The pharmacy warehouse was the real prize.
Glenn led the way through two alleys and parked the pickup at the warehouse’s back door.
They did not run into a single walker along the way.
The warehouse’s roll-up door had been locked from the outside.
A crowbar did the job.
The iron lock snapped with a sharp crack.
Luke Li went in and swept the place once.
It was so clean there was not even a rat in sight.
The shelves were neatly stocked with antibiotics, painkillers, fever reducers, anti-inflammatory drugs, insulin rendered useless by the power outage, bandages, medical alcohol, iodine solution, suture thread…
There were even three boxes of surgical gloves and two boxes of N95 masks.
Luke Li’s eyes lit up.
It did not matter that his backpack was full.
Medicine did not take up much space.
He quickly rearranged the contents, threw the large packs of toilet paper and blankets into the truck bed, and freed up twelve slots.
Antibiotics came first.
Amoxicillin, cephalosporins, azithromycin.
He took as much as he could.
Then came hemostatic supplies: hemostatic powder, tourniquets, and first-aid bandages.
He took two sets of suture thread and surgical tools.
Four bottles each of medical alcohol and iodine solution.
The remaining slots were stuffed full of fever reducers and anti-inflammatory drugs.
Two boxes of N95 masks, one box of surgical gloves, and large bottles of medical alcohol all went into the truck bed.
Glenn was keeping watch by the door.
He had no idea Luke Li was inside quietly stashing away the best supplies for himself.
Only when Luke Li pushed the shopping cart out did Glenn stare in disbelief.
“How has no one come here to loot this place?”
“Probably because it’s tucked away in a back alley and doesn’t have a storefront sign.
From the front, it just looks like an ordinary warehouse.
If you weren’t a pizza delivery guy, you wouldn’t have found it either.”
“Looks like this used to be a black-market pharmacy.
Most of the people buying stuff here probably weren’t exactly respectable customers.”
Glenn paused, then gave him a strange look.
“I used to hate delivering food.”
“You hate it even more now?”
“No.
Now I feel like…
maybe it wasn’t completely useless after all.”
The third stop was the hardware store.
There was nothing complicated about this one.
The doors and windows were intact, and there were only two walkers inside.
Luke Li took them down easily with crossbow bolts.
He did not grab things at random.
He only picked the most practical items.
Two large rolls of wire, three boxes of nails, two hammers, a hand saw, a wood plane, six rolls of waterproof tape, thirty meters of rope, a length of chain, and ten padlocks.
Plus a machete and a large metal shovel.
Taking too much of this stuff would be pointless.
It would only take up space.
After three stops, the pickup bed was almost full.
As Glenn helped stack everything, he muttered, “We’re basically a walking general store.
We might as well become post-apocalyptic merchants.”
Hey, now that he mentioned it, Luke Li had actually read novels like that before.
The last stop was the gas station convenience store.
The main goal was gas, but Luke Li also swept up a few packs of Marlboro on the way.
Cigarettes counted as hard currency in the apocalypse.
Plenty of people would trade precious food just for one smoke.
This time, the forty slots were truly packed.
Even if he wanted to make more room, there was nothing he could bear to throw out.
If the items in those slots had colors, they would all be purple, with the occasional little gold mixed in.
The Biohazard series really did come bundled with an inventory crisis.
What a damn mess.
The pickup bed was piled up like a small mountain.
It took three layers of rope just to barely secure everything.
The chassis sat noticeably lower, and the truck creaked whenever it went over a speed bump.
Glenn glanced back at the truck bed.
“The two of us brought back more supplies than the whole camp had.”
“So, was this trip worth it?”
Glenn did not hesitate.
“Worth it.
Absolutely worth it.”
He looked down at the Glock 19 on his lap and hesitated.
“This gun…
I should give it back to you.”
“Keep it.”
“What?”
“You’ve already fired it once.
There’ll be more chances to shoot from now on.
Just keep it hidden.
Don’t show it off around camp.”
Glenn opened his mouth, then tightened his grip around the gun.
“Thanks.”
They returned to camp at one in the afternoon.
Six hours, four scavenging spots, and a full load.
The moment the pickup drove into camp, everyone saw the mountain of supplies piled in the bed.
The whole camp went quiet for a full minute.
Then it nearly exploded.
Sarah was the first to run over.
Her eyes lit up the second she saw the formula and diapers.
T-Dog was in such a hurry to help unload that he forgot to put down his axe.
Anyone who did not know better would have thought they had robbed a convoy.
“Hammers!
Nails!
And goddamn wire!
Did you two bring back the whole hardware store?”
Dale climbed down from the lookout platform and rummaged through the medicine box.
The moment he saw the amoxicillin, he knew Luke Li was someone worth keeping around.
“This is…
This is enough to last us a long time.
Son, do you know what this means?”
“It means the next time someone gets hurt, at least we won’t have to worry about tetanus.
And it means we now have the capital to survive in this apocalypse.”
Dale took off his fishing cap, gripped Luke Li’s hand firmly, and said nothing.
Luke Li’s favor +1.
Shane was the last to walk over.
His eyes were drawn to the pile of supplies too, but he was not as openly excited as the others.
A leader had to keep up appearances.
“Everything go smoothly?”
“We ran into a group of walkers and handled them.
Glenn did pretty well.”
Shane looked at Glenn.
Glenn instinctively straightened his back, then seemed to realize the gesture was a little stupid and shrank back down.
The corner of Shane’s mouth twitched.
He almost laughed.
He turned back to Luke Li.
The buff above his head, [Recognition – Solid], deepened another shade, and a new marker appeared beside it.
[Reliance – Preliminary].
Warm orange.
The meaning of the buff was obvious.
Shane was starting to see Luke Li as a core member he could rely on.
Shane patted Luke Li on the shoulder.
“Your probation’s over.”
Counting the days, Luke Li had joined the camp less than three days ago.
In that time, he had gone from an unknown outsider to one of the camp’s core members.
It had happened faster than he expected.
He had thought it would take a few life-or-death trials before these people truly trusted him.
By evening, Luke Li had divided the scavenged supplies into three portions.
The food and daily necessities from the truck bed were handed over to the camp’s communal stockpile.
Anyone who scavenged supplies had to go through that step.
It was basically an apocalypse tax.
As for some of the medicine and hardware tools, those were handed over to Shane.
The real bulk of the supplies was still in the system backpack: valuable ammunition, food, purified water, specialized medicine, and key blueprint materials.
After the supplies were sorted, Luke Li sat on the edge of the pickup bed eating canned food.
Glenn came over with a plate of beans and sat beside him.
After that scouting trip into town, his relationship with Luke Li had clearly gotten closer.
The camp felt peaceful.
There was a little more hope on everyone’s faces.
Today’s supplies had shown them that surviving the apocalypse was possible.
Danny and T-Dog chopped firewood with more energy than before.
Marcus used the new tools to service the camp’s other vehicle with quick, practiced hands.
The old man squatted beside him, passing him tools and learning a bit of the craft along the way.
Emma and Carl, the two kids, chased each other around.
At this point, Carl had not become as mature as he would be later.
He was still just a lively kid full of energy.
Hmm…
Even though the camp was full of battle-ready monsters, it really was still a normal community.
“Luke,” Glenn mumbled through a mouthful of beans.
“What?”
“Next time you go into town, bring me with you again.”
Luke Li glanced at him.
Above Glenn’s head, [Willingness to Follow: Established] glowed steadily in gold.
“Sure.”
“Man, I realized something.
Scavenging right under the walkers’ noses and then getting out safely is seriously exciting.”
Luke Li froze when he heard that.
Wasn’t that basically a real-life extraction shooter?