[i][u]Julius Charlton[/u][/i]

One of things that Julius most missed was the exactness of time.  Of course, there were many ways to determine [i]roughly[/i] what time of day it was but the actual time was another matter entirely. The usual sources he had come to depend on (radio, computer and internet clocks, his mobile phone set to update automatically via the mobile network) had all died along with the millions across the country.  This irritated him; now it was so much more effort to keep to an appropriate schedule.

Now he perched on a windowsill, fashionably converted into a reasonably comfortable place to sit (before he had despised such places but had come to enjoy and respect its virtue, now that everyone else was gone of course) by whoever had run the library. An almanac was open on his left knee at the page depicting the sun rise and sunset times for his present town of residence. Upon his opposite knee rested his notepad, flipped to the page with his shorthand notes on various methods of measuring time from the position of the sun.  He double checked his calculations until he was satisfied that the time on his watch was as accurate as possible without the appropriate apparatus, nodding with grudging satisfaction.

"It'll do."  He muttered to himself. The books took mere moments to clean up, the almanac returned to its rightful place in the library while the notepad found its way into his 'essential knowledge' file.  Inside were other notepads on various, potentially useful, topics such as agriculture, hunting, weapon construction all the way from a short spear to hunting rifles and many others; all neatly categorized and then organised in alphabetical order of genre.  If nothing else his stay in the library had been productive and he felt equipped to rain the reward of his labours onto whichever group he deigned to join.  It would be like a rain onto the desert, he told himself.

[i]No, that would be demeaning.  It's illogical to assume that a group collectively would not have the same knowledge I do.  Individually, though... that's a different matter.[/i]

Satisfied he had internally corrected his false assumption, Julius carefully packed a few more essentials into the rucksack he had liberated from a camping store early on in the crisis. Water, some healthy but nutritious snack bars for a quick energy boost, a small first aid kit and a torch with spare batteries.  He considered taking a map but dismissed the thought; he knew several routes to the mall and it would simply way him down.  Even if he ran into undesirables the library was something of a landmark and wouldn't be hard to find his way back to unaided.

Carefully, Julius surveyed the outside streets until he was satisfied that there were no others in the immediate area before stepping out of the library.  He left a door slightly ajar and dragged his 'signage' into place (a now positively skeletal corpse) to dissuade anyone from entering the library.  He had reasoned that if it looked unoccupied few would bother searching such a place.  The essentials were food, water and medicines and the library held next to none of these making it a thoroughly unappealing building to bother entering.

The young man admired his work, nudging a leg into a more natural position before turning his back on his refuge of several months in search of intelligent life.  Amiable intelligent life, where possible.

-------------------

There were something eery about an empty mall. Normally such thoughts would not concern Julius, which was why it perturbed him that he [i]was[/i] having them. He concluded that it was merely the fact that he associated such a place as a hub of bustling people and the sight before him jarred so heavily with his memories. With caution he approached the main entrance, noting the automatic doors, long since having lost their power, had been pushed open to allow entry.

Before continuing he retrieved his torch from the rucksack, made cautious by the clue to potential habitation. The last thing he wanted was to meet someone who had made the place into a home and get embroiled in... well, anything. He stepped into the mall and breathed in deeply through his nose, noting the aroma of freshly rotting flesh was largely absent. There were vestiges of older decay but nothing that warned him he might come across fresh corpses.  Not that they bothered him but he avoided places of fresh death in case it was caused by less natural causes.  Like a bullet to the head.

"Now, what do people in a post-apocalyptic world need most?"  He mused, poring over a faded floor plan of the mall while attempting not to be distracted by his disgust of the patronising colouring.  Why on earth did they feel the need to arbitrarily colour code maps when there was no actual legend or method - it was just to distinguish the different lots from one another even though there were clear black lines to symbol walls.  His attention was drawn to a shop he recognised as pharmaceuticals vendor and assigned the route to it in his mind.

The escalators weren't on, as expected, but he had always preferred to take staircases in any case.  Standing still on a moving platform with nowhere to manoeuvre in the event of, all things, slow walkers had always irritated him. That and it was an easy and convenient form of exercise that he didn't have to pay for.  

Once he reached the floor above he faintly heard voices coming from his intended destination.  Julius switched off his torch and walked in a cautious but deliberate manner towards the pharmacy, keeping obstacles in the way until he found a good vantage point in the doorway of a long-since ransacked jewellery store.  Ducking into its darker shadows he waited to see who the voices belonged to and how likely they looked to kill on sight.