Outbreak Chapter 27

Wiggins turned down the television while Brendon and Griffin checked to make sure everyone was in the same room. The three of them took turns explaining how they felt that help wouldn't be coming anytime soon and they were going to need to get to a safer location with a larger collection of supplies. A good portion of the group seemed to be against the idea from the start with only a couple of exceptions. James agreed with their reasoning and said that he was with them if they decided to go through with it, while Aidan and Rebecca both didn't like the idea of trying to travel across town and felt they were safe enough in the apartment they both said that they would go with the others if they left.
Leslie was obviously pretty scared at the thought of going out there again. When Griffin had picked her up they didn't have a spare weapon for her to use and Brendon could only image the terror someone would feel having to travel through the city with no weapon to defend themselves with. After some convincing Leslie said that even though she wanted to stay here she would go wherever Brendon went so long as he promised that eventually they would try to get to their daughter.
Brian, Ethan and Megan were harder to convince. The three of them all saw no reason in going outside again and just wanted to wait in the apartment for help, but with the majority of the group saying that they were going to leave the three of them in the end agreed to come along.
Tom was by far the hardest to convince, it quickly became obvious that the man didn't have a brave bone in his body. At first he refused to go along at all stating that he would just stay here in the apartment and wait for rescue. In the end he only agreed to come along when Wiggins let him know that they would be taking all of the food they could carry and every one of the weapons with them and that he would be left here all alone that he finally caved and agreed to come along with the others. Brendon could only hope that he could get them all there, if he convinced them all to leave and they got killed he probably wouldn't eve be able to forgive himself.
Most of them were already armed and proficient with their weapons but there were a few that were going to need some work. Griffin and Brendon pulled Leslie, Tom and Megan aside while Wiggins took everyone else and had them start organizing all of the ammunition, food and other supplies into eleven different packs. They were going to have a lot of distance to travel since the dorms were in the northwest corner of the city so they wouldn't be able to bring any extra bags along limiting them to one pack per person. Griffin had brought a pair of military ruck sacks and Wiggins had a pair of rucks as well as more duffels and an assault pack so there were plenty of bags to go around.
Griffin and Brendon had a short conversation as to what weapons would best suit who and in the end decided that since Megan had gotten a little practice with Griffin's CX4 on their trip to Wiggins' it would be best for her to keep that. The CX4 was a 9mm carbine designed to take the same 17 round magazines used in the Beretta 92. Griffin and Brendon both had good supplies of 9mm ammunition with them and Griffin had five magazines for the carbine which would allow he to fire off almost a hundred shots before having to take the time to reload magazines.
Tom didn't have any real weapons experience so they wanted to get him an easy to operate weapon. He was a good sized man so they agreed he would be able to manage Brendon's shotgun just fine. The lightweight folding stock made the shotgun kick like a mule but it was somewhat more forgiving accuracy wise since there wasn't time to train Tom to be proficient with a rifle. Shotguns didn't make as big of a spread as a lot of people thought based off of watching movies and television but it would still be a lot easier for Tom to make a head shot with than one of the rifles.
Griffin took Tom and Megan out onto the balcony so that Griffin could show Tom how to operate the shotgun and Megan could get a little bit more practice in. Brendon pulled Leslie aside so showed her Wiggins' Ruger 10/22 rifle. She had never been fond of guns and the few times he had tried to get her to shoot one she had gotten scared and decided not to shoot at the last minute. She agreed that she was going to have to learn how to shoot one in order to help get everyone safely to the dorms. Brendon had chosen the 10/22 for her since it only fired .22 rimfire rounds which would barely kick and weren't terribly loud. So far he hadn't tested if .22 rounds could penetrate the skull firsthand but he had always read that a .22 round could penetrate one side of the skull and enter the brain but didn't have enough energy to break out the other side of the skull causing it to bounce around in cranial cavity. He was always skeptical about anything that he read until he experienced it firsthand but that very rifle had been used years earlier to drop a deer with a head shot so if it could break through a deer skull it could probably break through a human's.