we run. We're not in range of it, but it still knocks us both over. We're so fucking lucky the metal shit from the helicopter didn't hit us. Still feels like someone threw a radiator at me though.

Oh, fuuuck, my head is killing me. I rolled over and tried to pull myself up, but the ringing in my ears and the fact the woods kept spinning round made that hella impossible. I blink hard a few times, trying to make everything stop spinning, but round and fucking round it goes.

A blonde girl appears in front of me, and it's not one of the dumbasses, so it's gotta be whoever I pulled outta the clearing. Huh.

She looks down at me. "Are you okay? Can you walk?"

I blink up at her for a second, trying to focus on her and ignore the ringing in my ears, then nod hurriedly. "Y-yeah. I think so, anyway."

She pulls me to my feet and loops her arm under my shoulders. "Okay then, where to?"

I wave vaguely toward pork pond. "That way."

She nods and we head off. It's way more comfortable than before. She's shorter than me, so she doesn't have to bend to put her arm under my shoulders. She talks the whole time we're walking. I don't hear a fucking word of it though. My head is still spinning as much as the trees are.

We reach the pond hella quickly, spotting the dumbasses sitting next to the guy a short distance away from it. They immediately jump up when they see us. "Chloe! What the fuck happened?"

"Not now, okay? I need to sit the fuck down for a sec or I'm just gonna fall down." The girl next to me helps me to sit down next to the guy. I nod up at her. "Thanks."

She snorts. "I think I should be saying that to you." She walks over to the guy and bends down to check on him.

My head is feeling hella clearer now, so I take my first good look at her. The first thing I notice is her hair. She's blonde too. Great, more of them. Huh. Her eyes kinda remind me of Rachel...

A hella hard poke to my side makes me focus on the other blonde next to me. "What?"

Taylor blinks. "Sorry, you were just getting kind of..." She sighs. "Sorry, Chloe."

I scowl and look back at the new blonde, who's looking at both of us with a smirk on her face. "So, you're Chloe."

I nod. "Yup. And these are the dumbasses." I wave my hand at Taylor and Victoria, who both scowl at me. I grin. "Taylor. Vicky."

Victoria glares at me. "Victoria. Not Vicky." She smiles politely at the new girl.

The new girl watches the entire thing. When we all look at her, she blinks a few times and shakes her head. "Oooo-kay. I'm Sam." She pats the guy on the chest. "This is Mike." The guy's passed out now, but he grunts when she pats him.

"Okay, cool. Now we all know each other's names, we gotta get out of here. That fire is gonna spread and I've gotta let my boss know."

Sam nods. "Okay, okay. I'm going to need your help lifting Mike though. He's kind of..." She thinks for a second. "Heavy."

I take one shoulder, she takes the other, and we lead the dumbasses back to the Lookout.

Mike stays out of it the entire trip there. I'm kind of worried. I mean, he could've hit his head in the crash or something, right? I know being unconscious for this long is a hella bad sign. I'm pretty sure I should be thinking about whatever the fuck pulled a fucking helicopter outta the sky, but one thing at a time, right?

Sam and I manage to lug the dude up the stairs to my lookout. He was seriously fucking heavy. Not fat or anything, just muscled as shit. We manoeuvre him over to my bed and dump him down there.

Wait. Is that..? I pull the guy's jacket down and... oh fuck. "Sam? He's bleeding, like, a hella lot."

"He's what?" She appears at my shoulder and looks down at where I've pulled the jacket back. "Oh... oh god, Mike. We have to get that jacket off." Between us, we manage to get his jacket off without hurting him much.

There's a bunch of cuts all over his back. Nothing big, but there's a hella lot of them. Some of the cuts have bits of metal or glass sticking in them. He's got a few burns mixed in too, just to make that shit hurt even more.

Sam hisses when she sees it. "This is really bad. We need to, like, get him to a hospital as fast as possible."

"Right." I nod. "I'll call my boss, get her to call someone in."

She nods back. "Okay, that works. Um, thanks again."

I shrug. "Helping people who get into shit in the woods is kind of my job." I think. I'm not really sure what my job is anymore. I pull out my radio, then sigh when I see the snapped antenna and cracked handset. Fuuuck. I toss it into the trash and go hunting for the spare.

Takes me a couple minutes to find where the hell I put it, but it's luckily it's fully charged. I push the button and open my mouth to talk when "-ucking god, Chloe! Are you okay? Answer me, dogdamnit! Wowzers, you better tell if you're alive right now so I can kill you myself for making me worry this damn fucking much!"

Everyone in the lookout is staring at me now. I shrug. "That's my boss. She, um... she worries."

I push to talk. "Uh, hey Max."

"Chloe! Finally!" She spends about a minute just swearing at me, then trails off. "I was so worried, Chloe, what the hell happened? I heard the explosion from here!"

I tell her quickly what happened, leaving the cause of the crash out of it. Sam twitches slightly and I can tell she's listening. Like, intently. She's paying more attention to me than Mike, anyway. "Uh, okay. Mike sounds like he's in bad shape."

Sounds like? Sounds like?! "He's in hella bad shape, okay Max? You've gotta call someone to come get him!"

"I will, but the nearest hospital is an hour's flight away. You need to see to him now or he'll bleed out before they even get here. Um, give me a minute." Sam's jaw tightens when she hears Max, but she doesn't say anything.

Max rolls her chair back and gets up, walking around in her lookout. I can hear her looking through some papers. "Okay, I think there should be some medical supplies in a ranger station over by the path to the trailhead. I'm not sure though, it might not've been resupplied yet. It's the best I can do for now though."

Sam and I look at each other and shrug. Like she said, it's the best we've got. "Okay. Thanks, Max. My map doesn't go that far, so you're gonna have to tell me where to go."

"Alright. Anything I can do to help. Just let me know when you're on the trail out."

"Okay. Talk to you then, Max."

I hang up the radio and put it on my belt. Sucks that I'm stuck with just the one now. If I wreck this, I'm fucked. I wouldn't be able to talk to Max anymore... Okay, shit to do, Chloe, you can be all melancholy and shit later. "Right, I know what I'm doing, what about you guys?"

Sam stands up from where she was kneeling by the bed. "If it's okay, I'd like to stay with Mike. Someone should be here to make sure he's stable."

I shrug. "Okay then. What about you two?"

"Um, I think we'd like to stay here, maybe?" Taylor offers.

Victoria snorts. "Speak for yourself, Tayls. Chloe's right, this place is getting way too crowded." She walks over to me. "I'll go with you. Taylor, you can stay and help this new chick keep the guy alive."

Taylor blinks at the hella sudden change in plan, then shrugs. "Okay, Vic. Good luck."

Victoria nods, then turns to me. "Well? Are we gonna go, or what?" When I just stand there, she pushes past me with a snort and heads outside. I laugh, then follow her out.

"Hey, dumbass! Wait up!"

She immediately whirls on me with a growl. "What the fuck did I say about calling us that?"

I put up my hands like I'm surrendering and grin. "Sorry, Victoria." I say, mockingly. "But seriously, wait up. I'm the one with the gun here."

She stops, frowns, then nods. "Good point. You go first." She steps back and lets me take the lead.

We head down from the lookout, and back along the path I took to get here from the trailhead. I look up when we reach the end of the map. "Right." I pull out my radio. "Hey. Max? We're there. Help."

She answers the radio with a snort. "What's the magic woo-oord?" She singsongs.

"Abracadabra? Alakazam? Fobbledibblewobblethworble?"

"Har har. No, you've gotta say it!"

"Jesus christ." Victoria scowls at me. "If you two are done being sickening, there is a guy bleeding to death back there."

Good point. "Okay, Max, where do we go?"

"Uh, um. Yes. Sorry." She rattles off a few directions. "Head down the path until you find that big forked tree. Um, there should be a way to the left for you to go. Not a trail, just a clear path through the forest. I think it's a left, but it might be a right, you're looking to try get into a gully. There should be a rope to climb at the end."

"Right. And that's where the Ranger Station is?"

"No, not quite. But I know you, you'll forget any more directions I give you, so call me when you get there. I gotta go."

I frown. "What, bored of me already, Max?"

"No, but I've kind of got a hospital helicopter to call in. Talk to you soon, Chlo."

"Right." I put the radio back on my belt and turn to Victoria. "Come on. We're heading this way." I walk past her down the trail.

We find the tree pretty quickly and turn off onto the path without either of us talking. It was so fucking nice. Shit has been hella loud for the last couple of days. We take a left and find the gully Max pointed out, and find the rope after poking around for a couple of minutes.

I walk over to start climbing, when Victoria suddenly breaks the hella blissful silence. "You saw it, didn't you?" I stop. "Whatever that... Jesus, whatever that thing was that took the helicopter down."

I play dumb, crossing my arms and throwing her my blankest look. "I didn't see shit, Vicky. What are you talking about?"

She frowns at me, then leans back against a tree. It bends a little under her weight. "There was something... it just jumped from a tree and grabbed onto the helicopter." Her frown turns into a scowl. "You had to have seen that. How could you have not seen that?"

I shrug. "Maybe you're just seeing shit, Vicky. I didn't see anything."

"Bullshit. You've been acting weird since it happened. You saw it." She says it like there's no question to it, and I know she's not buying my bullshit anymore. Aww. And I was hella looking forward to yanking her chain for a bit longer. That shit sucks.

"Yeah, I did. I don't know what it was though. That thing was insanely fucking fast."

"So, um..." Her voice goes quiet, hella tentative. Like she doesn't wanna ask something, but knows she's gonna ask it anyway. "Was it... real? Like, really real?"

I shrug. "No idea."

"How can you be so fucking calm about this? That thing was terrifying. Shit, imagine if it came after you..."

I scoff. "Relax! We'd be fucking dead before we even realised it was after us, so what's the point in worrying about that shit? We gotta get that Mike dude back up on his feet first." I smile to myself, but keep my face and voice as bitchy and condescending as possible. "I mean, if you feel up to it, right? I know it's scary and you're probably not used to this shit, but it's gotta get done. Or are you just gonna give up and lose?"

I start to clip on my rope when Victoria pushes past me, clip on herself and starts climbing, grumbling the entire fucking time. "-onna show you giving up, you fucking bitch, telling me to give up, fucking shithead."

I am a terrible fucking person...

Heh.

I clip on and climb up after her.

When we get up there, I call Max again, and she gives us a bunch more directions. We follow them and end up getting hella far from the trail. Takes like twenty minutes of walking until we find it.

There's a squat wooden building tucked behind a clump of trees. It's so well disguised we almost fucking miss the thing, but Victoria somehow noticed it before I did. We head over and peek in through the window.

It's hella dark inside and I can barely see anything, but I spot one of those metal fireplace things and a few shelves of shit, so I guess we're in the right place. I walk around and try the door.

Fuck. Locked.

Victoria appears at my shoulder. "Can we get in?"

"No, the fucker's locked."

"Damn." She frowns. "So, how do we get in, then? I'd say smash a window but I really don't want your boss to be pissed off with me."

I shrug, "

Okay, we're in! Now, where would they put their medical shit? I look around for that red cross thing, but of course they didn't make it that fucking easy.

I did find a lot of other stuff though. This place was definitely restocked. They'd got cans of food, mostly prunes and beef jerky un-fucking-fortunately, a bunch of backpacks and survival gear, a whole shelf of insect repellent, and all kinds of other stuff. They even had a couple of hunting rifles propped up against one wall. That made me frown. I thought hunting was illegal here? I'll have to ask Max when we get Mike back up on his feet. Priorities, right?

Eventually, I give up searching just random spots out in the open and start opening boxes. There's a couple of crates with more flares in them, plus a footlocker hidden in a corner behind a bunch of rakes and sacks and shit.

I pop it open and... Awesomesauce!

I laugh as I pull the huge first aid kit out of the locker. "Supplies, Motherfucker."

Victoria snorts. "You fucking nerd."

I shrug. "Hey, you got the reference. You're as much of a nerd as me."

Her snort turns into a scowl. I grin and she whirls around and starts searching through the shelves. I take one of the backpacks and throw it to Victoria. "Here. Stick whatever you got in here and we'll head back."

She nods and starts collecting stuff together. I look back at the locker for more medical shit. I know the basics, but I dunno what'll be useful for cuts and burns, so I just take everything.

When we're both done, we head back out.