19. Punished

Anna Gale filled dozen of carts with canned food and pushed them towards the gate.

Soon the gate started flashing and disappeared.

She sighed and rushed to find the two girls that didn't come back and only heard their voices from the store.

When she got there, she realized why they took so much time.

Big trash bags were half full with various things.

One bag visibly had only flashlights. Other bag had various batteries they needed. The third and fourth had literally solar lights that could be recharged on their own if you put them outside.

She patted their smart heads. "Good choice. Go bring the two carts. I'll get those things."

She finally found portable solar chargers that were used for camping or for charging smaller things.

For now, this is good enough.

She grabbed various things they might need.

This electric store had big batteries so she took dozen of smaller ones as bigger ones she couldn't pick up.

Too heavy.

She pointed at the nearby counter. "Go get pads and phones. They are fast rechargeable. And a couple of laptops as we need to gather various things we can watch from it. They might have bad batteries but if we download the information from CD to a removable memory box, we can use it on phones and pads. Wouldn't our winter be easier if we learn things? And we can watch movies and cartoons as well."

"Cooking and sewing. " Alice added.

"Wildlife and plants." Michelle smiled brightly and saw Anne just waving at them to gather. "Hurry up. The gate will be open soon and we will have only one hour afterward to gather things. Today we have less time." Anna Gale rushed back and saw that gate didn't open and continued filling carts with the food.

This time she went to the dried meat section and gathered all dried meat she could find.

Cans will be gathered again, but these things are needed.

The two girls came with two carts filled with various boxes, including pads, phones, laptops, various CD's and other materials and just left them there.

"Sister, I saw sports store. What should we get?" Michelle knew right away that their sister wanted to go there.

"You two chose rain gear that you can wear now and two sizes bigger. Hurry. Don't choose too long as we don't have much time." She wanted to take the rain set as well, but she had to think of food first.

This time she was not careful and just grabbed whole hands of dried meat into the cart and filled like that five carts.

Suddenly she saw light flashing and the countdown.

She pushed two carts straight into the room and literally run back to push more carts.

A dozen carts could be pushed into that room and she happily saw that she still had forty minutes spare.

Her two sisters already started just grabbing various shoes and she accepted it as they really didn't have much time to choose.

While Alice filled the cart with rain shoes Michelle filled another cart with raincoats.

Anna saw that carts were full and just rushed with them to the gate.

This time she just pushed the carts inside the living room and rushed back while opening a trash bag she had in her hands already.

Socks, hats, gloves... While she stuffed that, the girls already rushed with two more carts towards the gate and rushed back.

Anna Gale saw that most of the carts were already used and knew that they had to unload a bunch of them before using them.

Only one cart was left so she gathered all the sportswear she could find already hanging and rushed with past cart towards the gate while the two girls grabbed a few snacks in passing for their own enjoyment.

They still had ten minutes left.

"You two stay here and let me know the time. Just sit still and don't go anywhere." She rushed towards the fridges where eggs were and took a few boxes into a hand cart.

Their mother showed them the way of telling which eggs were good to use and which are bad so she already made the choice to bring more eggs.

Of nothing else, she will throw them away into the forest.

She rushed back with two hand carriers and yelled. "Didn't I say stay here!"

The two girls completely forgot her warning and rushed back. Unfortunately, the gate became unstable and disappeared.

Before that Anna pushed two two hand carriers into the gate and stared at the two. "If we take even one minute, how much will you take from our time tomorrow?"

*Thirty minutes. No matter if you chose one minute or all thirty minutes. The gate can be opened only in one hour or wait until tomorrow.*

"Is there a danger of zombies coming back?"

Anna was excited now.

*Zombies are still gathered around the middle of town and outer periphery chasing a few soldiers that are saving survivors. Even if they start moving this way, I can warn you on time and you can take your chance to escape.*

Almost like it knew her idea.

Alice glanced at her sister in wonder. "Sister?"

Even Michelle was stunned. "Sister?"

"You two are too naughty." She didn't forget to chide them. "What if some of the bad survivors head this way and try to kill us and we have no way to escape?"

Both girls lowered their heads. "We just wanted to take a couple of snacks..."

"You already took a full bag of snacks! This won't do. Tomorrow you two are forbidden to go through the gate the whole day. Your duty will be to stay at home and enjoy your day. You already have snacks and toys. Play with it. Can I block their entrance as punishment?"

*As you are a gatekeeper, you can block the gate.*

The two girls knew right away that their sister really meant that and started crying.

But even though her heart hurt, she had to harden it. After all, if they don't listen to her now, it will be harder controlling them later on.

She just turned away and wordlessly went to take a few plastic bags and started filling the bags with more dried meat.

Always only half bag so she could lift it later.

The two girls started wailing, but she didn't even turn around mad just coldly spoke. "Cry louder so zombies can hear you..."

Both girls shut up instantly and closed their mouths. They got comfortable in just two days in that new house and completely forgot how dangerous this world is.

Anna calmly filled bags and dragged them all to the same place and continued doing that wordlessly.

The two girls were flustered.

No matter what, both of them knew they did wrong and pleadingly looked at her. "Sorry."

She sighed and looked at them sternly. "I accept your apology, but you still will be punished. Your actions made me realize that both of you forgot how dangerous this place is. So your punishment will be to stay at the wooden home."

She said that and turned around. "Next time, I'll leave you in this world in zombie shelter for a day with all the zombies running around."

That scared them completely and they realized.

Their sister really meant it...