“Not exactly,” Ghost replied “by the way do you have an axe I could borrow, maybe a fire axe, that kind of thing?”
Daniel nodded and walked them over to the Fire Axe that was hanging from a nearby wall. He took it down and gave it to Ghost.
Ghost looked the edge on the blade, tested the balance with few careful swings and nodded. “I want to do this quietly. Shotguns make a lot of noise. This is better as a starting point.”
He unrolled his plans on a nearby table “I believe there’s a loading dock here that we can get into. That does leave the problem that there’s no way Amber and I can possibly move crates of books on our own, let alone in all this snow.”
“You’ll need our help,” Daniel stated looking over the drawings.
“Yes. I was thinking weight of numbers. A large group so you can cart the books out in a number of sacks of whatever else you’ve got that would work?”
Daniel nodded “that sounds like the best idea.”
The monks returned with various books and newspapers carefully bookmarked. They looked through them and added a few small details to the drawings.
“Shall we go now then?” Ghost asked.
“You don’t want to wait until dark?” Daniel asked.
“No. From what you say these books have been left unattended for a long time now. That means that anyone who’s set up any security that overlaps the area has grown complacent. We get in, we get out ideally before they know, but failing that before they can react.” Ghost looked around “I know some of them have guns, do they know how to use them?”
“We have quite a good selection of books in both the Military and Sports sections, so we know a lot of theory. Mainly we’re good at hitting stationary or slow moving targets with rifles,” Daniel admitted.
“Fair enough,” Ghost replied, “I don’t want to have lots of shooting going on anyway.”
Daniel organized a few Librarians to stay behind and the rest gathered up guns, rifles and sacks plus a few other things. Ghost noticed that they remained in their robes rather than changing into something more practical.
The group headed out of the library, but this time instead of turning left and going down the main street, they continued forwards into the back alley behind the parade of shops. The snow was still deep and it was slow going. At the end of the alley they turned left and made there way along the service road. Neither Ghost nor Amber could detect any signs of being watched or that there was anyone else around.
As they followed the service road they passed by another of the Mall’s entrances. Through the glass doors they could see the zombies milling around aimlessly. They kept going.
The loading bay was protected by thick steel shutters. Ghost paused. He hadn’t quite figured out how to get past them yet. One of the monks reached into a backpack and pulled out a small metal box with a plastic card attached. He inserted the card into the security card reader and waited. The shutters began to rise.
Daniel smiled, “It’s amazing what we have books on.”
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