First Night

Two Weeks

I set my AR down along the bed side, checking the safety before it hit the floor. Koby back-flopped on to his bed resting his forearm over his eyes.

"How many times? Fifteen, right?" He mumbled half to himself.

"I could've swore it was at least twenty," Max replied, his voice growing with sarcasm.

It was sarcasm right?

There's no way we'd jump up at the slightest sound four weeks in.

People really underestimate the apocalypse.

I scratched my head, looking around the room for something to keep me occupied.

The piles we had initially were now neatly organized. Everything had a place which was labeled and logged; whenever it departed anyway. The master bedroom closet which once held my parents clothes and files, were stripped bare. The gaps were filled with our precious gear. Things like ammo, guns, and PVS-15 night optical devices.

Packed away in the rucksacks full of "stuff", were what one would call legendary goodies. NODs, paracord, gas masks with filters. Items that would sell high in a video game, things that only traders have on very special occasions. None of them compared to my personally built nightvision. In video games, night vision is usually a green color when in reality, night vision comes in many different colors. Amber, green, white, and even multicolored. Green is simply the cheapest way to grab NODs, while things like white phosphor are rare. My heart rate rose as I remembered how Max had nearly dropped a pair of PVS-31s when he pulled them out of my pouch. The rollercoaster of emotions when he fumbled, caught, fumbled again and finally retained the damn piece was not good for my health.

My head swung back to the food. The window that sat above on the west wall was now boarded up. My neck protested before it lolled back towards the balcony door, little bits of afternoon glow peaked through the blinds. A simple ham sandwich eventually found its way into my stomach, followed by some Pedialyte to keep me going past sundown.

Our first time outside the wire happened around 23:40, nearly three and a half weeks ago. The consistent gunfire and sirens stopped wailing days before that. It went... Well? No one got injured at least.

Throughout the four or so weeks we continued to gather Intel on our adversaries: other people, the monsters now code-named "Zeke", and wildlife developments. With the colder October rolling in and the inevitability of a food shortage, it was better to have our bases covered.

The Zekes themselves ate anything they could catch, alive or otherwise. Bugs, spiders, animals, humans, each other, you name it; if it had a heart in the physical sense, it was dinner. They often shambled to where there was food in an act to conserve energy it seemed. However, as soon as prey was acknowledged by one, several would appear out of the cracks and corners of the neighborhood. It's almost like they have telepathy, however, Koby noted something particularly interesting.

When a feeding was going on, the area reeked of them. Koby thinks the smell attracts more to the area when one of them is out of D-Stat. D-Stat is short for what we call "dormant status". At night in particular, a Zeke enters this state because it's... bored?

Whether bored or conserving energy, the Zeke rarely shambles and is often completely still, facing to the East. However, if light or a loud noise is noticed, the Zeke seems to get an adrenaline pump. It shambles quickly, sometimes even running to the source and attacking it. I tested this several times with Max.

We cracked chemlights in a coat behind a wall before throwing them out in the open at Zekes. Some would hurl themselves at the chemlight five feet in the air, if they noticed it in time; it was a terrifying downside to running around at night. We scouted several houses during the testing, always making a point to go with one another.