Trash in the Apocalypse

Jun turned to his right.

There's a two-story building with a huge fire truck beside it.

"There's probably nothing useful there." Jun thought to himself. "Okay, let's go."

Jun started walking towards the police station. The group followed him while looking around the area. They maintained their formation as they walked forward. Although the infected stopped coming, it doesn't mean that there are no other infected in the area.

Adrian, who was behind Jun, heard him speak to himself. He said: "This time let's do it quietly."

Adrian shook his head as he smiled wryly. He even heard his boss humming a song as if the earlier incident wasn't caused by him.

The group entered the police station by batch, depending on their roles. The main group first, followed by the support group. They regrouped at the lobby since the area they need to secure significantly increased.

The police station isn't that big, but it's still spacious. There are three hallways and one stairwell that goes up to the second floor. The hallways had signs placed on the wall on what department you'll be going. It serves as a guide that helps people navigate when they're coming to visit or do business.

Based on the sign on the wall, the hallway on the left goes to the canteen while the hallway on the right goes to the station's prison. The last hallway, the one in front of them, leads to the processing area, where you get your papers and miscellaneous kinds of stuff done for. On the stairwell, an arrow that points upwards had the text 'Office' beside it.

Since they have seventeen people in the group, Jun decided to split them into four smaller groups. The members of the main group were distributed to the support groups.

Adrian was grouped with Jamie, Kareen, Gina, and Dyna. Since their group was mostly made of female members, their group was tasked with searching the prison area. Edward had Bernard, Ester, Alex, and Paterno, assigned to search the processing area. On the third group, Sheila has Old John, Emma, Jorge and Marianne tasked to search the cafeteria. The group leader position was given to the main attack group since they have more experience than the others. The last group was Jun and Evo with an assigned area of the whole second floor. Marianne wanted to join Jun's group but was sternly rejected.

The group went on their own ways and finally started their search. Jun and Evo reached the second floor and were greeted by rows and rows of cubicles. On the other furthest side of the floor was an office with blinds blocking any attempt to look inside.

"Do we really need to split the group? Isn't it much safer if we just stick together?" Evo suddenly asked him.

Before Jun answered, he made sure that they were safe. He checked the nearby cubicles before hiding in one of them. Instead of answering Evo's question, Jun started a new conversation.

"I need to go to my grandmother's house. My sister's last chat with my dad confirmed that she was staying with mother over there. It's my only lead right now and I need to find them."

"Then let's go there after we got some weapons. More people means that we could reach there faster."

"That also means we need to fight every group of infected we encounter."

"Then, are you leaving us here?"

"No! You know how I handle things. As much as possible, I don't want to risk their lives. Besides, our people would surely come. They're strong enough to survive and you know that. Someone needs to be in charge when they come or there'll be trouble."

Evo started pondering over the matter. "It's true and I agree that you need to check on your family, but you can't go out alone. You need to at least take a small number of people with you. The group also needs a secure place to stay."

"The city hall should be a good one. The place is fenced up by stone walls and we only have to secure the plaza. We can use cars as a blockade and I'll also help in clearing the rest of the buildings before going to my grandparent's house."

Evo sighed, then said, "You've already thought this through."

Jun revealed a victory smile knowing that his friend finally conceded and was willing to take charge for the time being. "I will probably take one to two days before I could come back, depending on the number of infected along the way. So be safe."

"You bet. In the past, I can't fight back when things got physical, but times have changed. Let's see if there's anyone out there who can stop my stones." Evo grudgingly said.

"On that note, can you give some of your stones, balls would be fines too."

"I ran out. I need to modify them three times so they can become usable. Changing an items property requires a huge amount of energy. That's why I have to put a time limit, lowering the energy requirement."

"Okay, okay! I get it. Cheapskate."

After their small meeting, they cautiously explored the floor.

They trudged along the wall and watched every aisle for any signs of movement.

The search took less than one minute since the place was basically empty.

The floor was littered with printed documents while swivel chairs were toppled down as if people left in a hurry.

Jun furrowed his eyebrows when they got closer to the office.

Although he was ten meters away from the window, he already knew that there were people inside.

There are three floating question marks moving around the room as if panicked.

Jun heard sounds of shuffling footsteps, followed by something being pushed, then a thud, like something hit the door.

Evo glanced at Jun.

"Someone's inside. And they just barricaded the door."

"No sh*t," Jun replied sarcastically.

"Sometimes... I wonder why we become friends."

"You need protection and I need your brains. Well, I mean not literally. I don't eat exotic stuff." Jun sighed. "You know what I mean..."

Jun chose to focus his attention inside the office rather than continuing their conversation. He tried peeking through the office's glass window.

Although he could see the number and position of the question marks, he doesn't know of their genders and appearances.

Jun politely knocked twice on the door.

There's no reaction.

He tried once again and still received no response.

Jun was getting pissed. The only reason why he chose to search the second floor with a two-person team was to get more experience.

With his shield and baseball bat, he was sure that he could take care of any regular infected as long as he fought them in a tight place. Besides, he already gave the ACP .45 pistol, that he kept on his dimensional storage to Evo, for emergency purposes.

Now that there's no infected up here, and someone was obviously ignoring him, his bad attitude was now going to show itself.

"Open the door! I'm looking for my things and I need to search this room!" Jun shouted while knocking forcefully on the door.