Doomsday America

Chapter 77 We Need Textbooks
"Uh……"

Gavin was stunned for a moment, then laughed self-deprecatingly.

I've watched too many apocalyptic movies and TV shows, so I instinctively feel that everyone should know a lot of things.

Whether it's a bulldozer, an excavator, or any other agricultural machinery or implements.

Apart from household gadgets like lawnmowers.

For any other vehicle that can be called an industrial vehicle, can everyone really drive it?
Stop joking. Don't you see people failing their driving test by repeatedly losing points?

Not to mention how long it takes to learn how to get a ticket for a large vehicle.

As for engineering vehicles, Lanxiang Technical School even has an excavator major, which can be classified as a major. It is impossible for just anyone to pick it up and touch it a couple of times and be able to operate it skillfully!
Seeing that Eugene didn't know how to operate the bulldozer, Gavin looked at the others, shook his head helplessly, and asked them.

"Alright, besides Eugene, who among us can operate a bulldozer and an excavator?"

Faced with Gavin's question, everyone looked at each other, and then old Bert helplessly raised his hand and smiled wryly.

"I can drive a forklift and I've driven a loader a few times, but I've never used one for any work."

"If it's just about operation, I think if you can bring the forklift over, I can give you some pointers, but I'm only half-baked."

"Uh, it sounds like we'd rather figure it out ourselves."

Gavin shook his head and said.

"Are you suggesting we, a group of people who've never driven industrial vehicles before, drive bulldozers and excavators near the manor? I'm more afraid we'll crash them into the manor!"

"I'll take Eugene and Madison to study the bulldozer properly in a bit. If they can figure it out, then we'll use the bulldozer to dig the soil."

"If we can't figure it out, we'll just dig a simple firebreak with shovels, as long as we can't let the fire spread."

After saying this, Gavin swallowed the last bite of bread and then waved to everyone.

"Let's go, Eugene, Madison, we need to get things done!"

“No problem.” Madison nodded immediately.

"I'll listen to you," Eugene followed.

The three of them strode away from the table to the shooting range to choose a pistol.

In addition to a revolver, each person also carried a Taran tactical modified automatic pistol, along with several magazines.

After all, you have to do the work; you can't just carry a long spear around to do it.

Just like Texas doesn't ban the sale of automatic rifles that fire in bursts, but it does ban the sale of concealed handguns.

Handguns are the real hard currency in everyday life.

After selecting their weapons and conducting a quick inspection, the three of them left the manor decisively.

Eugene drove a pickup truck out of the garage and drove it to the nearest pile of corpses on the estate. Then the three of them threw the corpses one by one onto the pickup truck.

It's not that the Battle Shield is unsafe, it's just that the Battle Shield consumes too much fuel. A regular pickup truck is sufficient for most tasks.

In the restaurant, watching the three men busily moving the corpse, Bella couldn't help but smack her lips.

"He's so cool, just like he is on TV!"

“They’re all cool, but we need to get to work. Get your damn eyes off the boss’s ass, Bella!”

Winnie patted Bella's bottom, urging her to hurry up and help her clear the dishes.

Old Bert, supporting himself on the dining table, struggled to his feet and walked slowly, step by step, toward the hall.

Seeing that old Bert was having difficulty walking, Doris instinctively wanted to go forward to help him, but old Bert waved her off and smiled.

"Don't waste your time on this old man. You have too much work to do. I can't help you, I can only try to reduce your troubles."

“William, good lad, thank you for going down the telescope Gavin mentioned.”

"This job is pretty good, isn't it? It's been a long time since I've really taken a good look at the manor."

As soon as he finished speaking, old Bert walked towards the wall, using it as a support to make his way towards the stairs.

William hurriedly went up to the third floor, hopping and skipping as he searched for the astronomy room.

As the two walked away, Doris licked her lips uneasily and said while washing the dishes.

"But, but Gavin didn't say where we were supposed to put everything we found."

"Which room is the storage room, which room is used to store clothes, which room is used for..."

"That's enough, Mom! Stop acting like a child!"

Seeing her mother completely dazed, Winnie patted her mother's bottom helplessly and said casually.

"The boss has too many things to do. He doesn't have time to specify every detail. Since he's directly asking you to make the arrangements, you should just decide for yourself!"

"We'll search every single room in a bit, and I promise we won't miss a single piece of clothing or slipper!"

"You say which room is the storeroom, and that's the storeroom. Isn't that convenient?"

As soon as she finished speaking, Winnie, her face full of fighting spirit, continued working as if she were about to go to war.

Seeing Winnie bustling around, Doris's eyes welled up with tears of emotion.

The child has grown up so quickly!
And Bella...

Seeing that Winnie was busy, she naturally didn't want to be looked down upon, so she quickly helped Doris wash the dishes.

Just as she was setting out the dishes, Gavin's voice suddenly came through the walkie-talkie.

"By the way, logistics personnel should not leave the manor unless absolutely necessary. If they must leave, they should consult me ​​on the intercom first."

"Roger that, boss. We're not going anywhere, except maybe Bella~"

Winnie immediately answered on the walkie-talkie, her voice eliciting laughter from Eugene and Madison.

While Bella rolled her eyes at Winnie, Gavin and his two companions finally managed to throw all sixteen corpses into the car.

The pickup truck wasn't big enough to carry many corpses.

The sixteen people were already starting to stand out; you could imagine it as sixteen people sleeping in a Wuling Hongguang van.

So Gavin patted the car door and said.

"Let's go, let's find a place to pile up the bodies first."

As soon as he finished speaking, Gavin naturally sat in the passenger seat, while Madison went to the driver's seat and started driving.

Eugene sat in the back row, leaning against the window as he looked at the manor receding into the distance, and grinned.

"Boss, even without a bulldozer, I estimate we can pile up the bodies and burn them before noon."

"So, how about we take our TACs to the farm town this afternoon and practice our shooting?"

"no problem."

As Gavin answered, he pondered the farm's environment in his mind, and then spoke to Eugene.

“We are now centered around the manor. Two kilometers to the east of the manor is a chicken farm, and two kilometers to the west are a horse farm and a dairy farm.”

"The beef cattle and pastures are located about 16 kilometers east of the manor, while the planting area is even further away, about 22 kilometers away. Agricultural machinery and large vehicles are also mainly concentrated there."

"In the afternoon, we'll first release the cattle out of the pen and let them roam freely on the pasture. Then we'll go find some seeds and cultivate new farmland on the grassland near the estate."

“Although the land in the planting area is readily available and only requires simple preparation to grow vegetables, we can’t possibly travel more than 20 kilometers to the planting area to take care of things like potatoes and spinach in this kind of environment…”

Gavin sighed at this point.

He had to admit that having such a large house was also a huge problem. Originally, the farm town was not far from the planting area, where farmers and cowboys gathered. In their spare time, they could look after the land, hunt wild boars, and drive away birds and animals.

But now, there are too few of them. They can't possibly send one person out to go more than 20 kilometers away to watch over the vegetable garden and chase away wild boars when there are only eight of them, can they?
Moreover, with zombies roaming the land these days, the farms might suddenly be popped up with zombie boars or even zombie wolves.

Separating people at this time would be tantamount to putting them in danger. Regardless of whether anyone is willing to do it, Gavin would not waste manpower like that.

With plans for the future in mind, Madison drove nearly three kilometers and stopped at the edge of the forest northwest of the estate.

Although it was on the edge of the forest, the parking area was only about 170 or 180 meters from the river, and still 600 or 700 meters from the forest.

Gavin jumped out of the car, glanced at it, and nodded in affirmation.

"This location is good, close to the water source and some distance from the forest. Let's pile the bodies here."

As soon as he finished speaking, the three men continued to unload the body.

Loading and unloading corpses.

It took the group four trips to move all the bodies from the old and new manors to the new one.

After dealing with the area around the manor, Gavin and his two companions arrived at the dairy farm and were horrified by the sight of the scattered corpses.

Especially the cow carcass; it was not only heavy, but the flesh on both sides of the cow's body was torn open, making it difficult to move just by looking at it.

Gavin took a deep breath and pointed to the tractor and bulldozer not far away as he looked at the densely packed corpses on the ground.

"How about we try those things?"

"Let's give it a try, boss. I think driving a car is at least easier than moving cattle."

Eugene looked at the cow with lingering fear and then strode towards the bulldozer.

Looking at the various control levers and instrument panel of the forklift, he swallowed hard and asked.

"Boss, you wouldn't mind if I accidentally knocked down one of the cowsheds, would you?"

"That saves you the trouble of herding cattle. Go ahead and give it a try, buddy!"

Gavin gave Eugene a thumbs-up from a distance, then looked down at Madison and said...

"Old Mike, do you think he's up to the task?"

"I don't know, anyway I can't operate a bulldozer. Damn it, how come I can't do anything?"

Old Mike suddenly felt a bit disgusted with himself, because after thinking about it carefully, he realized that apart from playing football, he really couldn't do anything else!
Meanwhile, Eugene tentatively started the bulldozer.

The bulldozer key was left in the jackhammer; after all, it was something they used so often that the cowboys had to use it to shovel cow dung every day.

As the large machine beneath him began to operate, Eugene licked his lips, nervously and excitedly studying each control lever.

Gavin waited for Eugene for nearly eight minutes before Eugene finally got the bulldozer moving.

But this bulldozer was rather unusual; when it moved, one wheel moved faster than the other, spinning so fast that it crashed into a truck next to it.

"Fuck, what are all these levers for? How do I stop this thing? Where's the brake? How do I turn it off?!"

"Help me, God! I never knew this thing was so difficult! What does 'high speed' mean?!"

"Why won't the engine turn off even after I turned the key back? Does this forklift not know how to turn off?!"

"Which one controls the bucket, and which one controls reversing? Damn it, how am I supposed to stop this thing? I'm clearly pressing the brake, this should be the brake, right?"

With Eugene's screams, the bulldozer swayed and danced, pushing the truck a long way with a loud noise that sent chills down Gavin's spine.

Gavin was extremely anxious and hurriedly shouted to Eugene.

"Turn off the engine, turn it off now! Don't fucking try it again, be careful!"

"I know, but I don't know how to turn it off. Doesn't this thing have an off button? What do I need to flip to turn it off?"

"Lift your foot off the gas pedal!"

"Stop yelling, I want to turn it off too, boss, but where do I turn it off? I'm about to take the keys out of the car!"

"If all else fails, just jump!"

"If I jump, I'm doomed. Why is this thing sometimes fast and sometimes slow? I think I know how to adjust the speed, but it doesn't seem to work while it's running!!!"

"Fuck you, Eugene, you're about to crash into the pickup truck!"

"I dodged it, haha, I dodged it, but the engine still won't shut down!"

During this shouting, the bulldozer rushed out of the engineering garage, barely avoiding the pickup truck, and crashed into the highway, crushing the body beneath it.

Until the bulldozer was less than 400 meters away from the highway.

Eugene finally found the shutdown button.

Once the bulldozer finally stopped on the grass, Gavin and the other man rushed over and pulled Eugene down.

While being pulled by Gavin, Eugene pointed at an inconspicuous plug near the forklift seat with a bewildered expression and shouted.

"Damn it, this thing turns off the engine by pulling this piston! And the engine stop button looks just like the window lock button on a regular car; you can't even tell the difference!"

"I'm never riding that thing again! I was scared to death, God!"

As soon as he finished speaking, Eugene shakily took out a cigarette and lit it with difficulty.

Seeing Eugene's lingering fear, Gavin remained silent for a moment before slapping him on the back of the head.

While Eugene was completely dumbfounded, Gavin yelled and cursed at him.

"Are you fucking an idiot? Although I don't know how to drive a bulldozer, I know that if you didn't step on the gas, the bulldozer wouldn't have been able to travel this far on its own!"

"Is it the problem whether the engine stalls or not? The problem is that you kept your foot on the gas pedal the whole time! You fucking slammed on the gas pedal even though you don't know how to drive it! Are you panicking like a girl?! You idiot!"

At this point, Gavin couldn't hold back any longer and slapped Eugene on the back of the head again.

Eugene was stunned, the cigarette in his mouth was blown away, and he recalled with a blank expression.

"Really? Didn't I let off the gas? Bullshit, my leg just won't listen to me."

"You're right. As long as I don't step on the gas, it won't go this far. Boss, let me go again..."

"Again? Mazefak!"

Seeing that Eugene was still trying to climb onto the bulldozer, Gavin raised his right hand and slapped Eugene hard on the head.

After slapping Eugene's bulldozer dream away with three slaps, Gavin gritted his teeth, pointed to the pile of corpses in the distance, and said, word by word.

"Unless we find someone who actually knows how to operate those things, no one is allowed to get close to these dangerous behemoths!"

"I'll save fuel this way. We'll do everything with our hands, as long as it can be done with our hands!"

"Slow work doesn't matter, what I want is safety, absolute safety!"

"I don't want to see you die under a damn excavator instead of at the hands of zombies. What am I supposed to write your epitaph then?"

"Should I write on your tombstone that this person died a terrible death because he mistakenly gave up his excavator profession?"

At this point, Gavin let out a breath, then raised his hand and gave Eugene's shoulder a heavy thud.

"There are bookstores in the town and the resort area. When we have time, let's go and see if they have any textbooks on operating excavators and bulldozers!"

"If there is one, we'll learn it slowly by following the instructions in the book."

"Do you know that you almost pushed a truck into half of my cowshed and nearly ran over my pickup truck as well!"

"Why don't you just crush me to death too, you piece of shit!"

(End of this chapter)