Outbreak Chapter 28

The semi-automatic rifle was a basic model with iron sights and a synthetic stock. Brendon gave Leslie a quick speech about muzzle control then showed her where the safety was and how to load the magazines. Wiggins had four ten round magazines, three twenty rounders, a pair of thirty round magazines and a fifty round magazine for the rifle. All of the magazines were already loaded so Brendon took Leslie out onto the balcony with the other three and had her load one of the ten round mags. He helped her position the rifle on her shoulder and had her take some shots at a zombie that was a little over a hundred feet away moving through the parking lot towards them. Her first three shots missed but her fourth round took the man in the head and he went limp and fell to the ground instantly. That was proof enough for Brendon that .22 rounds worked just fine against them. He had Leslie keep practicing on any undead that came within range and her accuracy improved significantly after putting a few magazines through the weapon. By her fourth magazine she was hitting almost anyone within a hundred feet in the head with almost half of her shots. Brendon had to admit that she was learning quickly though he knew that shooting from a safe position was one thing but once they hit the ground and their adrenaline was pumping everyone’s accuracy would likely suffer.
He left Leslie on the balcony to practice more knowing that Griffin would be able to help her out if she need anything while he went inside to look at their spare weapons. James had brought an SKS similar to Brendon's that they had decided not to use on the trip to the dorms. Wiggins had an antiquated 12 gauge shotgun of a model Brendon didn't recognize, whatever manufacturer marking had once been on the side was now worn off with age. The shotgun had a similar operation to the Remingtons that Brendon and Ethan had brought but it's long barrel combined with it's age had convinced them to leave it strapped to one of the rucks.
There were four bolt-action rifles that the group had decided to bring along with them but not use along the way. The first was Griffin's aged 7mm Winchester hunting rifle. He had less than a hundred rounds for the rifle and they wanted to save those rounds in case they ever needed to do any distance shooting.
Wiggins had a pair of old Russian Mosin Nagant bolt-action rifles that were chambered for 7.62x54R. The rifles both had bayonets and old wooden stocks making them potentially useful for melee combat but they couldn't keep up with the weapons that everyone in the group was currently carrying. Wiggins had roughly two hundred rounds for the rifles that would likely last a while with their slow rate of fire.
The last bolt-action rifle was Wiggins' Remington hunting rifle chambered in .243. It had a synthetic stock and scope and had been used over the years to kill well over a dozen deer. He only had about forty rounds for the rifle so they decided to save those as well leaving it packed on the outside of one of the rucks.
Brendon wanted them to have a decent backup weapon in case anybodies primary weapons ran out of ammunition or had a catastrophic malfunction. The only spare weapon left was Brendon's AR-10 and it's large scope would make using it for head shots at close ranges difficult. He remembered that James had opted to remove the red dot from Wiggins' AK-47 preferring it's iron sights and went to ask Wiggins what had happened to the optic. Wiggins pulled it out of one of the bags and let Brendon know that the battery was fresh. He didn't have any backup iron sights to put on the AR-10 but this model of red dot was supposed to have a battery life of hundreds of hours and fed off of AA batteries. Brendon took some time removing the scope from his AR-10 being careful to remember exactly which spot on the rails it had been sitting on so he could replace it later without losing it's zero. Once the scope was off he put the red dot on and headed out to the balcony with a ten round magazine loaded.
He hated to waste ammunition but he wasn't going to be able to zero the rifle against moving targets so he chose a spot on a tree across the parking lot that was at about the same elevation as him. Wanting to save ammo he would only take two shots at a time before making adjustments on the optic. After eight rounds it looked like the had the sight pretty close so he used his last two rounds on infected in the parking lot. He waited until they were twenty yards away before taking his shots figuring that most of the shooting would be done at about that range. Both shots hit their targets so Brendon was satisfied that if they needed to use the rifle it would serve it's purpose.
Before long the three they had brought out onto the balcony seemed to be at least moderately comfortable with their weapons so Brendon and Griffin brought them all back inside. They had drawn quite a bit of attention so Griffin suggested that they close the blinds and stay off of the balcony until they were ready to leave in hopes that the infected outside would be distracted by other survivors and leave.
Inside the apartment all of the bags were almost packed and Wiggins was checking to make sure that everyone’s magazines were topped off and the people with shotguns had good supplies of spare shells.
Wiggins, Griffin and Brendon got together and had a short conversation about how to proceed and decided to tell everyone else to take a break and eat whatever they wanted from Wiggins' fridge since they would be leaving all of that food behind. The three of them used that time to formulate a quick plan on how to get out of the apartment and the best route to the dorms and how to clear them once they got there.
Once everybody was back from the kitchen the three of them took some time explaining the plan and breaking everyone into three teams mixing experienced people in with inexperience people. Once everybody seemed to have a grasp on the plan to get to the dorms Wiggins, Griffin, and Brendon took time explaining how everybody would be responsible for covering assigned directions if the group had to dismount on the way and travel on foot.
After nearly half an hour of talking things over it seemed like everybody had a pretty good handle on the plan. They gave everybody half an hour to make their final preparations. Brendon had his two radios and Griffin had another two that worked on the same channels. Brendon, Wiggins and Griffin each took on of the radios since they were the three team leaders and Aidan took the fourth since they figured he was the most capable of the other members of their group.
Brendon already had refilled all of his magazines and still had his ruck packed so he decided to check his e-mail one more time while he waited on the others and was relieved to see that his father had responded to his e-mail.