Delirium [Zombiestuck]

Chapter One: Day 50 [Dave]

Dave had been alone for a long while now, the only possible communication he could have had ended abruptly as soon as the other life forms turned hostile against him. This world was so much different now, so violent. There was no end to it. Once upon a time the teen would have been able to casually walk down the streets and those around him would have been completely oblivious to his presence, now he was treated as a moving target, a threat. All living people were, those who had a weapon could fight. After all, the first wave of the undead had wiped out all of the innocent, the weak and the ones who could not defend themselves.

After a while, the young Strider had gotten used to the alone time. It had become a fucked up sort of comfort to him. However, that peace never lasted for long. There was always someone or something willing to destroy it. The first time Dave had run into a group of people, they had been rather friendly. They had given him food and water and had told him that he could rely on them for support, and for a while, Dave believed them. The one girl, whose first name escaped his memory some time ago, had been very handy with a hunting rifle. It was something that she had managed to get ahold of via her Grandpa's large collection of guns. She had been the most optimistic one in the group. Apparently the apocalypse had no adverse affect on her because she continued to waltz around and act like her parent's hadn't been eaten alive in front of her by a herd of stray undead slabs of animated meat.

The next one in the group, from what he could recall, was a boy who went by the name John. Now, "Egderp", as he had so cleverly nicknamed him, quickly grew into one of his closest friends. The teen had managed to keep a strange obsession with small practical jokes and pranks, which usually ended in him getting scolded by either of the two females in the foursome. Although he would never admit it, the reason that Dave never told John off for his constant joking around was because of how laid back he was when doing it. Usually, the black haired boy appeared to have something plaguing his thoughts and the pranks seemed to help him lighten up, if only for a small amount of time.

That and he was rather attractive when he was laughing. Which was totally not a thing that Dave ever admitted to thinking.

The last member of their squad was called Rose. She was the most mysterious one of them all by far. Her parents had apparently been two of the scientists that had been searching for a cure to the virus that had caused the zombies to start appearing. But soon enough, they too had been infected due to their close proximity with the raw samples of the original virus. They had sent Rose away to live with her older sister for her own safety a few months before the real apocalypse had set in, back when the virus was still spreading from country to country. Things had been relatively normal back then. Those who had contracted the virus and/or were showing the main symptoms of it were told to immediately take themselves to the nearest virus control centre, in which they would be contained efficiently and wouldn't infect anyone. Obviously these centre's did not work for much longer, as the demand for them rose above what they were capable of. It wasn't long before people began roaming the streets, famished and frothing at the mouth, clawing at anything radiating heat. Soon the virus had infected everyone. Although it took special circumstances for it to actually 'infect' the body of its host. Nobody was sure of what those 'circumstances' were, though. They still weren't. One day, a perfectly healthy human being could be roaming the streets, kicking some good old zombie ass, and the next they would be a moaning, mindless monster. It just happened.

For a good few weeks, these three adolescents became Dave's best and only friends. The four of them managing to survive together due to their skills, instincts, and what Dave liked to refer to as luck. But that soon changed.

• Two Weeks Earlier •

The group were preparing to raid a small store in the local area. It had been labelled as a rather simplistic task. The area had been scouted out by Jade and John a few times. So it wasn't going to be too strenuous or dangerous. All they had to do was check the place for food and water and then they could move on.