The Zombie Apocalypse with MCR (Complete)

Unexpected Encounters

Time passes differently in this new world of ours.

Days blur. Nights bleed into one another. We're so focused on surviving, on staying human, that we don't really bother to track the date anymore.

We keep an eye on the moon, watch it swell and thin and disappear entirely, and that's how we know the months are passing.

We leave the house after eight weeks. We only linger that long because of Alissa, and her insistence that her parents will return. They never do. She leaves them a note, begging them to call or text her when they make it back.

So when Alissa is ready, we stock as much as we can into my mother's people carrier (in spare moments I start to teach the other guys how to drive and how to use the weapons, but it's safest to leave that sort of stuff to me), and we search for something similar elsewhere. We move to the next city along, to the North, and we look for a nice area with a house we can defend.

And we exist there in much the same way.

Days pass, and we read books and play card games and watch movies. I go out scavenging, Pandora an ever present shadow on my heels. Nat comes with me sometimes, and Alissa even ventures out once or twice (mostly to scout for clothes, because she's disgusted with my style). Mark is not the adventurous type, and so he leaves the looting to me.

I find I don't mind being out on the streets. Quickly, I adapt. Pandora and I become a team, sweeping streets and buildings efficiently. I gather a kind of uniform to take with me every day; a backpack full of supplies fit for survival. A utility belt of weapons and ammunition. I fashion a holster for my backpack, and take to carrying an axe between my shoulder blades. Additionally, I carry an AK-47 with me as my weapon of choice. It remains largely unused, except in very serious situations. The guys make fun of me for looking like Rambo.

I don't use my handgun, or the larger assault rifle, because it's often simply not needed. When I'm in buildings and on the streets, a quick swing with the axe is enough to take a corpse down.

I find I'm... Good at it.

It's not something I'm proud of, nor something I brag about to the guys... But after a few weeks of moving, of keeping the guys and myself alive, things become easier. Danger becomes predictable. Fear takes a backseat to routine, to necessity.

Houses are the best places to raid. I become adept at spotting signs of life and signs of a fight. If there's been a fight, I expect dead bodies and shuffling corpses. If there are signs of life, I steer clear unless I'm flagged down or spoken to first. These days, humans aren't very welcoming to their fellow species. Houses are best because there's never many bodies inside. Malls, supermarkets, shops; places like that can pack more corpses than I'm ever willing to face or fight.

Occasionally, I find humans willing to talk.

The first is a family of five. I find them on the road while I'm scoping out a small corner shop, looking for supplies. I hear the screaming from inside the building, and rush immediately to aid them. A couple of minutes frantically driving and I find a boarded up house, set upon by a small horde.

I kill the majority, in one of the rare moments I need the assault rifle. My aim has improved vastly, my muscles calling back all those lessons given to me by my father and John. When I've done most of the heavy lifting, the father of the house emerges to help kill the rest.

We work together, him swinging a sledgehammer wildly. I switch to my axe, unwilling to waste the ammunition on the last remaining fighters. And they do fight; I get a punch to the side of the head from a man whose intestines dangle out of his stomach, and a jagged, bloody wound at my ribs from a woman's sharp nails as she lunges for me.