Living on Borrowed Time

Chapter Six

I follow the dark haired stranger through the candle lit gun shop. Looking at her figure I quickly notice her voluptuous curves, but I'm quick to toss those thoughts from my mind as I snap back to reality, remembering the weight of the situation.

After we walk through the front of the store, past the display cases and down a short corridor she leads us into the back room.

"Here we are." She says. Half of the room is caged off, and inside the locked cage are the guns and ammunition.

"You gonna unlock it?" Johnny questions with irritation.

"Yeah, I will... after I get the rest of my food and water." She says, her hand resting on her holstered gun. David and Sammy set the boxes down on a table across from cage. I open the box that has the water. There are seven bottles of water that look to be about eight to ten ounces each, then there is a gallon jug full of fresh clean water. I pull out the gallon jug and set it on the table. Closing that box I open the food box. There are more cans than I thought, about fifteen cans of various types of food. I remember the cans that David has in his backpack from our house. Changing my decision, I pull out a couple more cans than I should have, but we need those gun, we need that ammo. Especially if we're going to keep traveling.

"There you go." I push the boxes aside. "One gallon of water and five cans."

"That's it?" She scoffs.

"What do you expect?" I question with aggravation. "We don't have much, and that there is about half of our water and you're just one person. You're lucky I gave you what I did."

She reaches into her nearly skin tight pants pocket and pulls out a key, then tosses it to me.

"Open it." She says as she grabs the jug of water. "I'll show you what you can take." She then gulps down some water.

I insert the key and open the cage. Stepping inside I look around with a bit of excitement. These guns are beautiful. I reach out for one of the black automatic assault rifles.

"You're trade wasn't that valuable." The girl pulls my hand away. "Grab that scoped rifle over there." She points to my right. "Set it on the table over there."

I grab it and walk out of the cage, setting it down.

"Let me see that rifle." I tell Johnny. He hands it to me as I pull the .38 out of my backpack.

"Can we trade these?" I turn and ask her.

"For what?" She asks. I look through the cage.

"One of those pump-action shotguns." I point at it.

"That's hardly worth it on my part." She chuckles. "But there's more here than I could possibly use... go ahead." She agrees. I walk back into the cage and grab one of the five shotguns. Inspecting it I realize that this is the kind of shotgun that you'd normally see in a police car.

"Let's go." She stands there after grabbing a few things, waiting for me to exit the armory. Before stepping out she snatches the key from my hand, then locks the door behind me.

"There you go. One scoped bolt-action rifle with fifteen rounds, one pump-action shotgun with eight shells, and one 9mm Beretta with three full clips, which is thirty-six 9mm rounds." She looks at me. "You're lucky I gave you what I did." I can almost see a smile break out on her face but she forces it back.

"Thank you... and thanks for not shooting us." I say.

"Sure." She says, scooping the cans of food into her arms. "Get your stuff and come back out to the front, I'll show you where you can sleep for the night." She leaves the room.