


Zombie Story

by The5Pieces



Category: Zombie Fallout
Genre: Horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-14
Updated: 2014-05-31
Packaged: 2014-07-21 20:28:38
Rating: T
Chapters: 8
Words: 31,474
Publisher: www.fanfiction.net
Story URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10349248/1/
Author URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/u/5729912/The5Pieces
Summary: How do you prepare for something no one thought possible? How do you predict a catastrophe that should never have happened? Why would you every need to think about killing someone you once knew? Allan is asked the same questions, but he doesn't have any answers. In a country overrun with monsters that never stop hunting, feeding, and growing in population, no one's safe. No one.





	1. Prologue:

_Prologue:_

*_**Beep beep beep. Beep beep beep. Beep beep - click**_*

"... 6:30am...? Why must you torture me so?" You groan as you exit your hibernation-like sleep-coma.

It's **_Thursday_**_**, May 14th, 2015. It's 6:30am**_. You need to get up and get ready to meet your friend at school in just over an hour and a half.

*_**Buzz buzz. Buzz buzz**_*

The screen of your phone lights up next to your face. You reach over and grab the phone and hold it in front of your left eye.

_"Sorry for telling you on such short notice, but I won't be at school today, so you don't need to come meet me super early like usual."_ Reads the text your lady friend just sent you.

"... Damn it..." You groan. Hell, you're already awake, you might as well get some morning shit done, seeing as you have plenty of extra time now.

You set your phone back down on your bed and push your blanket off of you and down to the end of your bed. A smile crosses your face as you feel a cool breeze pass over your body from the open window to your left. You slowly push your body up and sit on the edge of your bed, yawning and stretching.

Walking to the foot of your bed, you open your closet and take out a pair of black pants and a belt, a white tee-shirt, a pair of socks and some new underwear. You dress in silence as you enjoy the early morning ambiance. A few birds chirped in the distance, the clock in the hallway tick-tock's away and the sound of a few cars passing on the road on the other side of the wooded area behind your house is all you hear. If this isn't peace, then you don't know what is.

As you cross your bedroom, you turn around and head back to your bedside table to turn off your alarm clock. You don't want to wake your parents and siblings with it going off again.

Turning around once more, you exit your room.

Your sister's room is directly beside yours to the right, your parents down the hall, and your baby sister's room at the far end of the hall. Everyone's doors are shut, so you're a little less hesitant to make a bit of noise, since they won't be able to hear it.

Half way down the hall, you turn left into the bathroom to do your morning business.

*_**dribble dribble - plop - rip - flush**_*

Glancing up into the bathroom mirror as you wash your hands reveals the same person that you've seen all your life.

_**5'10", male, 16 years old, 125lbs, short brown hair, blue eyes, glasses, skinny yet relatively fit, kinda specky.**_

You take a few minutes to remove a few small blemishes and wash your face. Once you've dried off you hands and face, you return your glasses to their rightful place and head back to your room.

"Phone... Keys... Lip balm... Memory stick... Headphones..." You recite as you place all of your items in their respective pockets.

You turn as you hear another door open and footsteps going down the hall and into the bathroom.

"Most likely mom, she has to go to work."

After placing your binder and books into your backpack, you heft it onto your shoulder and head downstairs. Dodging the creaky stairs, you make it to the bottom with barely a noise. Turning to the right, you drop your bag at the kitchen entrance and proceed to pour a bowl of cereal, then carry it out of the kitchen and across to the dining room. You eat alone and quietly for a few minutes before you hear your mother coming down the stairs.

"Morning." You call out before another spoonful of cereal.

Your mother gives you a nod and proceeds to make some coffee before leaving to check her email on her laptop.

As you finish off your bowl, you meet your mother in the kitchen pouring coffee into a thermos. After placing your bowl in the sink, your mother turns to you.

"I'll be home late tonight, I have a few new clients I have to meet. I shouldn't be any later than 8, so you'll have to make your own dinner tonight." She tells you.

"That's fine, I'll tell the others." You reply.

"Alright, see you tonight," Your mother says as she gives you a hug. "Remember to take pictures on your trip."

Damn, you almost forgot about your trip. The science teachers at your school are taking all the students to the Science Center for the day. Normally, you wouldn't be too thrilled about this, but this time they're offering a special, more in depth tour of the advanced sections of the building, something you're really looking forward to.

"I will. I'll try and get them to blow something up for me." You say before your mother leaves for work.

The clock on the stove reads "_**7:20**_", you've only been up for a little under an hour, and you still have another full one before you have to leave for school. What should you do for the next hour? Homework? Go back to bed? Browse Reddit? Yeah, Reddit.

You plop yourself down on the couch before you pull out your phone and open the internet. Within five minutes, all your homepage links are purple and you haven't found anything even remotely entertaining. After browning r/new for an indefinite amount of time, you become vaguely aware of people around you, mainly your younger sister. She climbs onto the couch to sit with you as you turn on her cartoons. Your other sister is still upstairs, probably doing her makeup or something, you don't really care. Your brother grabs some cereal and heads back downstairs to his bedroom. After checking your phone's clock, you notice it's _**8:05**_, almost time for you to leave.

"Yo Chrissy, you gotta walk Sam to school, I've got to leave early for my trip." You call upstairs.

"K." was your only response. She's as annoying in real life as she is in text.

Walking back to the kitchen, you heft your backpack back on and walk to the front door. After putting your shoes on, you tell Sam "if you need anything, go ask your sister." Sam nods in understanding and goes back to watching her cartoons.

You open the door and step outside to the beautiful spring air. The sun is shining brightly and there's not a cloud in the sky. You start off down the street towards your school and see a few other kids also walking, as well as some parents getting their children into their cars. Your get to the end of the street and continue across the road and up a small hill into a small open field area. From here, you can see your school building just past some trees on the far side of the field. As you walk, you stop to turn around and look out back towards you house and the city beyond it. The downtown is bustling with early morning traffic and the sun is reflecting off of almost every window. You love this city, but you'd do anything to be rid of it and the people here whom you hold a burning hatred for.

You return to your walk and soon arrive at the trees on the edge of the field. You take your normal path, noticing that you've practically made a rut all by yourself over the course of the last few years of taking the same route every day. After a few moments of walking through the trees, you come upon the back side your school. You quickly enter the doors just off to your side before making your way to the foyer where you'll be meeting your class and the rest of the science students.

"Yo, Allan! Hold up bud!" You hear from behind you.

"Where's the fire, man? Why are you in such a rush?" Your friend Alex asks.

"I'm going on that science trip today. We're going to the science center." You reply.

"Wow, fucking nerd. Why are they taking you guys there? What are you, 8?" Alex says.

"We get the advanced tour of the place. We get to go in more detail than most people ever do. They'll be doing experiments and showing us some stuff that'll probably make your tiny brain explode, so I won't go into much detail." You reply with a laugh.

"Whatever. Anyway, I guess I'll text you later then, peace." And with that, Alex walked off to go to his first period class.

As you enter the foyer, you see your teacher, Mrs. Lows, taking attendance and collecting permission slips and money. You answer as she calls your name, then you hand over your form and money, then walk back outside to the bus that will be accompanying you to your destination. As you step onto the bus, you see a few people you know, sporadically placed along the bus, but you prefer the front seat, so you spin around and drop your bag, then sit and pull out your phone and headphones. You crank your tunes just as the bus pulls out of the parking lot and off towards the Science Center, not knowing what awaits you in only a few short hours.


	2. Chapter 1: The Accident

_Chapter 1: The Accident._

You're the first off the bus, well, next to the teacher that is. As you wait for the other students to file out of the bus, you notice a young man, maybe 25 at most walking towards your group.

"Hey guys, my name's Dillon and I'll be giving you guys the tour of our facility today. Now, before we begin, who likes explosions?" The guide asks to the crowd. About 3/4 of the classes hand shoot into the air, including you own.

"Well, unfortunately, we won't be able to set anything off toda-"

*_**BOOM!**_*

The entire class jumped about a foot in the air as a massive fire ball rose behind the building.

"Hah, gotcha!" The guide says with a laugh. "Come on, let's get inside and start the tour."

"Holy hell, I damn near shit myself." So whisper to yourself as you follow Dillon into the school.

"The main attractions are in this open section of the building," Dillon announces. "But we're not here for this stuff, we're here to see the advanced stuff. Now, if you'll follow me, we'll get right to it."

Dillon guided the group to a set of double doors, locked with a pin code, which he opens, then he leads the class into the advanced wing.

You jog to catch up to Dillon and ask, "Hey, why is this section of the building locked to the general public? Is it not safe here or something?"

"Oh, we do experiments and actual work here, as well as running tours, so this facility also doubles as a lab. We do store chemicals and potentially dangerous materials here, which is why we can't have anyone poking around, except you guys of course, but we're here to watch you and make sure you don't blow someone up by accident." He says with a chuckle.

"Okay everyone, our first stop. If you look through these windows, you'll see our genetics lab. The guys in here are the ones who help create vaccines and whatnot so you can take some medicine to get rid of your sniffles or head cold. We can't let you in due to the fact that they're working with dangerous pathogens, but you can watch all you like."

As you look into the lab, you see men and women in full bio-hazard suits pushing trollies full of bottles and test tubes, looking into microscope, writing notes, and mixing chemicals. A few of them catch sight of the group and wave, but the others are so focused on their work that not even an earthquake could break their focus.

"Over here we have our chemistry lab. These fine ladies and gents collaborate with chemists around the world to try and work out the facts about what makes everything how it is. That, and you can thank them for the explosion earlier, I had my bud Tony set that up for me. We can let you in here for a little while so you can look around, but don't worry, all our radioactive elements have been packed away for today, so you won't run the risk of growing a third eye."

After another hour or touring the different sections of the labs, Dillon lets everyone go for lunch. Taking this time to go and relieve yourself, you head to the bathroom down the hall. As you open the stall door, you hear Dillon call for everyone's attention.

"Who wants to see an experiment?" He calls out. The entire class must have raised their hands, because Dillon replies with "Wonderful! Now, if you want to come closer you may, but be sure to give me about 10 feet of space. Don't worry, no fumes or explosions will go off, but you still want to be safe."

*_**... plop...**_*

Taking out your phone, you notice that you have a missed call from your friend and a new email. You check both and reply to your friend via text message.

*_**dribble dribble - rip - flush**_*

As you close the door to the stall you hear Dillon say "These two chemicals should react and turn red, then as I shake it, it'll turn blue."

You go to the sink to wash your hands and you notice your reflection again. Your entire body looks physically better. Maybe you should request a study on positive moods and the effects on the human body.

*_**POOMF!**_*

You hear what sounds like a large gas bubble popping out of a beaker from down the hall. You hear the class quickly shuffle backwards as you assume some smoke or something was made during the reaction. Wait... He said that wasn't going to happen though...? Ah well, he probably just messed it up.

Then as you're drying your hands, you hear coughing coming from down the hall. Poor guy must have inhaled some of the smoke. The coughing quickly becomes very sickening to hear. It sounds like he's coughing and trying to throw up at the same time. Just as you're about to open the door, you hear screams coming from the lunch room where your class is. Oddly enough, you notice that the coughing has disappeared, but a growling noise has taken it's place.

More screams, this time panicked ones come from the entire class. You hear the sound of hundreds of feet running down the hall towards the exits, but your hearing is soon caught off guard by a loud siren and warning announcement.

_**"WARNING! BIOLOGICAL CONTAMINATION IN LUNCH ROOM. WARNING! BIOLOGICAL CONTAMINATION IN LUNCH ROOM."**_

The screams have now turned from fright to painful screams. Multiple thumps of people falling to the floor can be heard even inside the bathroom. You don't dare open the door and see what's happening, you just go back into the stall and lock the door to wait out whatever happened.

You take our your phone and call your mom, hoping she'll pick up. Your call goes to voice mail and you quickly say **"MOM! YOU HAVE TO COME PICK ME UP AT THE SCIENCE CENTER! SOMETHING HAPPENED AND THE BUILDING WAS PUT ON ALERT! I'M HIDING IN THE BATHROOM BECAUSE EVERYONE ELSE HAS LEFT THE BUILDING! PLEASE HURRY!"** You put your phone back in your pocket and open the stall door. You creep to the bathroom door and open it as slowly as you can.

You weren't prepared for what you saw next.


	3. Chapter 2: Living Nightmare

_Chapter 2: Living Nightmare._

In the hallway laid 4 people; some on their backs, some on their stomachs. All of them bloody and torn up. None of them moving. About halfway down the hall, you noticed what looked like Dillon crouched over one of the fallen girls. It looked like he was trying to revive her by giving her mouth to mouth... Except... He wasn't...

Dillon quickly jerked his head up, and as he did, a fountain of blood followed. He had taken a bite out of the girl's neck. With your hand covering your mouth, you sit and watch as Dillon bit and tore up the girl laying in front of him. As you were busy watching, you didn't even notice one of the injured people closer to where you were watching from start to get up off the floor. This caught the attention of Dillon who stopped biting the girl and look back at the man who was slowly rising.

That's when you got the full picture. Dillon had blood all over his face, chunks of meat hanging from his mouth, and a very blank stare in his eyes. The man who was standing up had a piece of his arm missing, as well as a chunk of his neck. The man had the same blank stare that Dillon wore. Seeing Dillon and the dead girl laying on the ground, the man started to slowly walk towards the girl. His steps were shaky and irregular, and he dragged his feet every now and again. When he got to the girl, he crouched down and took a large bite out of her leg. The two men continued to feast on the girl's flesh as the second, third, and fourth person rose from the ground to join them in their meal.

All the while, you just sat there and watched these psychos kill and eat a girl. When you were sure that their attention was completely devoted to the corpse of the dead girl, you opened up the bathroom door and made your way slowly down the hall away from them and towards the exit. Only one problem, there were two... People... Standing near the doors. They slowly wandered around, but never went far enough for you to be able to get past them safely. Now you're trapped in the middle of a hallway filled with things that want to eat you alive with no way out.

Wonderful.

You were about to give up and just take a run for it when you noticed a clip board and pen hanging from a door next to you. You thought to yourself, 'Maybe these... _Things_... Are stupid and get attracted to noises.' You take the clip board and move to the end of the hall, which splits into two other hallways. Hiding in a door frame, you lob the clip board as hard as you can down an adjacent hall, which then hits a window to an office and falls to the floor with a clatter. Sure enough, the two things at the doors heard the noise and slowly shuffled down the hallway towards the clip board.

"Well, this is my chance." You said to yourself as you took a run for the door. Your running alerts the things in the hallways to your presence, to which they all turn and start moving towards you.

You easily reach the door, but you find it locked with the same pin lock as earlier. You tug on the door, but it won't open. The things get closer and you get desperate. You back up a few steps and look at the glass window to the side of the door, which is about the same height, but very thin. You take a running leap at the window and manage to smash right through, but you get a little cut up along the way. Now you're back in the main building which seems completely deserted from the warning earlier. You make it to the centre of the room before you look back and notice all of the things trying to push their way past each other and through the window. One manages to get through but falls to the ground onto the glass. The next walks through, right over the last one and starts moving towards you. You take off running towards the exit where you see officers and the rest of the people who were in the building outside, past some caution tape. You throw the doors open and run past the group straight to the bus. Just as you board the bus, the things push the doors open and shamble outside. One of the officers rushed up to them to ask them if they need any help, but he was soon on the ground with the thing biting into his neck. The other things are starting to grab people at random and bite them, some of them simply let go of the person they bit after the did, so they could grab someone else and bite them. You tell driver to haul ass away from there and take you all back home.

You call your mom a second time and this time she answers.

"Mom! Don't go to the Science Center, I've already left with my class... Or what's left of it..."

"What do you mean 'what's left of it'?"

"Some people started going crazy and began biting and eating people, it's a damn hell hole back there!"

"Okay, meet me at home, I'm going to go and get your siblings from school."

Just then, two cars flew past the bus, one of them with a bloodied driver side window. The person looked like they were bitten on the arm, but that blood could have been anyone's.

After about a 20 minute drive, the driver pulled in to the school's parking lot and lets everyone off the bus. You immediately run into the school to your locker so you can grab your bag, then you haul ass back you your house in a matter of minutes. Good thing you live so close.

You get home and find the door locked like usual, so you pull out your key and open the door. You quickly shut the door and lock it again so as not to tempt fate. You run up the stairs to your room, drop your bag, them proceed to empty every pocket completely. You then proceed to accumulate all the items you would need to take with you in case you need to make a run from your neighborhood.

"Small tent, just in case... Flash light... Batteries... Pocket knife goes in my pocket... Duh... Sleeping bag strapped to the bottom... First aid kit... Uh... Phone charger... Toothbrush and toothpaste... Comb... Um... Uh... Damn, what else should I take...?" You run through to yourself.

Your clock reads _**1:32pm**_.

You go down to the closet by the front door and grab the wooden baseball bat you have and bring it upstairs with you.

_**1:36pm**_

You hear a loud crash down the street. You run to the front window and look down the street to see a car smashed into a telephone pole, all windows smashed out on impact. A woman runs over to see if the person is okay, but soon the woman is struggling against the hand holding her arm and pulling her into the car. The woman escapes, but not without losing a fair piece of her arm in the process. She runs back to her house and shuts the door. This will be the last time you ever see any one of the people ever again.

_**1:41pm**_

"Where are they? Mom should be back by now." You inquire to yourself.

_**1:55 pm**_

"Okay, come on guys, it a 5 minute drive, you should be here by now."

_**2:10pm**_

The first of the things start wandering in the streets, walking towards anything that moves and growling and moaning at every living being that they laid eyes on.

_**2:45pm**_

"Where the hell are they?"

_**3:30pm**_

"I hope they're alright..."

_**5:00pm**_

"Moms not picking up her phone."

_**7:00pm**_

Before 7 rolls around, you've already barricaded the front door and all ground level windows, as well as the stairs before holding up into your room with a can of soup for your dinner. You finish your cold meal and try to get to bed. Heaven forbid that these things outside ever stop moaning and growling and just be quiet.

That night, all you saw were the dead faces of your family in your nightmares. You just hoped they never become a reality.


	4. Chapter 3: Day One of the End

_Chapter 3: Day One of the End._

You awake to the sound of tires screeching a block or two away, which normally would never wake you up, yet today was different; today was one no one saw coming. No one was on their way to work. No one was going to get groceries. No one was still living to refresh their parking meter. No one was here, and yet, no one has left.

As you sit up from your bed, you glance to the window next to you. Grabbing your glasses, you place them in front of your eyes and glance out the window. You have a perfect view of your street, as your house is on the end, directly in the middle of a small round about. A dead end road. Both literally and figuratively. You can see everyone outside at their cars, their mail boxes and their neighbor's houses. They're all moving about, but without a real destination. Some stand still, others try to get into their houses. Each and every one of the people in the street below has a visible bite mark somewhere on their body, be it their neck, arm, or leg. No one outside is still alive, so how the hell are they still walking around?

"What the hell is happening? These people aren't alive... But they're not dead either..." You mumble to yourself.

Taking out your phone, you open up the camera and decide to take a few pictures and videos of everything going on. Upon zooming to focus on a... thing, halfway down the road, you notice it's an officer with his right ankle torn up, bones shining white in the early morning sunshine. The officer wasn't even able to move his foot anymore, it simply dragged across the ground when he walked... Shambled. The officer's arm jerks to the side and drops a small black object. Upon zooming in as far as possible, you notice that the officer has dropped his side arm, a 9mm beretta pistol, but it appears to be empty of ammunition. The officer turned to walk down the street towards your house and you notice the red drenched left side of the man's uniform. It looks as if the officer saved his last bullet to shoot himself in the heart. Too bad that didn't help him in the slightest.

Retreating from your window, you pull a curtain over it and quickly get dressed. Black long-sleeve shirt, black pants, belt, socks, black leather jacket. You like black clothes.

Baseball bat in hand, you cautiously open your door. Your upstairs looks to be clear of any living thing.

"Good, my barriers held up well. Makes sense, I built them." You think out loud. "I might not be as lucky downstairs, so I better be careful."

Navigating past your blocked off stairs seemed to be easy for someone who knew how to do so, but complicated never the less. With your bat raised over your head, you creep the last few steps down as slowly and quietly as you can. Peeking your head around the corner reveals a kitchen as dead as the things outside your house. Living room, empty. Dining room, vacant. Rec room, dead empty. You don't even bother checking the basement, it's so blocked off nothing could get through. You even pushed the couch into the stairwell to be on the safe side. The glass door in the basement would be way too much of a liability to leave unblocked. Your barricaded front door looks completely untouched, so you decide to finally calm down. You need food, and something that doesn't require cooking or electricity. If this infection has spread as fast as you saw it spread, then there's no way that the people regulating electricity will still be alive to help you cook your eggs and bacon.

Your assumptions were almost correct. The appliances were not in working order, but your smart fridge was easily able to keep itself nice and cold, preserving all the food therein. Grabbing the milk, one of the things that'll go off first, you pour yourself a large bowl of cereal and get to eating.

Just after starting, a thumping sound starts to come from the basement. After opening the door to the basement to check on your barricade, you become satisfied that no one, living of course, will ever be able to get through and return to your cereal. Moments later, a louder thump, accompanied by a slight cracking sound comes again from the basement. Someone, or something is trying to get through the door. The question is; is it inside the house, or outside?

You spare yourself mere seconds to finish your breakfast before you throw your jacket on and grab your bat before heading back the the basement door. Upon opening the door for the second time, you see that nothing has changed, showing that nothing has tried to access the stairwell. You start to climb over the arm of the couch and work your way down the length of it towards the half way mark on the stairs, represented by a 180 degree turn leading down the rest of the steps to the basement. Whatever is making the noise is now making so much that it wouldn't even notice you making your way to the bottom of the stairs. After climbing over the far end of the couch and onto the stairs, you look to the basement which opens into a wide open, concrete floored area, which houses your brother's room off to the left of the stairs, blocked off by a wall your brother made out of planks of wood and a tarp between them. To the right will be the work station your dad used to use, now just holding his tool boxes and your siblings' bicycles, as well as the sliding glass door leading to your back yard and the forested area behind the house. The floor is flecked with small droplets of blood near a sink on the far side of the room, with some more drops leading towards (or away from) the back door.

"Someone was bleeding down here... Was it Brady?... Could he have survived?" You whisper.

***Thump thump - SMASH***

Whatever was banging on the door just broke through. You poke your head around the corner of the wall and look to the right towards the door to assess the situation.

On the outside of the door lays a male in an orange tank top and board shorts, with short brown hair and sunglasses on his face. This is undoubtably Brady. Your heart falls as you see your older brother laying spread eagle on his front, on top of the glass outside of your home's back door. Peering past him into the yard, you see a man, probably homeless from the look of him, flat on his back in the middle of the yard. Your breakfast threatens to come back up when you see the man's face. It looks like Brady got to him before you even got home yesterday. He's laying on the grass with a wrench through the top of the man'a skull, revealing his brain which appears to be oozing out of the carnage which has befallen this man's head. He was assuredly dead, completely dead, not like the things walking around outside. Noticing your brother stirring outside, you rush over to check on him, hoping to see him still alive.

"Brady! Brady, get up, these things are everywhere, we need to get upstairs where we're safe!" You tell your brother.

Under Brady, you notice a small pool of blood accumulating near his head. Crouching down beside him, you shake him a little to rouse him into consciousness. He begins to move around, moaning a little, probably because he just fell through a glass door onto the broken glass. You shake him until he starts to lift his arms next to his shoulders so he can push himself up onto his feet. As he starts to push himself up, a few drops of blood fall from his chin and into the pool beneath him. You shake him one last time before he turns to face you, revealing the hell he went through over the course of the last 24 hours. Brady's eyes were glazed over and bloodshot. His face was covered in his own blood, mainly from the pool he was just laying in, but mainly from the gaping gash across his neck caused from the glass he was laying on moments before. His eyes turned towards you as he opened his mouth and let out a groan, one the likes of which no human would normally make. Brady's moving as if he just woke up from a knock out fight. Very slow, uncoordinated, his eyes unable to focus on your face, even though he was only a foot away. You know that this is your brother, but he's not who he was yesterday. You're forced to take a few steps back to avoid Brady grabbing you and pulling you in so he can bite you and transmit the virus.

"No... How could you let this happen Brady? Mom, Sam, Chrissy, now you?... This shit is too fucking intense... I needed someone to be with me through this..." You cry out. You start pacing the yard, taking care to avoid Brady and the deceased man on the grass.

Brady is now attempting to push himself up and onto his feet. Due to his recent re-animation, his balance is so off he'd be lucky to stay standing if he managed to get himself upright. Managing to steady himself on the door frame, Brady slowly started to walk towards you, into the yard. Coming to grips with what you now have to do, you tighten your grip on your bat and steel your nerves.

"Rest in peace brother." Was all you said before you brought the bat up and connected with Brady's jaw, knocking him off his feet and onto his back.

You must have a pretty good swing, because Brady's jaw now hung loose off of the rest of his head. Brady immediately began to stir again, trying to rise to his feet so he can try and attack you again. Raising your bat in anticipation, as soon as Brady got to his feet the second time, you brought the bat down right on top of his head with a gut twisting crunch. Dropping to his knees, he slowly looked up into your face before you smashed his in. Three successive smashes later, and your brother would be completely unrecognizable. Jaw hanging off, bloody, broken nose, and entire left side of his head and face caved in to destroy the front of his brain. Not even making sure he's completely dead, you drop to your hands and knees and introduce the lawn to your breakfast. After your dry heaves finally cease, you look again at your bother, now motionless and completely and undoubtably dead.

Grabbing your bat, now bloodied, you head back into the house to see what you can get before you head out to assess how bad the infection has hit your city. You also need to find something a little more effective at killing these things, as well as some survivors if possible.

Knowing Brady might have some good supplies in his room, you decide that's the best place to start looking. Everything's better when when it's closer to home.

After pulling back the tarp, you notice a ripped up tee shirt and some blood on the floor. After quickly returning to the back yard, you pull Brady's shirt up to reveal a strip of fabric wrapped around his stomach with a bloodied patch on his side.

"I bet that guy tried to take a chunk out you, eh brother?" You say to Brady's dead body before turning and going back into his room.

Checking under Brady's bed, you pull out a small locked metal box. Luckily Brady leaves his keys everywhere except his pockets, so a quick once-over of his room revealed his keys on his side table. Opening the box, you notice Brady's stash of pot and a few condoms, as well as a few hundred dollars in $20 bills which you take and place in your own wallet. After finding nothing else of use, you close the box and toss it onto Brady's bed. His room yields nothing else other than a pocket knife and handheld radio, one which Brady used to talk to his friend without having to pay for a cell phone. The charging cable is easy to find next, and with that, you head back up the stairs, over the couch, and back into the rest of your house.

"This house is the safest place I can be... But it could also be the place I die... Along with my brother..." You've recently taken to thinking out loud, something you hope will keep you sane instead of making you go crazy. One can only hope.

Running back up to your room, you open your closet and grab your duffel bag and put it on your bed. Two pairs of pants, five shirts, two sweaters and ten pairs of socks later, and you now have clothing covered in the more likely scenario that you'll have to grab this bag and leave your home. You've already used up a fairly large amount of the space in your bag, so if you want to take anything else, you'll have to pack it in and use your backpack as well. You decide that using your school bag would be a more logical answer, because you could wear both bags at the same time, therefore maximizing the amount of gear you can carry.

With your duffel bag used for clothing, you decide to use your backpack for more crucial pieces of gear, like the radio, which you put onto your left strap. You use the rest of the bag's main space to hold your first aid kit, glasses case, a few cans of soup, and other small items like glow sticks, duct tape, and hygiene items. After attaching your sleeping bag to the bottom of your bag, you step back to admire your work.

Stashing both packs into your closet, you take only the bare necessities for your excursion into your neighborhood. Both pocket knives, hopefully you're going to find something a wee bit better in some houses along the way. The radio in your inner jacket pocket, just in case someone broadcasts an emergency message, and last but certainly not least, a few granola bars which you took out of the wrapping so you could put them into a plastic baggy so as to minimize the amount of noise they will make in your pocket.

With all the gear you have stored in your jacket pockets, and your trusty bat in hand, you're ready to venture straight into hell. Or downtown, whatever comes first.

Deciding to sneak out the back door so you don't alert the things outside to your presence, you open your basement door and climb over the couch resting therein. You grab the extra flashlight in your dads old toolbox and clip it to your belt so you can have it on hand at all times, even though it's only about 9:00am.

Stepping over Brady's body, you hop the neighbor's fence and up to their back door. Taking out your flashlight, you flick it on and glance inside. Your heart skips a beat when you see what looks like a person staring back, but upon closer inspection you see that's it's only a life size Santa Clause. Creepy. You try to slide the door open, but it won't give.

"Well, I guess I'm not always going to be so lucky from now on..."

Continuing over fences and backyards, you make your way around your neighborhood. About four houses down, you see one of your neighbors wandering around their backyard, obviously infected.

Time for some quick strategizing. Do you take her head on and hope for the best? Or do you make a distraction and take her out quickly and quietly? Or maybe you should pass her by completely and just go around into another yard to get around. Looking over the fence, you see her back door wide open, but her basement looks bloody, like someone exploded in there. Still, you know that you're only going to survive if you both get rid of these monsters, as well as scavenge for useful supplies. Grabbing a rock from your current yard, you put it on top of the fence before ghetto hopping over. The lady didn't seem to notice you, so you're still in the clear. With the rock in your left hand and your bat in your right, you prepare for your second kill, something you hoped you'd never have to do again, but logic told you you'd be forced to eventually. Luckily these things are already dead, so it doesn't really count right? Yeah, right.

Taking careful aim, you underhand toss the rock past the lady so that it lands in a bush, causing it to shake. The lady monster must have taken the bait, because she started moving towards the bush. With speed and stealth, you walk up behind her and prepare to strike.

"Sorry." Was all that left your lips before you brought the bat down into the back of her skull. You're again surprise by your strength, because the lady immediately drops and ceases to move. You take one more swing into her head to ensure re-death before checking her for anything useful, not that you plan to find anything. This isn't a video game, no one keeps shotguns in the back pockets.

You find a small amount of money in her front pocket, which you take, but nothing else. You glance sideways to peer into the basement of this house and find the source of the blood tornado. What remains of a man laid in the middle of the room, violently torn apart from the waist up to his neck. His chest was torn open and picked clean, only small amounts of innards remain, which are already starting to draw flies. You cautiously approach the man, because who knows, he might still have turned into an undead freak. As soon as you get close, the man's eyes open and turn towards you, causing you to jump about a foot in the air. He seems to be paralyzed, maybe someone broke his back? Whatever happened, he's still kickin, and that's bad news to you, so he's got to go. Raising your bat again, you bring it down twice, destroying the man's cranium to make sure he's gone for good.

Glancing up from your work, you notice a small pile boxes labeled "M.R.E." Or "meal ready to eat." The military use these, so why shouldn't you? Picking up the boxes, you place them by the back door and look back into the room. A small can of spray paint rested on a shelf nearby, so you took it and marked an "X" outside and beside the door in bright green paint to mark a house that has food you can take. The rest of the basement only contains miscellaneous junk and a washing machine, so you walk over to the stairs and stop to listen. You wait well over a minute, so when you don't hear any movement upstairs, you conclude that it's safe to go up, but you still do so with caution.

The basement door leads into a kitchen, one with the fridge door wide open and a carton of eggs splattered on the floor. Stepping over the mess and into what appears to be the living room, you see a smashed widescreen TV and an overturned coffee table, but no one else in the room. This house has two sets of stairs leading to the upstairs portion of the house, so you decide that either has the same potential, so going left or right won't change where you end up.

The upstairs looks almost identical to your own house. Four bedrooms and a bathroom halfway down the hall in the same layout as your home. Noticing only one closed door, you clear the other rooms first so you don't have to worry about an ambush from a flesh eating monster child. One bedroom yielded a second baseball bat, along with an unopened bottle of water, which you happily drank on the spot. The next didn't have anything, but the third held a bow and three arrows hidden under some clothes in the closet. You weren't expecting a decent weapon so soon into your raid of the houses you were planning on looting, but you're not complaining, you just became an archer.

The bathroom was clear, but you still had to inspect the fourth room, the one where yours would be. After loading an arrow into the bow, you reach to open the door, then slowly turn the handle and push it open.

Drawing the bow back and aiming into the room, you slowly advance. You soon notice that the room is free of people, but not free of supplies. This room must have belonged to a prepper; a person who prepares and takes defensive strategies for a certain type of disaster, such as a tornado or economic collapse. Yet it looks like this person's preps were for nothing, since they won't get to use them, ever. But hey, you will.

There was so much stuff in here that you'd have to take multiple trips just to move all of their supplies to your house down the road, but for now you're only taking what you need. The person's backpack, labeled "B.O.B." For "bug out bag." You don't even have to look inside to know that this person is packing some serious gear, since a glimpse around their room would be more than enough evidence to support your assumptions that this person was serious about this stuff through and through. The next are a few maps of the city and surrounding area, all laminated to prevent damage. Once the electronics turn off for good, you'll need these to get around better. You find a few survival knives in a separate kit, stashed underneath the bed. Someone did you a favor and left them in their boxes, so you know their exact specs, down to the amount of dollars this person spent on them. You found Cold Steels, K-Bars, Beckers, and some Schrades. After remembering some videos you watched online, you remember that you had a certain fondness for Schrades. They're affordable, quality knives that anyone could get their hands on. The only one you take is the "Schrade SCHF10, a 1/4 inch thick, fixed blade knife which was sharpened to a razor edge.

"Oh ho! Nice find Allan!" You say towards yourself.

After attaching the knife's sheath to your belt, you start packing everything up that you're taking and put it all on. You kept the can of spray paint in your jacket pocket, so you exit the room and spray a green "X" across the door before heading back downstairs. Knowing you need at least one free hand, you take the time to strap both your bats your the side, then you pick up the pack again, as well as your new bow, then you head back down to the basement. You close the house's basement door, but you leave it open a little so you can still get back in later.

The next three yards to the end of the street pass uneventfully, something you're happy for. Climbing fences became a bit harder with a pack on, but not so hard that you can't handle it. When you reach the end of the road, a thought dawns on you. Earlier that day, you noticed a police officer in the road, one who dropped his gun, which was unfortunately empty, but what if he had some more ammunition on him, or in his car, which had to be nearby, since these things don't move unless there's someone to eat near by.

The house you arrived at has a walkway beside it which leads to the street, in which you can see a few of those things shambling about. Without even thinking about what you're just about to do, you drop your bag and take out your flashlight. You poke your head around the corner towards the street and locate the officer. His face is turned towards you, but he doesn't see you just yet. You point the flashlight at him and flick the switch a few times, then duck down and pick up your bow. If your plan worked, then he would be drawn towards the back yard where you'll be waiting, then you'll put an arrow through his skull at close range and loot his body. Simple.

Standing about ten feet from the corner, you load an arrow and wait. Sure enough, the sound of feet around the corner alerts you to your company. The officer had barely peaked around the corner before an arrow blew through the side of his skull, dropping him like a rock. Slow moving targets are easy pickings, maybe you could make a day out of getting rid of every monster on your street to make transporting your plunder easier. You know what? That'll be a job for tomorrow, today is scouting. You drag the uniformed man around the corner into the yard and begin to examine your findings. Sure enough, one 9mm magazine sits unused in his belt pouch next to his empty holster. The mace won't do you any good against someone who doesn't feel pain, so that can stay. The medical gloves and handcuffs will stay also, so the only thing other than the magazine that you take is the badge, a memento of your kill. Glancing into the street, none of the people seem to he looking towards the house you're hiding behind, nor the gun near the curb. After taking a few deep breaths, you start your journey towards the pistol laying on the ground. It's out in the open, but close enough that you can grab it and still make your way back without being seen. From the edge of the house and the fence to the gun is about 15 feet, but it feels like 15 miles to you. With the fact that there's about 35-40 flesh eating freaks in the street who would love to have you for lunch, you second guess whether it's worth getting. Then you slap yourself and think "I can defend myself from anyone and anything with that, of course it's worth getting!"

After double and triple checking the road in both directions to be sure none of the people are looking your way, you procrastinate no longer. Crouching low, you quickly walk over to the curb, reach out, and touch the cold metal of the pistol with you fingers. You pick up the weapon, quickly glance around, then almost run straight back into the yard where the dead officer lay. You spend your next few minutes on high alert, wanting to make sure you weren't spotted before you assess your load out. The pistol is a 9mm beretta, and you have a full 15 round magazine, which means an easy 15 kills if your smart in how you use your bullets. You load the magazine into the pistol and release the slide to load the weapon. With your new weapon, you feel unstoppable, but you know that other people who have survived will surely have bigger and better guns than your pistol, but for the time being, it's more than enough. Taking a few minutes to relieve the officer of his holster so you may add it to your own belt proves to be useful, since you can't carry a gun and a bow and be expected to use either at the same time.

After saying a silent thank you to the dead officer, you take the keys hanging from his pocket and place them in your own. You never know, his cruiser might have more supplies, and you now hold the keys to get them, both figuratively and literally.

Looking back on your last 24 hours, you see just how much you've changed and how much you've lost. You were one of the only survivors at ground zero where this plague started, you escaped, got home, barricaded yourself in and survived the night. All this, yet you were also forced to kill four people so far. Two neighbors, a complete stranger, and your very own brother. Thinking back to what you said to him, "Mom, Sam, Chrissy, now you?" Seemed to hit a particularly tense chord within you. You said those words without knowing if they were true. You told your dead brother that your entire family was dead, but you had no evidence to prove your theory, but no evidence to disprove it either. This was your new goal, to find your family, or what's left of it, and survive, or die trying. If you meet any survivors along the way, they'll be free to come along also, that is, as long as they can help you in some way. If they're useless to you, or they'll just slow down your plans, then you'll hand them a can of food and send them on their merry way. After retrieving your arrow from the officer's skull, and with your newly acquired weapons at hand, you jump the last fence and make your way across the street and up the hill towards your school. Making sure you weren't spotted, you turn and look towards the downtown of the city.

The whole of the downtown region is clearly visible atop your hill, making it an excellent vantage point for future reference. From what you can make out, the streets are completely clogged with people's cars from when they all tried to leave at once.

Poor bastards, didn't even have the smarts to wait for a day before leaving. Most of them would have survived with their friends and families if not for this mistake. You can see only two cars which crashed through the walls of buildings, but neither started fires, so the city isn't going to burn down. There's hundreds of those things wandering around between cars and across roads, probably 10x more that you can't see, and even more that were devoured completely by these freaks. Most of the picture was filled with unmoving cars and slowly moving monsters; no living humans anywhere.

"Everyone's dead... I'm the only one left... Shit, this is going to be hard... But I'm going to like it." You say to yourself.

Killing these undead freaks has been way too simple for you, and a little fun too. You could say that you're on a kill streak, just like in your video games, except here you can't pause and reload a level so you can do better, here, it's kill or be killed, something that hasn't troubled you yet.

Tuning back around, you see your school in the distance, past some trees. Not sure what you hope to accomplish by going back to your school, you stand up and make your way towards the familiar rut you've carved between the trees.


	5. Chapter 4: School Yard Savior

_Chapter 4: School Yard Savior._

The side doors to the school sit about 50 feet from the edge of the trees. Unfortunately, the gap in between is completely open and easily visible to anyone who could be looking out of a window, living or dead.

Deciding that it would be suicidal to enter the school with so much gear on your back, you choose a tree close to the edge of the woods and pull yourself up into the middle region, where you won't be seen. You decide to stash the bag in the tree, laying it across two branches fairly close to each other so that it won't fall or be seen. You climb back down with only your pistol, knife, and your used baseball bat. Making sure you know where you hid your bag, you use the last of the spray paint to make an arrow pointing up towards it on the side of the tree facing away from the school.

Crouching low in the overgrown grass around you, you examine the school. Three ground floor windows were smashed out, but only a little glass was on the ground outside the window, so whatever or whoever broke it must have been breaking in. All the upstairs windows had their blinds shut, none of them moving. Just as you're about to move to the doors, an upstairs window opens and a bald man with tattoos on his neck leans out with a cigarette. Laying low in the grass, you watch as the man finishes his smoke, then struggles to lift a large bag up and out of the window. The bag fell out the window to the ground below and landed length wise, showing that it was about six feet long, about as big as a person. You hear the man chuckle as he shuts the window and closes the blinds. Taking your chance, you quickly jog over to the body bag to see just who's inside, hopefully you don't find anyone you knew. Making sure you're crouching below window level, you open the end of the bag and reveal a girl's face, one you recognize to be your friend's little sister Emily. You're inner fury boils to the surface as you find out that whatever sick sons of bitches are in your school are killing the students, the children which were there when the outbreak hit. You see the method of execution, a gun shot to the head as you're closing the bag back around this poor girl's head. You almost yell in fear as you hear the window open a second time, signaling the arrival of the man once again. With a split section reaction, you dive to your side into the door frame where you'll be out of sight from the men inside the building.

"Toss the skank out, she's no use anymore. We've got all this fresh meat here to work with! Now, which one do you want?" Says the gruff voice from the window.

"I want the little blonde one over in the corner, so get her ready." Says another voice.

You hear a grunt as one of the men lifts another victim over the window sill and drops her to the ground. This body you see, doesn't get the privilege of a bag to cover her, in fact, she has nothing on at all. Her head has a similar hole blown through it like the last girl, but her face is beat red from crying, something you presume ended only a few minutes ago. The girl, an intermediate, maybe seventh grade, lay in front of you now, on top of the previous girl. No doubts cross your mind when you realize that these men aren't just killing children, they're raping them too, and it needs to stop now.

Once you hear the window close again, you spring up from the door and walk along the wall to one of the busted out windows. Making sure you're not putting your hand onto any broken glass, you step up and climb through the window.

The room you arrive in appears to be an intermediate room, since "grade 8" is written on the door, which lay open and bloody.

"From the looks of it, everyone alive is upstairs." You think out loud. "I'll mark this room as 'safe' so I can get out later, hopefully with someone else."

You grab the brightest colored backpack in the room and place it in the centre of the door frame so that it will be visible from either direction in the hall. After that, you check the hallway to see if it's clear of dead people. There's only two standing in the hall, but only one is looking your way, so you're still fine.

Remembering your encounter at the science centre the day before, you note that these things get attracted to noise. You retreat to the teacher's over turned desk and open one of the drawers. When you glance out the door again, the closest monster, the one looking in your direction must have heard you open the drawer, because it's on it's way towards the room. Crouching a few feet from the door, you wait in silence as the creature scrapes it's feet into the room. It turns its head to survey the room for the source of the noise, but before its eyes land on you, you've already jumped up and driven your knife through the roof of its mouth and into it's brain. You have to catch the body as it falls so you don't alert the other, which is hard since it weighs about 50lbs more than you do.

Planting your foot on the thing's chest, you pull your blade out and wipe off the creature's blood onto its shirt. You spend another minute or so pulling the dead body out of the doorway and into the room, then you exit the classroom and glance down the hall at your second target, a student in your year. She's looking towards the staircase leading off to the side of the hall you're in and up to the second level of the school. You crouch low and begin to work your way towards her from behind, trying not to make a noise so she won't spot you.

***BAM!***

A gunshot rings from above your head as you deduce that another student was shot dead on the floor above. The girl in front of you turns towards you and releases a slow growl as she starts to move towards you. Cursing your luck and the men upstairs, you raise your bat and prepare to bash the girls head in. The girl stumbles over a book laying in the hallway, so taking the opportunity, you bring the bat down on top of her head, throwing her to the floor. You jump onto the girl's back and pin her down, only to pull out your knife once again and drive it through the back of her skull into her brain.

Total score: six kills. Six more than you ever hoped to accomplish.

Upon opening the door to the stairwell, you notice that the barbarians on the floor above actually had the brain capacity to build a barricade at the top of the stairs to keep the flesh eaters out. Luckily for you, a few desks aren't going to hold you back. After glancing over them to check for any guards, you use a combination of the handrail and a desk to make your way over the barricade and into the school's top floor.

The doors beyond the barricade are propped open by the means of textbooks and desks, but still leaving enough room to walk through. The hallway you enter into is dead empty, but you keep your eyes and ears open none the less. A quarter the way down the hall, you pass the boys bathroom, which is pitch black from the lack of lights. As you're examining said darkness, a door at the end of the hall opens. You stealthily jump into the bathroom and move to the far wall. You hear footsteps coming down the hall towards you, so you feel for the nearest stall and walk into it, but you leave the door open. Using the last few seconds you have, you take your knife out of its sheath and prop your bat against the toilet. The footsteps turn into the bathroom and you hear a person walk towards the first stall in the line, two down from where you now stand. You hear the man's zipper open and the sound of his piss hitting the water. Using his own piss sounds as auditory camouflage, you creep your way out of your stall and towards his. With your knife in hand, you stop behind the man and take aim. You don't who he is or where he came from, but you're going to kill him to stop what he's doing to your fellow students. Just as the man finishes relieving himself and zips up his pants, you reach forward, grabbing his shoulder, and plunge your knife into his throat to stop him from yelling for help. You stand there for a minute holding him down until his movements cease, then you pull your blade out, clean it, and return it to its sheath. You wait for the sound of more footsteps, but you hear none, so anyone else who's here is still in the room at the end of the hall.

Taking your flashlight out, you flick it on to see if the man has anything useful on him, maybe another gun so you can blow away the other man for what he's done to these students.

***BAM!***

That's at least four dead in the time you've been here. You need to stop these people and quick. The man you recently killed only had a bandoleer with a few shotgun shells left in it, so you take your loot, sling it over your body, and proceed down the hall, leaving your bat in the bathroom.

As you get nearer to the classroom where the man left from, you hear the sound of crying. There's still people alive in that room!

"NO! Don't touch me you fucker! Leave me alone!" You hear a girl yell from inside the room.

***Smack!***

"Don't mouth off to me bitch, I'll kill you as easily as I killed your slutty little friends!" Says the voice you heard that tossed the bodies out the window. "Don't think that you're getting off the hook just cause Mike isn't back yet, I'll still fuck you and blow your brains out without him."

"Wrong you piece of shit!" You yell as you throw the door open and draw your pistol. In a split second, your mind is forced to comprehend a number of things.

One: where the man is, and where you have to aim.

Two: the half dozen, half naked girls tied up on the floor next to him.

Three: the shotgun laying on the desk next to the man.

Four: the pistol stuffed down the front of his pants, the very one he's reaching for.

Five: the fact that you've never shot a gun before.

***BLAM! BLAM!***

Two shots to the chest drops the man like a sack of rocks. The gun, now in the man's hand, gets thrown across the room when he lands on his back next to the girls. The closest girl lifts her leg and gives his body a few swift kicks to the head before calming down and moving back against the wall.

First order of business, free these girls. With your gun back in its holster, you take out your knife and cut the girls' bindings, which happen to be made out of their own shirts and pants.

With the last girl untied, you cross the room and pick up the man's gun, a .357 revolver. Four chambers empty, two full. The girls all rise to their feet to look at you holding his gun.

"Are you going to help us, or let us go and fend for ourselves?" Asks one of the older girls, probably a twelfth grader.

"Both." You reply. "Can you check his body to see if he has more ammo?"

"I'm not going near that fucker! He raped my friend then killed her right in front of me! I don't want anything to do with him ever again!" She yells back.

"Fucking chill! I'm sorry about what happened to your friends, I truly am, but he's dead now, he's not going to hurt you ever again." You reply.

"What did you mean when you said you would both help us and make us fend for ourselves?" Asked a younger girl.

You walk over to the man's body and feel in his pockets and pull out four spare bullets, ten in total, one for each of the girls who was here. Loading the gun full again, you hold it out to the oldest girl in the room, the twelfth grader.

"Here, take it. You'll need it." You say to the girl. "This is me helping you, but you're not coming with me, so you're all on your own. I'm giving you the gun so you can protect these other girls. Use it with caution though, you only have six shots left."

"Oh yeah? What's stopping me from shooting you right now and taking your stuff for myself?" Asks the older girl.

"I just saved your life, plus I'm still holding my gun, still with enough bullets to finish off all of you." You say back.

"Hmm... Okay, I guess you're right. Now, what are we supposed to do? We only have one gun and no idea what's out there waiting for us. We watched those guys take away my teacher and we haven't seen her since. We also have young girls who've seen more than I would have liked." She says.

"Down the hall, there's a boys bathroom, inside you'll find a baseball bat propped against the far toilet and a dead guy in the first stall. Take the bat and be ready to use it. I don't know if there are any more of those things downstairs, but they'll try to bite you, eating you if possible. Don't let them do either, if you're bitten, you'll die and turn into one of them." You tell the girls.

"Whoa whoa, back up! There's people downstairs who are eating other people? This sounds like some zombie bullshit to me." Says one of the other girls.

"Zombies eh? That's what your going to call them? It does make sense though. People biting each other and eating them, transferring a virus around via said biting, dying then coming back to life. I've been smashing their heads in and that's worked just fine so far, so maybe these things are zombies." You say.

"Well, whatever they are, we aren't going to stick around and fight, we're going home." Says the younger girl. "I want to see my mom and dad."

"I guess this'll be goodbye then. I hope you all find your families and are able to survive." You tell the group. "Before you go, are there any more people in the building that I should save as well?" You ask.

"Um... I think they locked a guy up a few doors down, but they might have killed him, so I'm now sure. Anyway, thanks for saving us mr...?"

"Allan."

"Well Allan, you're a real hero, you know that? The bat's in the bathroom right? Let's go girls, we need to get home."

And with that, the group of girls left to follow their own path through this hell on earth. Part of you wanted to bring them with you, but six girls, all of them scared out of their minds, with only a few extra weapons and barely enough food for all of you proved your wants to be redundant. If they came with you, you could surely die. By sending them on their own, you freed yourself of the responsibility of taking care of them and the eventual guilt that would come from one of them dying while under your watch.

Seeing as how none of them seemed to notice the shotgun during all the commotion, you pick it up and try to load a shell, but stop when you notice it's already fully loaded. Pleased by your decision to explore your school, you set out into the hall just as the group of girls emerge from the bathroom, the oldest with the gun and the girl next to her with the bat.

"Thanks again!" The older one calls. She then waves at you, then leads the rest of the group down the hall.

"Wait!" You call out. "Take the stairs at the end of the hall, they lead downstairs into an empty hall. I already killed the... Zombies... That were there. Look for the room that has a colorful backpack in the door frame. That class's window in smashed out, so you can use that to escape unnoticed."

"Thanks! I owe you one big time." She calls back.

You stand and watch as the last girl leaves over the barricade before turning and walking down the hall towards where they said there might be another survivor. The first two classes are completely empty, but the third's door is locked from the inside. You knock on the door and ask if anyone is alive inside. You don't get an answer, so you decide to go in anyway to check. Your first two kicks do nothing to the door, leaving it still locked as ever, but desperate times calls for desperate measures. Lifting your shotgun over your head, you bring the butt end down and take the handle of the door clean off. Next, you take out your knife and wiggle the door nob on the other side loose, opening the door.

Aiming your shotgun, you kick the door open and step inside. At first you don't think anyone's in here, but then you notice the feet sticking out from behind an overturned teacher's desk. Slowly walking around the desk with your shotgun loaded and aimed at the body, you take your last few steps before seeing a very familiar face.

Your best friend Alex had survived the end of the world.


	6. Chapter 5: Two Kinds of Treasure

_Chapter 5: Two Kinds of Treasure._

"Alex? You ok?" You call out.

Alex doesn't move. You fear for the worst, but hope that he's only been knocked out. You don't see any blood on or around him, nor any bites on his body. You move closer to him, but still making sure your shotgun is level with his head. Using your foot, you give one of his a quick nudge. Nothing. A harder kick. Nothing.

***Click click***

"OKAY OKAY! I WAS FAKING, DONT SHOOT!" Alex yells as he throws his arms up to shield his face.

"You son of bitch! I thought you were dead! I was ready to take your head off so you couldn't turn!" You tell your friend.

"Why the fuck do you have a shotgun? And pistol... And knife... You look like fuckin Rambo... And where are those two fuckers who knocked me out and threw me in here?" Alex asks.

"Both dead, and brutally killed I might add. They were doing terrible things to the girls they captured a few doors down." You tell him.

"What the hell! Where were the police through all this? Where are the rest of the teachers and kids? Those freaks wouldn't just let them go." Alex says.

"It seems like those creeps only took the girls. I don't know if they killed anyone else or let them go. As for the police, I wouldn't blame them if they are all hiding in their basements crying or running for their damn lives." You reply.

"Dude, tell me what's going on! Why is everyone freaking out and going all weird and shit?" He asks.

"Ok, this may be hard for you to comprehend, but we're facing the end if the world as we know it." You tell your friend.

Alex's face turns from panic to disbelief. He just drops his head and shakes it like you're wrong and you don't know it yet.

"So you're telling me you just barged into school, guns-a-blazing to take out those two fuckers 'just cause'? You're killing people 'just cause'? Where's your evidence? Prove to me that the world's gone to shit over the course of one night." He says.

"Okay." You respond.

Walking over to a window, you pull back the blinds and let some light into the room. Signaling for Alex to get up and come to the window, you stand back and hold the curtain open for him to look out.

"What am I looking at? There's nothing..." He trails off. "What the absolute fuck? Is that guy... Eating that other guy?" He asks.

"Yup. We're facing a zombie apocalypse. As hard as it is to understand, those people outside aren't alive anymore. They're undead, flesh eating monsters who will stop at nothing to bite and transmit the virus." You tell Alex.

"So that's why the school's empty. Everyone tried to leave once they saw someone eating another person. And those fuckers down the hall took advantage of this school. Tell me, what exactly were they doing when you stopped them?" He asks.

"I'd rather not tell you if that's okay." You reply.

"Tell me. Otherwise, I'll just say you came in and murdered the people taking refuge in the school... Even if they did hit me and throw me in here." Alex says.

"Fine. Those two assholes were raping the girls, killing them, then throwing their bodies out the window for the zombies to eat. I shanked the first guy in the neck, then I shot the other twice in the chest before he raped another girl. I set the girls free, gave them a gun and a baseball bat, then sent them home to reunite with their families." You explain.

"Omg... Those fuckers deserved to die. Good for you bud, you did the right thing. But I still have a few more questions, where did you get the guns in the first place?" Alex asks.

"Oh, the fucker down the hall had this one," you hold up the shotgun. "and the pistol I got off a dead cop. The guy who had the shotgun also had a revolver, but I gave that to the girls." You say.

"And that knife?"

"Looted a house and found it." You tell him.

"Nice... Nice... Is there any way I'll get a weapon? I want to shoot a bitch up!" Alex exclaims.

"Whoa, slow down there bud, those zombies are attracted to noise, so popping off a few rounds will draw them all in. I've only ever shot this thing," you motion to your side arm. "twice, and that was to take out the thug down the hall. Other than that, I've used a bat a few times, my knife a few more, and a bow and arrow once." You explain. "Here, take this." You say as you hold out the shotgun. "One of us needs the heavy firepower, and you're stronger than I am, plus you've hunted before, so this'll be natural to you. Take the extra shells too." You add.

"That's bro. Now let's go, I don't want to hold up in a school 'till I die." Alex tells you.

"Ok, I'll lead you back to my place, I've already boarded it up to stop the zombies from getting in, plus I have plenty of food and bottled water to last for a while. Mind if we make a few pit stops along the way?" You ask.

"Nah man, do whatever you like. I'm following you wherever you go." Alex replies.

You walk over to the door and look into the hallway. It's as dark and empty as you left it, so you motion for Alex to follow you and you make your way down the hall. You stop outside the room where the girls were being held and show Alex the two empty bullet casings on the ground, then the man laying on his back in the room. Alex's eyes widen, but he just nods and walks past you further down the hall. You bypass the bathroom where the other man lay dead and continue towards the barricaded stairwell.

"Up and over." You tell Alex.

When Alex is done hopping the desks, you hoist yourself up and drop to the far side. Taking out your gun, you notion for Alex to be ready. You open the doors at the bottom and aim into the hall, looking left and right shows that there's no more zombies in the hall, so you lead Alex down towards the classroom you marked with the backpack and lead him in.

"Holy shit! Did you do that?" Alex questions as he sees the dead body's on the floor.

"Yeah, had to." You reply. "Watch when you're jumping through the window, there's broken glass everywhere."

"Holy shit.. This is for real... People are dead... Zombies everywhere... Was it only our city that got hit?" Alex asks.

"To be honest, I don't think so. The virus spread like wildfire. It started at the science center yesterday when I was there. Some dipshit tour guide tried to do an experiment and accidentally released the virus as an airborne gas, which he must have inhaled. He turned within the minute and started attacking people. He got through six others before I escaped, but as I was escaping I was forced to let the infected out as well. They started attacking people in the surrounding area and some who were bitten raced back to the city. The virus was already here and spreading by the time I got back, so it presumably got to other cities as well." You tell your friend.

Stepping onto the window sill, you jump to the ground and take out your pistol. After aiming around and making sure no zombies were close by, you turn to help Alex cross through. His height proves to make this a little more difficult, but after smashing out a little more glass he's free to jump out.

"So, which way's your house?" He asks.

"Just follow me, we're going to take a little detour to pick up some things along the way." You explain.

You cross the open area between the school and the woods, then you locate your tree and begin to climb. With Alex on the ground as a lookout, you have no worries as you retrieve your bag. You put on your bag and take out the bow, then you connect the chest strap so that it fits snugly on your torso. You must look as badass as you feel, because upon seeing your bag, Alex's jaw drops.

"Where the fuck... You know what, never mind. You didn't tell me you had a pack with you." He says.

"Well, I didn't bring it into the school because that would be stupid. It would limit my movement and slow me down, two things which can now be deadly." You explain.

"Damn, you've got this all worked out don't you?" Alex asks.

"Kinda. I'm still not sure how we're supposed to get more food and water once we loot some houses and eat it all, but other than that, I feel like we stand a fighting chance." You tell Alex.

"We better. I don't want to have all these weapons and supplies, just to die when the first zombie shows up." He tell you.

"Speaking of supplies, you need your energy if you're going to help me move supplies to my place, so here, eat these." You say as you hold out the baggy of granola bars.

"Thanks man, I haven't eaten since yesterday morning." He tells you before inhaling the granola bars.

"Feeling better?" You ask.

"Lots." Alex replies. "Hey, you ever play that game "The Last of Us"? It's pretty relevant right about now." He asks.

"Yeah, a bit. I never beat it though, so what's it got to do with this?" You ask.

"Well, you're kinda reminding me of Joel a bit. You've got a sick backpack full of gear, a bow, pistol, shotgun, baseball bat. You snuck into the school to save people. You're practically Joel himself." Alex explains.

"So what does that make you? Ellie?" You say with a chuckle.

"Ha ha, very funny."

At that moment, the woods stop and you and your friend step out into the field. Pointing into the distance, Alex sees the shear amount of destruction the city has taken. With the masses of zombies roaming the streets, Alex just shakes his head and carries on. When you get to the edge of the field, the place where you usually climb up from the street below, you point to your house, the farthest one on your road.

"That's my place, but we're not going back just yet. We need some more supplies first." You tell Alex.

Leading Alex down the hill, you arrive on the street which passes yours, looking to your left, you see a bloodied police car halfway down the block. The driver's side door lay open, but the passenger's side remained closed. No zombies stood between you and the cruiser, but about a dozen stood beyond.

"We're going to that cop car first to grab some gear, then we'll go back to my place. You have the big gun, but remember, if you pop off a shot, every zombie in the neighborhood will be on us, so just be careful. Understand?" You question your friend.

"Yeah." He replies.

Crouching down, you jog across the road as fast as possible. With Alex hot on your heels, you soon approach the cruiser. Taking the dead officer's keys out of your pocket, you shimmy to the passenger side door and start trying keys in the lock. You soon find the right key and open the door revealing the one thing you didn't want to see. In the seat sat a dead officer with his throat torn out, and good thing too, since he can't give away your position by moaning anymore.

As soon as the door opened, he turned towards you and started reaching out to grab you. Jumping back, you load an arrow and take aim.

"Wait! I want to do it. I'll need to sooner or later, and this is an easy kill." Alex says.

"Ok, just be sure to get it in the head, that's the only way for them to die." You explain.

Handing the bow to Alex and taking the shotgun in return, you stand back as you watch Alex draw the bow string back and let the arrow loose, straight through the eye socket of the contained officer. With the officer dead, Alex then reached over him to release the seat belt and let him fall to the ground. Alex then put his foot on the man's chest and ripped the arrow out of his head.

"Nice kill, now take the cop's gun, holster, and extra mag. You can keep them." You tell Alex.

Handing Alex back the shotgun and taking the bow in return, you walk around the back of the car and use the keys to open the trunk. Inside, you find a tactical shotgun and a can of ammunition for both the pistols and the shotguns. You take the time to drop the mag out of your pistol and load the magazine full, then you lift both cases out of the trunk and hand one to Alex. You have to take off your pack so you can stash away your bow before you grab the new shotgun. Not bothering to close the trunk of the car, you signal to Alex so he can follow you, then you lead him back the fence you jumped earlier before going into the backyard containing the first dead officer.

"Okay, four guns, a bow, a bat and a knife later, and we're set. Doesn't this seem to be a little too easy?" Alex asks you.

"Yeah, it does. But I just think that we're the lucky ones, since we survived. No one else is going to be able to use this stuff, so we might as well take it." You tell Alex.

Without a second glance at the dead officer on the grass, you and Alex continue to hop fences until you reach the backyard where you killed your neighbor and her husband. The same yard that has the spray painted "X" near the door.

"Go inside. Upstairs there's a door with another "X" on it. Take one of the packs and whatever gear you'd like, then come meet me back down here." You tell him.

After only about five minutes Alex returns with a pack similar to yours, and a K-Bar knife attached to his belt. He thanked you for the gear, then walked over to the fence and climbed over. You follow Alex until he climbed over into your back yard.

"Is that your brother?" He questions you.

"Yeah... He was my first kill. Can you help me burry him later? I want him to at least get that before I die. The other guy can be dragged into the woods and left there, I don't care what happens to him." You say.

Stepping over Brady's body, you lead Alex into your basement. You walk up the stairs and climb on to the couch blocking the rest of the way up, then into the kitchen of your home.

"Let's head upstairs and drop off our packs in my room. We need to go back to the house where you got your gear and pick up some food, then maybe even more supplies from the upstairs." You tell your friend.

You decide to leave the shotguns at home, since there's no one you'll have to use them on, so you only take your pistols and knives. When you reach the fence leading into the backyard, you tell Alex to wait, then you jump the fence and grab the M.R.E.s and hand them back over the fence to Alex. You instruct him to take them back to your place and put them in your kitchen, then to come back for more gear.

After Alex leaves with your loot, you go back into the house and climb the stairs to go and scavenge more supplies. With the two packs gone, not much remains to be taken. You take some miscellaneous essentials, like knife sharpeners, flint and steels, matches, an extra first aid kit, and the knives and put them onto the bed. With your loot on the bed ready to go, you go back downstairs and enter the kitchen. The refrigerator door had been open all day, and without power for the same amount of time, most of the items inside had started to go bad. The meats had started to gather flies, but the unopened pack of bacon seemed salvageable. A few bottles of water and some some sports drinks are the only other items you take. The pantries around the kitchen don't hold much other than pots and pans, but you find a few cans of soup, a box of crackers, some noodles, and a box of cereal.

"Yo Allan, have you seen how many zombies are outside?" You hear Alex call from the basement.

"I guessed about forty, why?" You call back.

"No reason, I just thought we'll have our work cut out for us." He says as he appears from the basement with an empty duffel bag in his hand.

"Where'd you get that? I only have one and it's full of clothing in my closet." You ask.

"Oh, there was one in your sister's room. I thought we might need it to carry some shit, so I brought it along." He replies.

"Would you mind telling me what you were doing in my sister's room?" You ask.

"Oh, uh... I was just looking around." Alex tells you.

"Sure you were. Looking through her underwear drawer no doubt." You say in response.

"Hey, she is pretty hot..."

"Pervert."

"To each their own."

"Whatever, just go load up the gear upstairs and pack up the food we're taking." You command.

With your food and the rest of your gear packed, you exit the house and head back to yours. You notice that the sky is beginning to darken, signaling the coming of rain. You hurry to get home before you go back outside and drag the dead man's body out your back gate before Alex helps you toss him into the trees. With the rain starting to come down, you run back to Brady's room and take down his tarp, then you lay it flat outside and roll his body up in it to protect from the rain. Laying him near your house, you go back indoors and head upstairs.

"You hungry Alex?" You ask.

"A little, you?" He replies.

"Starving." You tell him. "Well, we can't cook, since there's no power and we can't build a fire, so we're stuck to cold food for now. Might as well just have some cereal then find something to do."

You open the fridge to grab the milk and notice that it isn't as cold as it was this morning, so you take the last of the milk and replace it with the bacon before shutting the door and pouring yourself some cereal. As you exit the kitchen, you notice Alex sitting at your dining room table with his hands clasped together and his head bowed down.

"Um... Are you praying?" You say with a hint of skepticism in your voice.

"Well, kinda... With all that's happened, I just feel like it will help, ya know? Maybe He can help us... Maybe not. Maybe our fate is to wander the world until we grow old or are torn apart by a fucking pack of zombies. Anyway, I'm done, so let's finish eating and find something to do." That was all either of you said before starting your meal.

"You know, I don't think I've thanked you for saving my ass back at the school." Alex tell you.

"Don't worry about it. And if you want to thank anyone, you should go and find the girls who pointed me in the right direction." You say to your friend.

"Maybe I will, maybe I will... Were they hot?"

"Dude, seriously? Most of them were like, 12."

"Dude, chill." He says with a laugh. "I was only joking."

"It's getting dark." You say as you glance out the window.

"Yeah, that's what happens at nighttime."

"Should we light some candles?" You ask.

"Sure, that way we don't have to go to sleep so soon. Do you have a deck of cards or a gameboy or something? I'm dying to play a video game." He says.

"Hmm... We should have some cards around here somewhere..." You say as you stand to search the living room.

After opening a couple drawers from the tables in the living room, you soon find a deck of cards and the missing tv remote, too bad it's as good as a paper weight now.

The next few hours pass with Alex kicking your ass at poker and a few games of crazy eights before you're both too tired to keep your eyes open for more than a few seconds at a time.

"Yo, where do you - yawn - wanna sleep tonight? Bed, couch, floor? You seem keen to be in my sister's room, maybe you can sleep in there." You jokingly say to Alex.

"Nah, her room reeks of perfume. A night breathing in those fumes will give me a raging migraine. You have an extra sleeping bag, so I'll just take the couch with that." Alex replies.

"Ok, be sure to - yawn - keep a gun close, just in case a zombie or person tries to break in." You tell your friend.

"I'll try. Now go away, I like to sleep naked." Said Alex before starting to strip down.

As you make your way upstairs, you blow out the candle and get ready for bed. You lay your pistol on your night stand and prop the shotgun up against your desk before crawling under your covers and opening your window for a little bit of fresh air. The storm had stopped, but the dampness was still lingering everywhere. From what you can make out in the moonlight, the road is still occupied by the undead. They appear to be walking around, but they don't seem to be following anything in particular, maybe a cat or a passing leaf.

Within minutes, your already dozing, with just enough energy left to replay your day in your mind. You had eight kills to your name, two of which were still human when you killed them, the other six undead. You rescued seven people, including your best friend. You found weapons and enough food to last for weeks. You fortified your house and you survived day one.

That night's dreams showed you riding in a helicopter with Alex and a few other people, except, they all looked older, maybe mid 20s or 30s? Looking down at yourself, you see you're dressed in military garments with an assault rifle in your hands. Everyone else was dressed identical to you, each with the same weapon. You look out the window to your side and see a familiar skyline. Your helicopter lands in a small field, just outside a dilapidated old school building beyond some overgrown forest. You all exit the chopper as a fellow crew member signals a number 3, then tells the pilot to take off again.

"Alright team, you have your objectives. Meet back here in three hours or you're not getting a lift back to base. Now head out." Calls your commander, a woman in her thirties maybe.

Then everything fades to black as you start to walk towards downtown with Alex and another soldier. When your vision returns, you're back in the helicopter with Alex and your commander, but no one else.

"Lee didn't make it, and Hobs and Ace got pinned down." Alex tells your commander. "We can't delay, we need to finish the mission before we're out of range."

You watch yourself take a detonator out of your vest and hand it to your commander, who looks out the window to the city below. On one of the buildings, two red flares glowed in the darkness, and beside them stood two soldiers desperately holding off the undead making their way towards them. As you reach a safe altitude, you commander flips the switch, then presses the button on the detonator.

A brilliant white light erupts from beneath the helicopter as the bomb detonates, leveling the city and the remaining zombies therein.

"Eagle's Nest, this is Arrow Head and Alpha Team, the mission was a success." The woman says to her radio.

"Affirmative Arrow Head, return to base." Says a voice from the other end.

Looking out the window, you see the flames spreading outwards, engulfing everything in their path. From above, you can barely make out the shape and relative position of a certain road you know all too well. You watch as the flames pass your house, your old home, destroying it completely.

You awake in a cold sweat and gasp for air. Your eyes are still imprinted with the sight of your house going up in flames, but that could also be the ray on sunlight beaming you directly in the eye.

You open your blinds and look outside, making sure that your home wasn't in any danger from giant incendiary bombs. You see, to your delight, that you're only worries are still the undead. Slow, stupid zombies.

"Day two... Fucking wonderful."


	7. Chapter 6: The Purge

_Chapter 6: The Purge._

Same old routine. Get up, get dressed, kill zombies.

Wait... That last part is new.

Blue jeans, green tee-shirt, socks, new underwear and glasses. Even though it's getting pretty warm out, you still throw your black leather jacket over yourself just in case a zombie tries to bite your arm. The tough leather will hopefully hold back the creature's teeth.

With your gun and knife securely attached to your belt, you walk into the bathroom the check yourself out. Without electricity in the house, your bathroom is too dark, so you light one of the candles you put on the counter the night before and look at yourself in the mirror. You look like you've broken out with some serious acne, but upon closer inspection, you see that what you thought are pimples is actually dried up blood that splattered onto your face from the day before. With a damp cloth, you get to work wiping off the blood, hoping that you never got any in your mouth.

"Nah, I would've turned by now." You say to yourself.

"**DUDE! EMERGENCY!**" You hear Alex yell from downstairs.

Acting upon instinct, you run halfway down the stairs and vault over the railing to land on the floor below. Drawing your pistol, you run into the living room and aim around the door and the windows, but nothing seems to be out of the ordinary. Opening the basement door yields the same untouched barricade that has been there for the past day and a half. The back windows are too high above the ground below to be broken into, but upon inspection of the yard below, all you see is Brady's body rolled up in the tarp resting below.

"What's wrong? Nothing seems to be happening..." You ask Alex.

"Son of a bitch... I knew I should have charged you when I had the chance..." You hear Alex say from the next room.

"What the fuck! You yell for an emergency because your phone died! You can live without a phone, try living after a damn heart attack!" You angrily say to Alex as you plop down on the couch beside him.

"Yeah well... What if someone tries to send out an emergency message? How will we hear it if there's no tv or phones?" Alex asks you.

"That's what this," you tell him as you pull the radio out of your jacket pocket. "is for. We'll need to get one for you, plus some way to get more electricity so you can play on your phone while I do all the work."

"Hey, uh uh. I helped yesterday. I carried some of your crap and killed a zombie too!" Alex replies with anger in his voice.

"Oh yeah? Would you have done that without me? Would you even be alive without me?" You say back.

"You're the one who let this virus out in the first place!"

"I had no choice! Either it gets out or I die, and I don't really fancy dying a virgin, thank you very much!"

"Well... I... Shit... I'm sorry bud... I wouldn't be here without you. I owe you my life, and look how I'm treating you... I'm an asshole..." Alex states as tears well into his eyes.

"Hey, hey, it's fine, really. Don't you think I feel a bit bad that I sent those girls out on their own yesterday? I know full well that they're probably dead by now, and even if they did survive, there's a better chance of hell freezing over than them finding their parents alive. I chose to save you, my best friend, because I know that we work well together as a team. If we put our heads together, nothing will be impossible. Think about it, we have all the resources in the city at our disposal now, so all we need to do is scavenge some more and we'll be set for years to come. If we get electricity, we could even watch movies or play on our phones again. Although, if we go our separate ways, we'll both stand a greater risk of dying at the hands of either a zombie or a murdering thug. So cheer up, we're not dead yet, so let's get you up and get ready for the day. We've got zombies to kill."

With your speech finished, Alex looks up at you and sheds a single tear. After wiping his nose on his sleeve, he takes a deep breath and looks you in the eye.

"Allan... You're a virgin?" He says before bursting out laughing.

"Yeah I am... Now get the fuck up and get some food in you, we're going to head out soon." You order.

"Ha! Allan's never got it in!" Alex says between gasps for air.

As you enter the kitchen, you grab the pack of bacon out of the fridge and take the half empty carton of eggs out as well. Hoping nothing went off before now, you set off down the stairs and into the basement. Before you reach the bottom, you take out your pistol and aim around the room. Satisfied that no undead worked their way into your house during the night, you tick away your pistol and set the food down on the washing machine. Walking out your backyard, you cross to the fence's gate and open it to step into the woods. After spending some time collecting some dead wood from the forest floor, you return to your yard and drop your first pile onto the yard. Your second and third pile come within the next ten minutes, but by then Alex is outside and offering to help.

"Hmm... Can you grab a shovel and start digging a hole about a foot across and two feet deep?" You ask.

"Sure... Why? You're not thinking of burying Brady upright are you?" Alex questions.

"Nah man, I want to make a Dakota Fire Hole, it's one of the best ways to make a fire. Barely and smoke and pretty damn hot too. When you're done, I'll finish it and teach you how to do the same." You tell your friend.

After you return with your fourth and final pile of wood, you shut the fence gate and walk over to Alex. He succeeded in following your instructions to the letter. Alex had made a fine start to your fire hole. After picking the shovel back up, you start to dig a second hole about a foot to the side of the first hole. When you finished with the second hole, you instruct Alex on the finer points of what you're making.

"Once you have both holes dug and they're spaced like so, then you get down and dig a tunnel going between the bottoms of the two holes. Once that's dug, you build a fire on top of a wooden platform in on hole, that way you can get down and blow some air up from the bottom of the fire via the second hole. This makes the fire less smokey, since it's getting plenty of oxygen, and it's in the ground, so the fire is almost unnoticeable, plus it retains most of the heat like a furnace." You teach Alex.

"How do you know this? I'm not saying it's bad or anything, but I just want to know." Alex asks.

"Well, my father and I went camping a lot before he died, and he taught me all he knew. In a way, I think I have to thank him for helping me survive for so long. He gave me the instincts that have saved me so far." You say to your friend.

"Here, I'll build the fire, you just go get the pans and the food, plus something to hold the pan in place above this fire pit thingy. I don't want any ashes in my eggs." He tells you.

"It a Dakota Fire Hole, not pit. But anyway, I'll go see if there's anything else we can have as well." You say before walking back inside.

Back in the kitchen, you take out your mother's old metal kettle and some mugs, then you grab some tea bags and sugar then put it all on the counter. With some instant oatmeal you had in your cupboard, along with what you have downstairs, you're gearing up for a really nice breakfast. You walk over to the window and see that Alex heeded your words about placing the fire on a platform in the hole, because right now he's digging some thicker sticks into the dirt near the bottom of the hole, leaving about two inches of space below for the air to flow through. With that done, he started to arrange his kindling into a small bundle, then he started placing his bigger sticks in a teepee shape above the kindling. Satisfied with Alex's fire making ability, you return to the kitchen and put the sugar, tea bags and oatmeal into the kettle and head back downstairs.

"You want some oatmeal with your eggs and bacon?" You call out.

"Are you trying to fatten me up, bud?" He calls back. "You're fixing me up a full breakfast I haven't gotten in years."

"I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we're only doing this today, since the food will go bad if we don't eat it soon, so enjoy it while it lasts." You say to Alex.

You head back upstairs to grab a pan and the metal tent pegs from your backpack in your room. The tent pegs can be used to hold the pan over the fire if you dig them into the dirt on the sides of the fire hole, effectively making a small stove. Grabbing two bottles of water, you take the rest of your cooking gear back to the basement and see that Alex has already started the fire, and you also see Alex with his head down the one empty hole blowing air up and under the fire. Your technique worked even better than you imagined. The fire was reduced in sound, since it is underground, the flames weren't visible and the wood didn't produce any smoke, a sign of a well burning fire. Before it could get too hot, you drive the tent pegs into the dirt and help Alex stoke the fire. After ten minutes, the heat from your fire seemed adequate to cook food, so you place your pan onto the pegs and wait for it to heat up.

"I feel like we're camping." Alex tells you.

"Kinda, yeah. I've never camped where there's zombies everywhere though. That's new." You say with a laugh.

When your pan gets nice and hot, you crack your eggs on the side and plop them into the pan where they start cooking immediately. Not wanting any garbage, you toss the shells into the fire.

"Wanna go grab so plates and forks? Maybe a spatula so I can flip the eggs easier?" You ask Alex.

"Sure thing." He replies.

When Alex returned, he handed you a spatula and you got to work flipping the eggs. Within a few minutes, you had the eggs nice and cooked, you even managed to keep the yokes from breaking. After dividing the eggs between the two of you, you open the pack of bacon and set to work cooking half the pack in one go. While the bacon cooked, you started to eat your breakfast, stopping every now and again to flip the bacon. Once the bacon was done, you took all of the first batch and gave it straight to Alex before putting the rest on for yourself. With all your eggs gone, you sit and wait for your bacon to finish while you watch Alex eat his.

"You're a real pal, you know that right? I don't think I've ever gotten this much bacon in one serving before." Alex states.

"You've obviously never gone camping with my family. Half a back to each person is tradition, and just because the world's gone to shit doesn't mean tradition will too." You say to Alex.

With your food finally done, you load the rest onto your plate before opening up the bottles of water and pouring them into the kettle before placing it on the pegs as well. You end up having to hold the handle of the kettle up with the shovel handle because it's too heavy for the pegs to handle without falling straight into the fire.

"You want tea?" You ask.

"Uh... Sure. I've always seen tea as a girly drink, but it's better than plain old water." He says.

When the water comes to a boil, you lift the kettle and pour the steaming water into both the mugs and add the tea bags and sugar before sitting back and relaxing. You take all the cooking gear and dishes into the house before grabbing some lawn chairs and bringing them outside. You sit and chat for a while about what you both did before the outbreak started, about who you were hitting on and what teachers you hated. Taking a drink every now and again, you relax to the point where you completely forget about the flesh eating zombies out on the street in front of your house.

"Dude, once you told me about this apocalypse I woke up to, I thought I'd be dead before the day was over. I thought I'd never get the chance to sit back and relax like I was on vacation. But hell, we can do whatever we want now. We can drink and party 'till we pass out, then do it all again the next day. I'm starting to think that this isn't as bad as what it could be." Alex says.

"I agree. In movies and stuff, they're all like, the most badass group ever to walk the earth, and there's always that one guy who's awesome at killing the zombies, but they all make it look so terrifying, like you could die at any moment. Those things out there aren't Superman, they're slow and dumb, so it's not like they're going to pop out of nowhere and grab us. If we can get a steady supply of food, we can survive until we die of old age. Ha! Wouldn't that be a way to go! Hundreds of zombies at your door, but you just croak at 102. That's how I want to go. I don't want to turn into an undead freak." You say to your friend.

"Yo, let's make a pact. If one of us ever gets bitten, the other must shoot them in the head right away to stop them from turning. Agreed?" Alex asks you.

"Agreed." You reply.

When you're done your tea, you toss the bags over the fence and bring your chairs back inside. You split up the dishes and carry those back upstairs and into the kitchen so you can wash them later, then you head upstairs to grab your packs.

"I want to clear the road today so it's easier to get in and out of my place." You tell Alex. "Plus, once it's cleared, we won't have to worry unless a stray zombie wanders into the street, which we'll take care of pretty quickly."

"Okay, sounds good. Now, how are we going to do that. Guns will attract them all to us, so how are we going to kill them all?" He asks.

"Well... Uh... Shit. I haven't thought this far ahead." You admit.

"Well, how'd you kill all those ones yesterday?" Alex asks.

"Well, Brady just got beaten with my bat, so did the next two. I knifed a few, then lured one in and shot it with an arrow." You say.

"Maybe that's it! One of us will lure one in, then the other kills it! It'll be simple, we just bash its head in, or knife it, or put an arrow through it's brain, then move on to the next." Alex tells you.

"But what if we accidentally attract more than one at a time?" You ask.

"Well, the one killing will have to be quick and take both out." He says.

"Okay, objectives set. Should we take the shotguns?" You ask Alex.

"Um... Only one, just in case. We'll take the bow, plus out pistols and knives, which should do just fine." He replies.

As you put on your pack, you take the bow and arrows, then hand the tactical shotgun to Alex. After making sure your guns are loaded, safeties are off and your packs are on tight, you head out the basement door and hop the neighbor's fence. You decide to stop three houses down, near the start of the round about, then Alex decides to volunteer to attract the first zombie. Crouching low, Alex moves down the walkway beside the house towards the street. Near the driveway stands the first victim of the day, a young woman, maybe early twenties. If her face jaw wasn't hanging off her head, she would actually be rather pretty. With the shotgun in hand, Alex crept up and nudged her in the back before backtracking a few steps. As the girl turned towards him, she started shambling forwards towards the backyard where you stood waiting. Loading an arrow, you pull the string back and wait for her to get closer. When she was only a few steps in front of you, you let the arrow fly, burying it through the top of her skull, dropping her instantly.

"Nice kill, my turn." Alex says.

You trade weapons before crouching and walking back down the walkway. At the edge of the house's driveway stood an older man, one who was balding but had a thick mustache. Catching you from the corner of his eye, he turns and starts walking towards you.

"Yeah, come on ya old fart, hurry up." You whisper to the zombie in front of you. As you start to back up, the man raises his arms in anticipation of grabbing you as his steps slightly speed up. You keep your gun trained on the man as you step backwards until Alex puts an arrow through the side of the man's head, effectively throwing him to the ground with the force of the shot.

"There's no more close by, so let's move another house down and pick off a few more." You tell your friend. "And nice shot, that's how I took down the cop yesterday. Right through the temple."

After retrieving your arrows and cleaning them off, you proceed to hop the next fence and take out three more of the walking corpses that haunt your world. After scoring a perfect bull's eye through one's eye socket, you give control of the bow over to Alex for a bit longer than usual. You're having too much fun luring monsters to their death. Re-death.

You decide to take the bow back, but you go and lure two zombies in yourself this time. You tell Alex to have his knife ready and to stand around the corner of the wall as you bring a couple back. You're successful in luring two back, side by side as they walk towards you. You stop backing up halfway into the backyard as you draw an arrow and look at Alex. As soon as they walk past him, he jumps out and jabs his blade through the top of one's skull before the second turns toward him. As the second stops to turn, you let loose your arrow and take it right through the back of the head.

"Holy shit! I saw the arrow come out of his forehead! Don't do that when I'm behind him, I'm afraid the arrow is going to go straight through and hit me too." Alex tells you.

It's soon midday before your stop your hunting and return to your house for something to eat. Grabbing some fruit that you had in a basket in the kitchen, you and Alex eat while discussing new tactics and what you want to do for the last zombie on the street. Alex suggests doing something special, like actually shooting him, or trying to hit him at a distance with an arrow, but you rule both out as dangerous and wasteful. In the end, you agree that you should both surround him, then whoever he chooses to attack gets to end him.

With your snacks gone, you take off your jacket and toss it on the couch. It's getting to be too hot today, so if you don't want to pass out from heat stroke, you'll leave the jacket here. Not taking any chances, you take the radio out of the pocket and clip it to the far side of your belt, the opposite side from the gun and knife. Thinking that taking your packs as well would be stupid, since you're not even leaving the street. With the shotgun in your hands and the bow in Alex's, you both return to the backyard and start to head around the block the opposite direction from where you were previously going.

"Be on the lookout, I haven't been over this way yet." You say to Alex.

Since you now hold the heavy fire power, you hop the fences first and scout out the yard. It appears that all of these yards are a no dead zone, since not a single one has a zombie chilling in it. This takes a small load of your back, as you don't have to spend any extra time taking any more out instead of clearing the street.

When the sounds of slow footsteps is heard from behind you, you see Alex draw the bow back and aim at your face. Acting again on instinct, you drop to the ground just before Alex lets his arrow fly. You hear the arrow break through the zombie's skull before you feel the body fall directly on top of where you now lay.

"Ah fuck! Get him off! He stinks! Get! Him! Off!" You almost yell to Alex.

With Alex's help, you roll the zombie off of your back and onto the ground next to you. As you step up off the ground, you give the mans face an almighty kick, breaking his jaw in the process. Holding his head down with your foot, you yank the arrow out, breaking more of the skull in doing so. Unfortunately, this weakens the skull so much that the weight being put onto your foot busts the man's head in, soaking your shoe is blood and brain matter.

"Sorry, I didn't notice he was beside the house." Alex says.

"Nah man, it okay. I didn't see him either." You say back.

With a quick switch of your weapons, you load an arrow and proceed down the walkway to get another victim to follow. As you crouch down, you see at the end of the street, a car race by, accompanied by a second car following it. A few gunshots are heard as the cars head away from your neighborhood, attracting the attention of every zombie on the road. All their heads turn in unison as the start to shamble towards the end of the road.

***CRASH!***

You suspect that one of the cars had just hit something down the road. As the first of the zombies rounds the corner of the street, a short round of gunshots rang out before the screeching of tires signaled one of the cars quickly getting away. The one car's engine is still audible as the last of the zombies, save only one, round the corner and disappear from sight.

"What the hell was that?" You hear to your side.

"Two cars just drove past, with the second one shooting at the first. I bet the people in the first car pissed off the guys in the second car, because they crashed the first car, shot at them, then drove off." You tell Alex.

Smoke started rising in the distance, confirming your assumption that the first car was crashed.

***BOOM!***

You hear a small explosion go off around the corner as you see some fire rise into the sky. The car must have exploded, wherever it was. The guys shooting at it must have hit the gas tank.

The only remaining zombie, you now notice as your elderly neighbor, simply looked around after feeling the shockwave, then went back to his mindless wandering.

"So, you wanna surround him then take him out? He's the last one on the street." Alex says.

"Sure thing, just be on the lookout for any that come back around the corner." You tell him.

You tell Alex to stay and keep and eye out for the returning zombies before taking off back around the block to the far side. Once there, you glance up the street and see absolutely nothing. Not a single zombie had returned. That's a stroke of luck right there.

You signal to Alex to make sure he's ready before walking out into the street, stopping about 20 feet from the man. With Alex equally spaced on his far side, you wave to get his attention, since he's probably deaf. With Alex doing the same, the man's head turned between the two of you before stopping on Alex who he proceeded to shamble towards. He probably saw that Alex had more meat on his bones, making him the preferred target. You take a few steps forward with your bow in hand to cover Alex incase he messes up. All Alex did to end the poor man was bash him in the face with the butt end of the shotgun, knocking the old man over before taking a running jump straight onto his head, crushing it under his feet.

"Wow, you outdid yourself with that one. It was a bit too brutal." You tell Alex.

"Dude, they're not human anymore, and they would do worse to us. It's perfectly fine to show a little ruthlessness, we both have every time we destroyed their brains." He tells you.

"Let's go check to see the situation down the road." You say.

Sticking close to the house in case you need to hide, you work your way quickly down your street before peeking around a fence at the far end. The car that got gunned down lay a smoldering wreck two blocks down. Strewn around the car were about twenty burned up bodies, the bodies of the zombies who followed the cars down the road. They must have been trying to get into the car to eat the people when it exploded, blowing a few up and burning the rest.

"Well, that made our job easier." You say to no one in particular.

"Sweet, now let's loot some houses, I want more things!" Alex says in excitement.

"Don't get greedy Alex. Think about it this way, if you're not careful, you could die before you get to use any of the stuff you loot. So calm yourself, we're only taking what we need, not what we want." You instruct to Alex.

Heading back down the road, you stop at the house next to yours and gaze up at it. The upstairs windows are bloody, but you can't see anyone inside.

"How do you wanna get in? We could try to pick the lock or maybe open a window to-"

***CRASH!***

"Or you could kick the door in, that'll work just as good." You say in an irritated tone.

The entry of the house is clear or the living dead, so you send Alex down the hall to the kitchen before entering the living room. Upon entering, the smell of rotting flesh overpowers your nose and makes your eyes start to water. You squint and look around the room for the culprit, but you don't like your findings. You neighbor's son lay mangled and ripped apart on the floor, completely destroyed. His legs were eaten down to the bones and his head torn off in the corner of the room. The smell became so intense that you were forced out of the room before your eyes started burning.

Alex just then returned from he kitchen, telling you that this floor is clear, plus there's some more food in the kitchen you two can take home. You almost forgot about checking the upstairs before you heard the stairs creak from someone stepping on them near the top. You spin around and aim the shotgun upwards towards the top of the stairs, laying your sights on a woman, left ear missing as well as her left hand. You were about to tell Alex to down the bitch, but stop when you see the woman try and walk down the steps. With the un-coordination that comes with being undead, her feet slip and she tumbles down the stairs, conveniently landing on her neck, snapping it upon impact with the landing at the bottom. Just to be on the safe side, Alex takes out his knife and drives it through the woman's skull, making sure she's dead before stepping over her and up the stairs.

The top floor is peaceful, except for the front room, which contains the body of a man, completely destroyed and eaten to the bare bones. The room seemed to be a computer room, with a laptop and desk top on a desk next to where the man lay dead. The next room down the hall is the bathroom, where you stop to gather some essentials. Soap, bandaids, peroxide, razors, and most importantly, toilet paper.

"Mind if I stay a little while and drop a deuce?" Alex asks. "I haven't shit since yesterday morning, before those thugs tossed me in that classroom."

"Go ahead, I need to shit too, so hurry up." You tell him.

With Alex dropping a load, you decide to wander the rooms a bit. The one bedroom, the parent's bedroom, had framed pictures hanging on the walls. Pictures of picnics, vacations, the first time they took their son home. It didn't seem like it was only two days ago that these people were living their lives and not worrying about what the next day had in store. You take one of the family photos out of its frame and head downstairs. Taking the smallest kitchen knife you could find, you open the wooden front door and jab the knife through the top border of the photo, pinning it to the front door. If anyone came after you, they should at least know who lived here and know that they were happy before they died... Well, maybe not *right* before they died, but happy in life none the less.

"Yo, shitter's free. I'll start to take the food over while you're busy." Alex says.

You can't stop thinking about the family that lived here, about how they're all dead, bitten, turned and torn to shreds. You finish your business and gather the stuff you're taking from the bathroom before leaving the house and unlocking your front door for Alex. You both place the supplies you took into their respective cupboards or rooms, then you go back to check the basement. Your trip is made easy, as you only have to carry two cases of water, which Alex took, and a wood cutting ax. The rest of the junk in the basement can stay and rot for all you care.

When you return to your house, you take a duffel bag, empty it, then set off for the next house on the street. This is repeated until the sky starts to grow dark, around 8pm by your phone's clock. You notice your battery is at 35%, still enough to last for a few more days if you don't use it often. With today's haul, you both managed to find some food that will stay good for years on end, like canned soup and vegetables, freeze dried fruits, jars of honey (which you can't wait to bust into) and some more crackers to snack on. On your last trip back home, you pop the good of the closest car open and unhook the battery from it, then carry it inside.

"Lemme guess, jury rig it for its electricity?" Alex asks.

"You catch on quick. We should have some extra jumper cables downstairs, that way we can hopefully clip those to the prongs on a plug to get a current going." You tell him.

After locking the door behind you and pushing a table up against it, you grab two cans of soup, two spoons and a can opener before heading to the basement. The fire hole still had some shouldering cinders laying inside, so with the help of some fine kindling, you restart the fire. After popping the tops of the soup cans, you place the cans onto the pegs and wait for them to start cooking. Alex brings out the lawn chairs also, so you sit and chat again while you stir the contents of the cans. After five minutes, the cans start to steam and bubble a little bit, so pinching the cans quickly, you bring both onto the grass and give Alex his spoon so he can start eating.

"Okay, time to lighten the mood. Alex, why was six afraid of seven?"

"Because seven ate (eight) nine?"

"No, because seven was a registered six offender."

You were able to get a good chuckle out of Alex before he said "Okay, my turn. Yo mama's so fat, when she steps on the scale, it shows her phone number."

"Oh you went there! Get ready for a come back!" You say.

"If I wanted my cum back I would have scraped it out of your girlfriend's throat." He says.

"Fuck you." You say before laughing.

You and your friend pass the next few hours taking cracks at each other while playing some board games like chess and Catan before switching to card games. You teach Alex how to play both Yu-Gi-Oh and Magic TG, and soon you're having matches where you're not sure you can win.

"Dude, I can't believe this..." Alex says.

"What, that I just took down half you life points in one attack?" You ask.

"No, the fact that I haven't used my phone all day, and I don't even seem phased by it. Living without technology is actually kinda fun. If the world ever goes back to what it used to be, I think I'll by a house way up in the mountains and live far away from any form of technology, just living off the land. With the way we're going, I'll be all set when it comes to that... If it comes to that." Alex says.

"You know, I'd probably do that too. Also, I'll attack directly for game." You tell Alex.

"Nope, you activate my trap card. It reverts the damage back at you, making me win the game instead."

"Shit!"

"Anyway, let's hit the sack, it's almost 11 at night. What are your plans for tomorrow?" Alex asks.

"Um, I'm kinda wanting to sneak downtown to loot some stores for some good gear, how's that sound?" You ask.

"That'll be really dangerous. How do you plan to get there and back? The place is swarming with zombies." He tells you.

"Maybe we can get our hands on the keys to a car. I'll try an drive us down, if you want to go that is." You say to your friend.

"Well, yeah I'm going, you need someone to cover your back. Plus, you're better at finding the good gear than I am. I'll just be the muscle holding the undead at bay." He tells you.

"Wonderful. Now, I'm thinking we should try for the hybrid that's down the road, it'll be efficient and relatively quiet, so we should do fine. In addition to speed and quietness, we can use most of the space for holding whatever it is that we're taking." You tell Alex.

"Sounds good. Now go to bed, I don't want to play any more games." Alex tells you before walking into the living room to plunk himself down on the couch.

You climb the stairs to your bedroom and undress before getting into bed. You open your window to allow some fresh air into your bedroom, since it has started to stink. You haven't been able to shower in three days, so you're starting to work up a good stank from all your endeavors of the last few days. While sitting on your bed, you take some time to learn how to disassemble and reassemble your pistol, just in case something were to break inside of it. You spend about another hour learning where everything goes and how to put it all back together again. You place your gun on your side table and take off your glasses before getting into bed and laying your head on your pillow.

Day two is over. You're still alive. Alex is still alive. You have guns. You have ammo. You have food. You have shelter. You have a safe area in which you're living. Despite all this, you still don't know if any other family members have survived, plus you still haven't buried Brady yet. If you get that car you're wanting, you're going to search for your family until you either find them living, or worse, dead.

That night, your mind isn't graced with dreams, nor plagued by nightmares. It seems like you only blinked before the sun had risen and is shining through your window. It doesn't look to be that early, so you get up, get dressed and equip yourself before going downstairs.

"Wake up Alex, it's day three."


	8. Chapter 7: Old Goodbye's and New Hello's

Chapter 7: Old Goodbye's and New Hello's.

The sky outside remained as blue and empty as the day before. No clouds were seen, birds rarely flew anywhere except by their nests and wooded areas. Absolutely no planes or helicopters interrupted the peacefulness of the sky above.

"What do you want for breakfast?" You ask your friend in the next room.

"Um... Waffles with syrup and strawberries if you can. If not, some canned fruits would be nice." He responds.

"You allergic to anything?" You ask.

"Just latex." He replies.

"So that means you-"

"Can't wear condoms? Exactly. Believe me, it feels really good too, but if I do wear one, I get these red splotches all over my-"

"OKAY! I get it!"

Reaching into your cupboards, you pull out two cans of pineapples and a can of chicken noodle soup. You decide to split the soup, then have the pineapple after for something sweet. You take your can opener out of one of the drawers and crack open the soup can, then you grab two spoons before heading back into the living room. You hand Alex a spoon and the can off soup and he starts eating, but stops about halfway through and hands it over to you. The lukewarm soup didn't taste bad, but warming it up would make a world of difference. After making sure every last bit of the soup was gone, leaving the can almost clean, you place the can on the coffee table and leave to retrieve the can opener again. You open the first can and hand it to Alex, who begins to eat the fruit within. The second can appears to have a little bit more in it than Alex's did.

A thought runs through your mind. Do you keep the extra and eat it to yourself, or do you share it? If you keep it, you'd be getting more to eat, therefore making you a bit stronger, since you'd have a more full stomachs for the day, but on the other hand, if Alex finds out you've been taking more than him, he might get really angry and potentially leave you and fend for himself. Although, if you share, you make him feel like his survival is more important than yours, making him more likely to help you out more often and make sure you survive also.

"Here, take some more out of this, it had a bit more in it." You say to Alex.

"Nah man, you can have it, I've got plenty." He replies.

"You sure? I don't want to feel guilty if you get too hungry later..." You say in return.

"Don't worry, our bodies will get used to having less food, it's natural. So just enjoy the extra while you can." He tells you.

"That was... Pretty profound." You say to Alex.

"Meh, I have my moments. Now finish up, I want you get your brother buried, he's starting to stink out there." Alex says.

The rest of your breakfast passes with the sounds of pineapple being eaten and the remaining juice being drunk straight from the cans. With the empty cans and dirty spoons by the sink, you both grab small travel shovels from you packs and head outside. The smell coming from Brady's corpse is unlike anything you've ever smelt before, since you've never smelt rotting human flesh before.

Your backyard is pretty big, but not big enough to have his body in a super nice spot. Settling on the far side of an old pine tree in the far corner of your yard, both you and Alex get to work digging out a small 6'x3'x4' rectangular hole at the base of the tree. An hour of solid digging and cutting through small roots, with the both of you just having at it yields the best damn grave you've ever dug... Even if it is the only grave you've ever dug.

With the two of you carrying his body over to the grave, you lower yourself into the hole before having Alex lower Brady's body down to you. You make sure Brady's head is at the end closest to the tree before kneeling down and saying a silent prayer to whatever lies on the other side.

Alex just stands in silence at the edge of the grave waiting for you to conclude your funeral ceremony. Without knowing Brady personally, other than seeing him a few times at school a couple years ago, he didn't have any words to stay in his memory.

When you're satisfied that your brother's makeshift funeral is as good as you can possibly make it, you stand up, pick up your shovel, then take the first bit of dirt back into the grave and place it over the tarp covering his head. Alex picks up his shovel and also begins to lift mounds of dirt up and drop them into the grave, covering the body of your deceased brother. When Brady's body is completely covered in a layer of dirt, you climb out of the grave and start shoveling larger amounts of dirt into the hole. A half hour's work was all it took to place the last of the displaced soil back into the hole now holding your brother's body. With the two of you patting the soil down to smooth out the mound now showing the resting place of your brother, you slowly stand and take in your work. From farther away, the mound under the pine looked like the perfect place to lay a body to rest.

"We need to mark the grave." You say to Alex.

"Want me to search for a large stone?" He asks.

"Please..." You reply.

Sitting on the ground next to Brady's resting place, you're mind goes blank from what you take in. You and your best friend buried the only brother you've ever had. You were the one who had to kill him in the first place... Correction, second place. You thought it was just right that you stay at his grave until your funeral for him was complete.

"Will this do?" Alex asks as he returns from the woods.

In his hands lay the smoothest, roundest stone you ever laid your eyes on. It was as if it was meant for Brady's headstone, the forever reminder that someone lived and died and now rested where it will lay.

You cross the yard and enter the basement, then grab a hammer and a large metal nail from your dad's tool box. As you return to your brother's grave, you set to work etching your brothers information into the stone's smooth face.

_Here lies Brady. A good friend, brother, and son. Struck down in the wake of the apocalypse, his body now rests on the corner of his former property, an everlasting reminder of his life and untimely death._

_November 29, 1990 - May 14, 2015._

_Funeral rights performed May 17, 2015 by his brother Allan and his brother's friend Alex._

**R.I.P.**

"***sniff*** that should do it. How does it look?" You ask.

"I don't think I could have done a better job if I tried." Alex replies.

Laying the stone at the end of grave where Brady's head would lay under the soil, you stand up and give your last respects to your fallen brother. Without another word, the two of you return to your house to gather your things before placing them at the front door.

"Today's plan?" You ask.

"What? I'm choosing? I thought you were the leader." He says.

"We need to split up leadership, that way no one gets power hungry, even if it's only the two of us. So today, you decide what we do." You tell him.

"Well... We're going to need food until we die, so we need to get more of that. Then we need clothing that will help us by keeping us protected, as well as warm or cool. Then we might need more weapons," he says before seeing the look on your face, one saying we-don't-need-more-guns. "Then we could try and find some survivors that are friendly. If the houses on this block are mostly clear, then they could come and live here, then we'd have a little community going. Maybe there will even be some hot chicks with us at some point." He concludes.

"Okay... That actually sounds pretty good. I don't think I've ever actually commented on your ability to think on the spot, but it's rather well developed." You tell him.

"Why thank you good sir." He says with an elaborate bow.

"So, where are we going, what exactly are we getting, and who or what are we killing?" You ask.

"Uh, shopping mall, food and clothes, zombies and raiders." He answers.

"First off, no mall, it's going to be infested with zombies. Next, you're on a good track, but we're also going to need medical supplies and entertainment options. Finally, I hope to not have to kill anything, since it might get loud, which could get us torn apart and eaten. Although... I am wanting to see just how destructive these shotguns can be on the zombie brain." You say.

"Well... Okay then. Uh, let's get that car you were talking about and drive off to the nearest... Place. Can we please at least explore a mall? I don't think they'll be too infested, if at all. From the way you described the spread of the virus, everyone who turned did so within the day, hours possibly. Hopefully no one, or very few people were actually able to even get there without being overrun. That could be out chance to take whatever we need or want." Alex explains to you.

"I dunno... It could still be quite the opposite, but hey, you're the leader today, so we'll do whatever you want. Just know, if I get bitten and turn because of you, you'll be the first person I devour." You tell him.

With your packs on your backs, your shotguns in one hand and an ammo can in the other, you head out the front door before turning and locking it. Even though there's practically no chance that anyone will try to break in now, you don't want to leave anything to chance.

Halfway down the road, you stop outside a small house with a Prius in the driveway. After taking out your knife, you ram it into the doorframe and attempt to bust the lock off from the outside. Soon, your knife if wedged and the door barely scratched. Using the butt of his gun, Alex breaks the small window out front and climbs through into the house.

"As expected, whoever lived here was a pot smoking hippie. Bongs and lava lamps everywhere." You hear from inside.

You soon hear the locks open and the dead bolt slide open before grabbing your knife before it falls to the ground when Alex opens the door. The inside of the house is painted with bright neon colors that make your eyes hurt. The room stinks of weed, and the furniture looks like someone took it straight out of the seventies, which they probably did. The basket on the dining room table holds a number of key rings, as well as a solid gold wedding band, probably a man's. You take the keys and place the ring in your pocket, since it looked kinda nice, like something you'd wear.

Only one of the rings holds a car key, so you take the one outside and put it into the car door. When the door clicks open, you toss your bags into the backseat along with your ammo tins, before heading inside to grab some food.

The food plan went horribly wrong when you found out that the hippie who lived here hated anything that wasn't "natural" meaning they didn't have anything that could be salvaged, since everything was fresh, therefore rotting by now. As you're leaving, you notice Alex place a baggie into his pocket before heading outside.

"You took his weed, didn't you?" You ask.

"Well, yeah. It's probably good shit, so I don't want it to go to waste." He says.

You place the key into the ignition and give it a turn, starting the engine. Even though you didn't have your license, you still knew how to drive pretty well. Your hopes for a quiet car come true when you start to back the car out of the driveway and into the street. The only thing you could hear was a slight hum from the engine and the tires rolling over the pavement.

You and Alex maneuver your way through the streets, dodging some zombies along the way; one time actually having to turn around due to a clogged road. You ask Alex to keep track of blocked roads on a map of the city, marking each as you come across them.

Within a half hour, you pull your new car up to the side doors of the largest shopping mall in town. The parking lot was as close to empty as you could have hoped, but there still remained at least thirty vehicles, sporadically placed throughout the parking lot. You couldn't even tell how many were out front or on the far side of the building, but you hoped there weren't too many.

"First thing we need is another radio for you to use." You tell Alex. "That way we can split up but still be in touch."

"Then we need to gather more supplies." He says.

"Plus weapons if we can, and survivors too." You add.

"Then we need- **JESUS CHRIST!**" Alex yells.

A tall blonde woman had just attacked the passenger side door where Alex sat. She banged on the door and clawed at it to try to gain entry, but to no avail. You climb into the back seat and retrieve your bow and an arrow from your pack before opening the back driver's side door and getting out. The woman appeared to be the only zombie in the lot, but you wasted no time taking her down. As she pounded on the door, you snuck around the back of the car and up beside her to take a point blank shot into her cranium. As her body hit the pavement, Alex stepped out of the car and thanked you. You stow your bow and retrieved arrow back into your pack and sling it onto your back, then you grab your shotgun and an empty duffel bag and sling the bag over your shoulder. With Alex equally equipped, you walk over to the doors and peer inside. The area you look in and see happens to be the food court, where three zombies stand staring into space. Unluckily for you, the security gate has been closed, stopping you from entering the mall at this location, not like you wanted to anyway.

You start off around the building towards the back parking lot to see if you can gain access from a different part of the building. Your spirits both rise and drop when you see a car parked under the raised ladder leading to the roof on the back of the building.

"Shit, are there people staying here? Or are they the dead ones we've seen so far?" You ask.

"No clue, so be careful." Alex responds.

You keep a lookout as Alex climbs onto the car and up the ladder, then he takes lookout while you do the same. The access door on the roof lay open with a broken handle and lock, showing that someone had previously been here. As you enter the building, you notice that there aren't any lights, which you forgot to think about. Taking out your flashlight, you hold it in your hand and peer over the rail down into the stairwell. When you see no movement, you proceed down the stairs with Alex hot on your heels. When you reach the bottom of the stairs, you take a look through the window in the door and see the deserted store area of the mall. With skylights providing the light to the mall, most of the shops are brightly lit, making it easy to see everything in the stores, or anyone wandering around. After a few minutes with no movement, you turn off your light and slowly open the door, telling Alex to keep it open incase you both need to escape quickly. Kicking open the door stopper on the door, you make sure it's firmly held before entering the main body of the mall.

You and Alex both hoist your shotguns to your shoulders and aim forwards as you stroll into the mall. The first thing you notice is the eerie silence only broken by your foot steps. Every store and kiosk lay as dead as can be, no one in sight, and nothing missing. It seems like no one wanted to loot anything while escaping from the undead. The only things out of place were the bags of merchandise laying scattered around the floor where the people who bought them dropped them to escape. Some held toys, others clothes. Some people even dropped their purses while getting away.

"First stop, electronics store." You tell Alex.

With the two of you walking towards the closest electronics store in the mall, you take in the surreal feeling of being alone in such a huge building. With all the stores empty and the sound of your footsteps echoing around the giant hall, you feel almost like you're in a dream, except in your dreams, your not wearing a big backpack and carrying a gun.

You scan the electronics store for any zombies and find it to be clear. You and Alex both search the aisles for radios and come up with a few different options. One was really cheap, so you disregarded that one. The next was really expensive and bulky, plus it could only be charged via a cable, so that ruled that one out. The last was moderately sized and was powered by battery, so that's the one Alex took. He slid his knife out of the sheath and cut open the packaging to extract the radio. He then also opened a pack of batteries and fitted the radio with three AA's before turning it on. The box claimed it had a 10km radius of transmission, so it was more than enough for what you were planning in the future. You set both your radios on the first channel and test them out.

"Can you hear me?" You ask whispering into the radio from across the hall.

"Loud and clear." He replies into the radio.

"Okay, now let's split up and gather more materials. If one finds a large stash of valuable item, radio in and tell the other so we can come and pick stuff up as well. Also, if you fall into some danger, also call and say so to be helped out, okay?" You ask.

"Okay. Let's roll out." Alex says in his best Optimus Prime voice.

You stay in the electronics store to gather some accessories and batteries for your different devices, like mobile battery packs for you phones, extra AA and AAA batteries, and some USB thumb drives for information storing. By the time you leave the store, Alex is nowhere to be found. You take this time to radio in and get his location before continuing.

"Yo, where you at?" You ask into the radio.

"Uh... Victoria's Secret." You hear back.

"Perv, just look for actually supplies." You say. "Don't spend your time here wanking to lingerie."

You walk down the main hall and stop outside a game store. Knowing full well you'll probably never play video games again, you pass the store by and continue down the line.

You eventually come upon the mall's drug store and see no one inside. You proceed to walk down the aisles and put anything worth keeping into a basket. Soon the basket contains multivitamins, bandages, quick clot, headache medications, antibiotics and some syringes. You take the basket back to the front counter before remembering that you don't have to pay for anything, so you simply swing the duffel bag off your shoulder and start to pack your findings into it. While you're there, you jump the counter and use your knife to open the cash registers. You take out your wallet and place as many large bills into it as possible before shutting them and leaving with your supplies. Being a rich motherfucker feels nice, even if it's only useless paper now. Maybe one day you'll plaster your bedroom with hundred dollar bills, that could be cool.

"I've got medical covered, what are you grabbing?" You say to the radio.

"I, my good friend, have found the mother load of weapons. There has to be more bullets in here than people in the city. Too bad for us, they're all behind gates, so I can't get to them, but I can get some guns off the walls and take those. What do you think?" Alex replies.

"I think you're awesome, and you should take what would be useful, like rifles and more pistols, as well as holsters if you can." You say to him.

"I will if I come across any." He replies.

A little ways down the mall you come across a small sports store. You see some jerseys along one wall and balls of many kinda along another, but the center of the store holds the good merchandise. As you enter, you see that the store sold sports clothing, like Under Armor, something that could be of use to you and Alex.

"Hey, what sizes of clothing do you wear? I'm going to grab some good clothes from this sports place I'm at." You say to your radio.

"Uh, can you grab me two large shirts and a 30-30 in pants?" Alex asks.

"Sure thing." You reply.

Opening the duffel bag once again, you put all the medical supplies off to one side and start packing the clothing into the bag. You pick yourself up a couple medium sized shirts and some 28-30 pants as well. As you approach the exit of the store, you see that just below the counter where you would pay holds a massive stockpile of energy bars and protein snacks. You leave the duffel bag on the counter before you climb over to retrieve a few plastic bags and the large bills from the register. Maybe you could use money as kindling for a fire... That might work. You climb back over the counter and start emptying the boxes into two plastic bags, which you then stuff into the duffel Bach before leaving and continuing down your path.

Before now, you never took notice of how heavy all your gear is. A loaded backpack full of survival gear, a duffel bag full of supplies, a pistol, knife, and a shotgun really takes it's toll on you when you're carrying it all for an hour. It's starting to weigh down on your shoulders, causing them to ache.

"Have you gotten any new gear?" You ask into your radio.

You don't hear anything for a few minutes, so you call again.

"Alex? You there?"

"Shh! Keep your voice down! Whisper if you need to, but only if necessary. I've got a bit of a situation here." Alex whispers back to you.

"What's wrong?" You ask.

"You won't believe this, but there's someone else in the mall with us." He says.

"Who? Are they dangerous? How many are there?" You say.

"Only one girl, and I mean girl. She might be a bit younger than us, but she's trying to take some stuff from the store across from me. She's shaking like a leaf in the wind though, she must be terrified." Alex explains.

"Ok, where in the mall is that gun store? I'm going to come by and see if we can talk this girl into coming with us." You say.

"Okay, she's taking her sweet time, so just get here quick. I'm more towards the food court, maybe six stores down from the doors." He tells you.

You take a quick jog back to the sports store to grab another empty duffel bag before taking off quickly towards the food court. As you round the last corner before the stretch off hallway leading to where your friend lay hiding, you drop your bags and take your gun before going any further. You see the gun store Alex said he was at on the far side of the hall, which means the store where the girl is at is on your side. You crouch down and silently make your way to the edge of the store where the girl should be. As you stop and listen, you hear shuffling feet moving quickly and some faint sobbing coming from inside, definitely female. You glance back towards the gun store, which you now see is a hunting store, and see Alex poking his head out from behind a rack of camo jackets. You catch his eye and signal at yourself, a walking motion, then you point into the store before giving a thumbs up with a shrug, basically saying, "is it safe for me to go in?" Luckily Alex understood and gave a nod to tell you you're good to go.

First, you check to make sure your safety is off, then you slowly stand up and aim into the store. Near the back stood the girl Alex spoke about with her back turned to you. The store was a convenience store and the girl was trying to fit bags of chips and some chocolate bars into her backpack, which was rather small to begin with. From what you could see, the girl was no older than you, but by the way she was acting suggests that she is actually younger.

***CLICK CLICK!***

"Oh... Shit... Please don't shoot me." The girl says as she stands and lift her arms above her head.

"Do you have any weapons on you?" You ask.

"No... I was going to try to get one while I was here." She says.

"Ok, turn around and face me." You tell her.

The girl's voice seemed a bit familiar, like you knew her. Before she turned around, you glance back at Alex and notice that he moved, since he isn't hiding behind the rack of clothes anymore, in fact, he was on the opposite side of the store pointing his gun at the girl as well.

Stealthy guy, that could come in handy.

"Allan?" The girl asks.

"Oh my god... Brittany?" You reply.

When the girl saw who you were, she immediately ran towards you and threw her arms around you to pull you into a hug. Alex was about a second from shooting before he noticed you lower your gun and return the hug, even if you were a little hesitant.

"Who's she?" Alex asks.

"This is Brittany, she's my friend's little sister. By the way Brit, where is your sister? Or your mom and dad?" You ask.

"Allan... They're... Uh... Back at my apartment, probably still with that officer." She says.

"Oh good, they're still safe." You say.

"Uh... Not really... They're... They're..." She stutters.

"Oh god... No... Tell me they didn't get bitten..." You tell her.

"Yeah... Dad came home with an officer... They were both bitten... Dad passed out... Then the cop... Then dad... Attacked mom... Then the officer did too... They were biting her all over... My sister tried to get them off, but dad turned and bit her too... I just grabbed my backpack and ran out the front door, then shut it and ran... I came here to get food, then I saw you two drive up and kill that lady, then you came inside, so I followed you... But by the time I got in here, you two were both gone... So I started to get myself some stuff before leaving..." Brittany tells you. Soon, she's sobbing from telling you her story. She drops to her knees and weeps into your chest for a while with you just sitting there trying to comfort her.

"Well, I'll keep looking around while you two... Uh... Bye." Alex says before leaving the store.

"Allan... I... I can't believe you survived... I can't believe I survived either... I've been running around for two days now, running from those things outside... Can... Can I come with you two? I don't know if I'll survive if I stay alone... I've already seen one person get attacked by those things... They couldn't even get out once it grabbed them... I heard them scream... I don't want to die..." She says while crying.

"Hey... You don't have to cry. I've lost my family too, I even had to kill my own brother... But I promise, as long as you're with me, I'm going to make sure nothing bad happens to you." You say to Brittany.

"You said that to my sister... Then you dumped her... And now she's..." She says.

"I know, but I mean this more than ever now. We have guns, ammo, food, a car, and a safe place to stay. So come on," you say as you lift her to her feet. "Let's get going, we need to get you some supplies and get going."

"Do I have to have a gun? I don't like guns... They kinda scare me." She tells you.

"Well, I'd rather you carry one just in case, that way you can protect yourself, but if you really don't want to, then I won't make you." You tell her.

"Well... Maybe a small one?" She asks.

"We'll let you have whichever one you want." You tell her.

"You're trying to act like a gentleman, aren't you? Coming in here and saving me, being all nice an stuff... You're like a knight in shining armor." She tells you.

Before you could leave, Brittany pulls you in for another hug. Right when you're about to let go, she gives you a quick kiss on the cheek and let's you go. Knowing that you had a bit of a thing with this girl's older sister makes you a little uncomfortable seeing as she's two years younger than you, but in the same sense, it made you feel even more obligated to protect her no matter what.

"So... Uh... Let's get you that gun... Over there... Uh... Yeah." You say completely flustered.

Brittany grabs her small bag and follows you across the hall to the hunting store where Alex spotted her. As you look down the hall, you notice Alex pretending to be interested in movie poster deprecating a pretty relevant picture; a zombie apocalypse. As he notices you leaving with Brittany, he turns and walks back to join the two of you.

"You two lovers done yet?" He asks.

You look at Brittany who started to blush bright red before looking away from you and Alex. You simply shrug and continue into Alex's hunting store. You lead Brittany over to a counter that contained a number if different pistols with their respective holsters underneath them.

"I don't know... They all seem really big..." She tells you.

Without skipping a beat, Alex whispers "that's what she said." To which Brittany just laughs.

"How about this one? It's a Glock chambered in 9mm, it holds 15 bullets, so you shouldn't be worried about running out if you need to shoot something. Speaking of shooting things..." you pull out your pistol and aim at the lock on the nearest cage of ammunition. Making sure that the other two aren't too close, you pull the trigger.

***BANG!***

You replace your pistol and open the cage holding the ammunition boxes back. Alex grabs some nearby ammo cans and helps you load one full on 9mm ammo for the three of you to use. The next can was filled with shotgun shells for the two of you. You also go behind the glass and grab the gun you were explaining to Brittany and load it full before having her attaching it to her pants so she have it on her at all times.

"Did you get any other guns down?" You asks Alex.

"Nah, I saw this girl then radio'd you to tell you. I never got the chance." He tells you.

The three of you cross to the wall at the back of the store and start to examine the selection. Alex takes down two bolt action hunting rifles. They're stripped to the bare bones, leaving nothing on it except the iron sights. You ask Brittany if she wanted to have one, maybe a shotgun, but she shakes her head and refuses as if you just asked if she wanted to jump out of a plane without a parachute. The two of you take down your guns and walk around the store equipping your guns with anything you like. From scopes to bullets and slings so you throw it on your shoulder for easier carry, you grab another two ammo cans and load them full of your .308 rounds before exiting the store. On your way out, Brittany spots a few crossbows hanging from the wall. She quickly runs over and takes one down.

"I thought you didn't want anything else." You say to her.

"Well, this isn't a gun, so it's perfect. I'll take two." She says.

"Ok... Well, Alex, can you go grab that extra duffel bag I took? I left it over there, just around the corner." You ask him.

"Oh, uh... Sure. Sure." He says before heading off to where you pointed.

As Alex is walking away, you turn and help Brittany with getting two of the cross bows down, as well as picking out some arrows for both your bow and some bolts for the crossbow, then you take three quivers for the arrows and a new bow for Alex so that you all now have a number of weapons to use. When Alex's footsteps round the corner, you turn to Brittany and get her attention. Seeming to know what you were thinking, she turns and gives you another hug, but this time she pulls you in for a real kiss. A quick but deep kiss before you go back to your shopping. You always found her to be nice and all, maybe even a bit attractive, but you never gave her any real thought because at the time you were dating her sister. Now that you've both revealed your feelings for each other, your drive to protect this girl triples to the point where you would dive into a mob of zombies to make sure she is able to escape alive. As Alex returns with the bag, he hands it to you so you can load all the ammo cans into it before giving it to Brittany to carry. She complains a little about it's weight, but stops after trying to carry the bags you and Alex have. With both you and Alex having your new rifles slung over your shoulders with your duffle bags, your packs on your backs and your shotguns in hand, you leave the store and tell Brittany to go back into the convenience store and grab only the non perishable foods, like canned foods, beef jerky (which you insist she get) and as much bottled drinks as possible. Once all your bags are stuffed to the breaking point, Alex leads you and Brittany back to the stairwell you and him entered through.

"This is how I got in... I thought I was just lucky to find this open..." She tells you.

As you climb the stairs behind Alex, you take Brittany's hand and hold it until you reach the top. You can see her smiling at you before Alex opens the door and let's some light into the stairwell. You take the lead and show the other two to the ladder going down to the parked car. You take off your duffle bag and put it down before climbing over and down the ladder. Once at the bottom, Alex crouches down and hands over the duffel bag for you to take. Next, Brittany drops her duffel bag and climbs over to descend down the ladder. Alex hands over her duffel bag, then his own before climbing down as well. With both your shotguns out and in your hands ready to shoot if the need arises, you both lead Brittany back around the mall towards your car.

As you round that last corner, you see two zombies walking around between you and the car. Neither has seen you yet, so you tell Brittany to stop and get her crossbow ready.

"Why do I have to? I don't want to kill them, you do it!" She tells you.

"You'll have to sooner or later." Alex says.

"I agree, I want you to kill these two. If you truly can't, we will, but I want you to get at least one of them." You tell her.

"You've got to be joking." She says.

Eventually she stops arguing and allows you to show her how to load the crossbow. Soon, both are loaded and all three of you are ready to step out and take down the two zombies. Brittany stays her distance away from the closest zombie so that it won't get her. Once the zombie notices her, she stops walking and takes aim. As the zombie walked towards her, she started breathing really heavy and her hands started to shake. Noticing this, you hoist your shotgun up and get ready to defend her if she doesn't take the shot. With the zombie within seconds of grabbing Brittany, she takes a deep breath and pulls her trigger, sending an arrow through its eye socket and out the top of its head.

The second zombie noticed the commotion once the first hit the pavement. Taking aim, you point your shotgun at the second zombie's head and squeeze the trigger.

***BLAM!***

The zombie's head explodes from the impact of the shot and splatters his brain matter all over the pavement. Once his body hit the pavement, you step on the first zombie's head and yank out the arrow. You hand the arrow back to Brittany and start off towards the car. You toss the keys to Alex so he can get the car started and pop the trunk. You take all the bags and stuff them into the trunk before hopping into the driver's seat and waiting for the other two to get in. By the time Brittany closed her door, the first of the zombies attracted by the gunshot started to enter the parking lot. You start to drive off, dodging the zombies on the way out.

"Why'd you have to shoot? Now every zombie in the city is going to be coming this way!" Alex tells you.

"Good! Then they'll be moving away from my place. Plus, I wanted to shoot one, I don't think I have yet." You tell him.

You floor the gas as you drive down a relatively empty street towards your house. As you pull into your street, you have to drive around the abandoned cars littering the street.

"At least it'll be hard for someone to get here in a car." Brittany says.

You don't bother to pull into your driveway, you just pull up to he curb and stop the car. You push the button to pop the trunk then you turn the car off and leave to take your findings out of the trunk. With the three of you carrying two bags each, your trunk is soon free of gear. You open your front door and lead Brittany in before shutting the door and barricading it again.

"Brit, you can take my sister's room if you like, Alex is already on the couch. Here, help me carry these supplies upstairs. Alex, can you unload the food?" You ask.

"I can do that." He replies.

Both you and Brittany grab a duffel bag and proceed upstairs. You open the door to your sister's old room and plop the duffle bag down on her bed. Brittany comes in behind you and drops her bags on the bed as well. You get down to business unloading the bags, transferring the ammo cans to your room and taking one of the crossbows and some arrows into your room. You hear your door shut behind you and you turn I see Brittany standing against it.

"Allan... Did you mean that kiss earlier?" She asks you.

"Well... Of course I did... I wouldn't have kissed you if I didn't." You tell her. "I've always found you to be pretty attractive."

"Even when you were with my sister?" She asks.

"Yes actually, that's when I first met you." You say to her.

"Well," she says as she walks towards you. "That was exactly when I started liking you. I know, it's a little girl's crush on an older guy, but we're not that far apart, age wise. About a year and a half, my birthday's in a few weeks actually."

"As it stands right now," you say as you pull her in close. "I'll do anything to make sure you stay safe."

Brittany smiles while looking you in the eyes before putting her arms around your neck and pulling you into another kiss. This kiss slowly turns into a make out session with Brittany up against your wall. You only stop when you hear Alex calling to you from downstairs, asking what all of you were going to eat later for dinner.

You give Brittany another deep kiss before stepping back and opening the door.

"Later." Is all you tell her before going downstairs to talk to Alex.

"I think we should boil some water and make some rice with veggies." You tell him.

"Ok, we've got more than enough to do that. And also, I saw that first kiss earlier." He tells you in a whisper. "You sir, are a lucky guy. Meet a girl then you're kissing her five minutes later. Damn, if only I were that good."

"Hmm, let's just say that you'd better give us some alone time tonight." You whisper back. "She seems pretty enthusiastic."

"Lucky son of a bitch..."

"Don't worry, we'll try and find another female survivor for you to screw to your heart's content." You tell him.

"Yeah yeah, now go get your magic fire going." He tell you before handing you some matches.

You holler up to your new girlfriend to come down and outside with you, since you want everyone to know how to make a good fire. Once you're outside, you turn and engage in your make out session again, much to the enjoyment of Brittany.

"You seem pretty happy with me." She tells you.

"I enjoy being able to do this with someone. I thought I'd be dead before finding another decent survivor." You say to her.

"Well then, let's just say that you won't be dying a virgin now." She says to you.

Your mind races a mile a minute trying to comprehend what she just said to you.

"You're that serious about being with me?" You ask.

"Well, it's not happening tonight, but I hope it will some day. Just don't get your hopes up, if you're too clingy it'll never happen at all." She tells you.

With a smile, you give her another kiss before turning to your fire. You get Brittany to replace the platform at the bottom of your fire hole while you gather your sticks. You show her the basic concept of the fire hole and how it works. You show her how to set up the kindling and larger sticks and how to light it, then you tell her how to get the fire really going by getting her to put her head down the hole to blow air under the fire. She fell for your trap because you could have done it in two seconds, but you got her to do it so you could openly stare at her ass the whole time. Once the fire is going and starting to really heat up, Alex comes down with a can of mixed vegetables and two packages of rice, all in a large metal pot with a few bottles of water in it and some dishes and cutlery as well.

Today, Alex takes point when cooking, making sure the rice gets nice and cooked before straining them onto a large plate and putting on the veggies. As Alex works on the cooking, you go into the basement and retrieve three lawn chairs for you all to sit on while eating. Before long, Alex has three plates full of steaming veggies on top of some rice, making their flavors mix into a delicious supper. With your plates in your hands, you all begin to eat. You congratulate Brittany on her kill earlier, asking if it was her first one. She tells you that after she left her apartment, she ran outside and hid in a tree for a few hours, waiting for the zombies (the term you recently taught her) moved away towards other survivors fleeing their homes. She tells you that she slipped out of the tree and ran to the bike path behind her building and followed that until she came out near the mall. She entered the abandoned gas station nearby and shut the doors so no one could get in before taking some food and having something to eat. She stayed in the station for the next day and night before checking if the coast was clear. She was able to see the car parked below the ladder leading into the mall from where she was, so she was able to climb up and enter through a broken door, then go into the mall to grab some stuff before leaving. She saw that someone has already been in some of the stores, since she saw some open boxes in the electronics store, which you told her was from you and Alex. She said that she grabbed the same things you did, the same radio and batteries before packing them into her bag and heading off again. She told you that she also grabbed some more feminine items from the pharmacy and some clothes from stores along the way. Then she said that she felt like someone was watching her, so she went into the convenience store with them intent of grabbing some food and leaving quickly, which is when she met you and Alex.

"Wow, small world, eh?" You say.

"What are the odds of that happening?" Alex asks.

"Pretty damn slim." Brittany replies.

As you're eating your food, you glance up at the sky and see the first stars starting to appear. You all sit by the fire hole, waiting for the last of the wood to burn out before heading inside, the sky being quite dark by then.

"How's about an early bed time tonight. No games, no lighting candles and reading, just sleep." You tell the other two.

"I can - yawn - go with that." Alex says. You and Brittany say goodnight and go upstairs to get ready for bed.

"I didn't want to say this is front of Alex earlier, but you can actually sleep with me if you really wanted to." You tell Brittany.

"Way ahead of you." She says as she starts to undress in front of you.

You sit and stare for a few seconds before going the same yourself. Soon you're both down to nothing but your underwear, laying down in your bed, with Brittany laying her head on your chest. You never thought you'd be getting this close to intimacy before you died, but you soon push that thought out of your head before settling down for some sleep. You wrap your arms around your new girlfriend before slowly drifting off to sleep.

Day three: done. Income: food, medical supplies, clothes, guns, girlfriend.

If you don't survive this apocalypse, you're going to be one hell of an unhappy camper.


End file.
