Less Than 3%

Chapter 33 - Lucky Trucker

The road trip back to the town was quiet. We had no worries about who would be intervening our travels, we had taken out the threat. Returning back there was strange. We had lost Terry and Dean since the last time we had been in the town and the memories came flooding back when we arrived. Everything was exactly how we left it, everything except for the weather. The wind had started to get really bad, at least sixty mile per hour gusts. I'm no weatherman, but I know that climbing on a roof up some pole for an antenna was going to be a risky job. I could hear the wind howling into the space where the back door of the van was and whistling inside the bullet holes. The wind buffeted the van and at times even rocked it slightly. Our first plan of action was to find a truck again, without that there was no way to transport all of the radio gear back.

We drove around the truck crash and I looked up at the antenna on the next building to it. It wasn't exactly long but it was quite thick and had a lot of things sticking out of it. It was swaying slightly in the wind but it seemed well intact. We arrived at the supermarket once more, I never thought I'd end up back at that place. We pulled up next to the fence that had been ripped down by the last truck I pulled out of there and we all stepped out of the van. The wind flooded my ear holes and all we could do was shout to each other and cover our eyes from the dust and shit flying around.
"I think the shutter door is over there!"
I yelled and pointed. There was a little building on the exterior of the supermarket which had large shutter doors, similar to that of a fire station. We all pushed our way through the wind and reached the doors. Without hesitation Mark pulled the thinner shutter door upwards. Instantly I knew what was possibly about to happen, all of the other doors wouldn't open and that shutter was the only one that must have been openable. I dragged him backwards down to the ground.
"Watch out!"
I screamed at him.
Out from above the door swung down a large sack of potatoes, fully lined with four inch shards of glass that would easily have shredded his chest cavity.
He lay on his back with the potatoes swinging above his face in pure terror.
"Oh f.. my god.. the fuck! What the actual fuck?!"
His words wouldn't come out. I helped him to his feet, patted down the dirt from the floor off of his jacket and told him calmly.
"Yeah, I had to do a shopping trip with this shit going on. Come on."

We entered the doorway and out of pure luck, there was a truck right there in front of us and the driver's body was right next to the door, the door was open and the keys were even in his hand. It was lucky for us sure, maybe not so lucky for the driver. I grabbed the keys and tossed them to Jerry.
"Shotgun!"
Shouted Emma.
"Shotgun two."
Mark added.
I had drawn the short straw. I had to sit in the back of the truck with Max. At least I had some company.
"Holy fuck! Jay! It's got a full tank!"
Jerry yelled from the cabin.
"Our luck just keeps getting better!"
Emma excitedly shouted.
"Let's not get too cocky yet, we need to get into that radio station and take all of the shit remember?"
I laughed. The truck began to roll forwards slowly.
"This is going to be loud, cover your ears!"
Jerry warned us about the noise. He had to ram the truck slowly through the shutter door, it was electrically powered and there was no electricity. The noise was horrendous, it sounded like a mixture of cats screaming and the scraping of a chalkboard but amplified by ten fold. I heard a load of  bumping and banging along the top of the carriage and then it suddenly stopped. We made it out and the truck only had a few scratch marks... okay, a lot of scratch marks, but still, it made it out. It was then time for the difficult job, the radio station.

When we arrived outside, the building looked relatively safe. I knew that we would need two people inside and two people outside to safely guide the antenna down from the roof.
"The equipment is easy to carry out, but what's your plan with the antenna Jay?"
Mark queried.
"I figured if we use some of these straps out of the truck, we could strap them around it and use a sort of pulley system to lower it down slowly on top of the truck. I think it will hold the weight, Jerry and Emma stays down here to guide it and Mark and I will go up and lower it."
The roof of the truck was quite sturdy and easily would've held the weight of the antenna.
"Okay, sounds like a plan."
Jerry chuckled.
Mark and I grabbed some empty boxes that were left in the back of the truck and made our way to the double doors of the radio station. They were locked. I looked around for some sort of crowbar but instead found a steel rod from the wreckage next door. I forced the thin bar between both of the doors and pushed sideways. It was too difficult.
"Give me a hand."
I requested. Everybody took a hold of a section of the bar and pushed, very slowly the door began to open and then suddenly it tore itself ajar.
I thanked everyone and finally we were in. Unfortunately, the structure of the building was a lot worse than first presumed. It was about to become a huge task rather than just an in and out job.