*Morning*
It turned
out the kid was just putting a collection of ammo clips in the storage shed for
one of the men who didn’t feel like doing it himself. I doubt he’ll do it again
voluntarily after how much I scared him. Even in the presence of complete
peace, it helps to be suspicious, even if it harms you a little in the long
run. I went to Mike’s room to tell him I’d do the Project myself. He insisted
that he’d go with me, since I could easily not make it back (which made sense
considering I hadn’t attempted the plan yet so there might be some unforeseen
consequences. I found it ironic that the guy who goes it alone so often is
telling me I need backup). As much as I hate to wait, he said we’d do it after
the Valors are no longer a threat. When exactly aren’t they going to be a
threat? When they’re all dead? Do we really need to kill them all to have peace
of mind? Even if we killed one hundred of them, who knows if they have a
thousand more waiting? I wasn’t going to argue about it so I left.
I’ve been
recently thinking of catching a bird. A hawk would be nice. There are plenty of
exotic birds in the area (maybe even some parrots from an abandoned pet shop
that escaped). I’ve always wanted a pet of some kind and dogs and cats aren’t
readily available at the moment. I intend to set up a trap. Right now, all I
need is a cage, a pile of seeds, a long string, a stick of some kind, and a
sturdy box with some holes in it. I’m going to make a rabbit trap (it should
work with birds though). It’s easy to make: you prop the box up with the stick,
tie the string to it, lay the seed under the box, back away a safe distance to
lure the bird into a false sense of security, and pull the string to trap them.
The supplies shouldn’t be too hard to find in the pile of assorted junk that’s
accumulated in a few of the storage sheds.
*Afternoon*
Usually, I
excel at everything I do. Bird catching is not one of them. They seem to always
fly away before I spring the trap. It doesn’t help that people walk by and
scare them away. They probably think I look like a moron doing this, but I
don’t care. While I was searching for the supplies, I found a cassette player.
Until now, I’d forgotten about the tape I found on Matt. All it needs is some
new batteries and I’ll be able to listen to it.
I could’ve
sworn I heard an air horn go off in the far distance. Man, I wish I had one;
it’d work perfectly for the plan. Perhaps I found one and forgot about it. I’ve
accumulated a lot of stuff myself so I’ll have to look.
*Evening*
Finally
caught one! It’s a small yellow canary. His (or her) name is Ray, as in a ray
of sunshine (when you don’t know the sex of a pet, it isn’t a good idea to be
calling it names like Drew or Mary when such names are mainly for boys and
girls). It’s now perched inside the dog cage in my room that I customized with
a bowl of food, a water droplet container, newspaper, and a thin piece of wood
tied to the side of the cage for Ray to sit on (ironically, I used the same
string from the trap). I get the feeling from the way it looks at me that it
hates me for having caught it. I may not keep it too long. I had some extra
time so I looked through my journal to see if I’d ever picked up an air horn.
Only once. I’d planned to use it previously on home base of the red and blue
uniformed men. If anyone would have it now, it would be Jess since I gave it to
her. I’ll ask later.
I heard
Mike was brought in with an injury so I went to see if he was okay. He turned
out to be fine. Just shot in the shoulder. Before leaving him, he tasked me to
make a weapon that was silent, but could hit a target 30 meters away (about 100
feet, I guess). Easier said than done. I told him I’d see what I could do.
The only
guns in the base’s arsenal that could accomplish hitting a target at that
distance by an average gun user would be a rifle or sniper rifle (I’m not aware
of the types or exact names). Back at the hill, I learned a few different ways
to make one, but I didn’t have a lot of materials to work with so only one
effective method came to mind. For this, I need some water bottles, cylinders
big enough to fit the water bottles in (anything from plastic pipes to Pringles
cans), and padding (cloth, sponge, paper, bubble wrap). To do this, you cut two
water bottles in half width wise, cut a third one’s bottom off, connect the
three water bottle top to top while including padding in them, drill a hole in
the bottom water bottle part cut off (I had to measure the bullet’s diameter to
make sure it was big enough), reattached it, covered the whole thing in
padding, insert it into a cylinder, and then drill a hole in it as well. The
last thing to do was connect it with the gun. It looked like garbage, but
nothing a little paint couldn’t fix. The material were pretty easy to get a
hold off consider people in the base were throwing them away. A guy named
Spence S. showed me how to do this while I was still at The Hill. It’s funny.
He learned this back before the outbreak just by experimenting. He even claimed
to have posted an instructional video about it, among other ones. Kind of wish
he was still around.
*Night*
Asked Jess. She thinks she left it on the roof of their
base. Oh well. I made and tested 5 silencers, 4 for regular rifles and 1 for a
sniper rifle though the silencer may be obstructing the scope’s view. They
worked fine and I only had to fix one. I would’ve made more, but it takes
awhile to get the measurements exact. I don’t want anyone hurting themselves
due to an error on my part. By now, Mike had gone to bed so I plan to show them
to him in the morning. I could continue working, but it’s too dark and
batteries don’t grow on trees so I’m not using a lantern. Speaking of
batteries, I found a box full of them and decided to “borrow” two for the
cassette player. I’ll listen to it before I go to sleep. Before that though, I
have one more design I’m working on. I’ll write about it tomorrow.
- Jack’s Diary
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