“Still I mean it's only been 2 weeks since the evacuation announcement, what happened to make you all like this?”

 

“It all went to shit mmph” Zeke said in between chews.  

 

“The military rounded us all up in the convention center downtown, but only after a few days, the infected started to pop up. A few were killed quickly, but eventually enough appeared that it became a mob of them, too large for the military to control.”

 

“Idiots came in with bite marks hidden. Because of the stupidity of a few, so many died,” Alice muttered somberly. 

 

“Yeah, as soon as the mob happened, everyone began to panic. Everyone was running around the center. The crowd pushed and shoved so much, the 4 of us met up in one room trying to avoid being stampeded. It was wack, “ William nodded to himself.

 

“Originally we were with our families, but we got separated from all that was happening. Well most of us.” Zeke glanced at Jess. “We knew that we couldn’t hide in there forever since we needed supplies, so we made a run for it when the surroundings got quiet enough. Since then we’ve been running through the city, scavenging and escaping the dead, until Jess got hurt. Then we knew we needed a place to rest and recuperate. Thought maybe these apartments would have a room with some supplies. Unfortunately all the ones we went though were all empty or locked, and we don’t know how to lockpick doors, and trying to break a door down would risk alerting the dead outside,” Zeke said. 

 

“So the convention center was overrun, the military couldn’t stop the infection, and you 4 were running away, scavenging and moving, when Jess fell on some glass, which brought you all here?”

 

“Pretty much,” Alice responded, finishing her food, and downing her glass of water. 

 

“What’s your plan now?” curiously I asked.

 

They looked at each other.

 

“We don’t know. Continue scavenging? Wait until the military come in and kill off the zombies, and evacuate to another shelter?” Alice shrugged. 

 

Zeke glanced around the room. I could already understand what he wanted. 

 

“Listen, if the convention center fell, I don’t think the military is going to be able to contain this. At least it isn’t safe to bet on it happening anytime. At worse, the whole military is already disrupted, half killed or more by the infection. Right there are 3 dangers to humans. One, the zombies and getting infected, two lac of supplies and shelter, and three, other humans.”

I eye all three of them, as they begin to fidget in their spots. “I think you three somewhat understand the risk I took by responding and letting you all in, in addition to giving my supplies.”

“Which we are all very thankful for, and we would never hurt anyone friendly. But I understand that amongst the scavengers and survivors, there will be thieves and killers outside too. We can’t thank you en…” Alice was cut off.

 

“Here’s what I’m thinking, You all can rest up the night, I’ll let Jess recuperate here, while you three go out and scavenge for supplies, then after she is well enough you three would leave.”

 

I scan my eyes across their faces, as their expressions begin to stiffen a bit. 

 

“But that would leave me in a net negative of supplies. My stockpile isn’t enough to outlast this outbreak. So I’m willing to share my supplies and home with you all and we work together as a team.”

 

“Oh you want to join us? That sounds great, I could always use another hand, especially from someone so nice” William nodded.

 

“I didn’t do this because I’m nice, I understand my current predicament is unstatinable so I need …“

 

“Heheh,” Alice chuckled along,” we’d be glad to have you aboard.”

 

“That”

 

“Yeah really thanks for the help, let's get along” Zeke held out his hand for a shake while smiling.

 

I squint my eyes. “Just shower already. We’ll talk after you all sleep.”

31 days after ts

“Do you have any coffee? Yawn*” Zeke asked, bringing his hand up, walking into the kitchen.

 

“I don’t drink coffee, so no.”

 

“No coffee? What are you? A monster?” 

Whap* “He’s joking, he jokes when he’s nervous,” Alice explained.

 

“It was just a friendly joke, any could tell I was joking geez.”

 

Taking their meals, I started to talk while we were all seated.

 

“First things first, you all can keep eating while I talk, but like I mentioned before my supplies are limited. It would’ve been enough to last me around a bit more than a month, but with us…5 we would probably have around 2 weeks. This isn’t including my stock of energy bars, but those are more for emergency use, since those are the rations I’m saving to stock for traveling. No other food supply would be better for traveling than energy bars.”

 

Zeke stops his mouth around his meal, Mount chocolate peanut butter energy, as he looks down at the wrapper.

 

“It's fine, I didn’t limit you to 3 before, so it's on me. I’m mentioning this now, because a few bars being used doesn’t mean much, but in the long run, if we need to travel and leave this place to scavenge and live in other areas, or trek a distance to another evacuation center, it’ll be easier to carry bars than cans.”

 

“If we don’t want to use the bars, well I noticed most of the drawers were filled with cans than the other dry foods stockpiled.”

 

“Yeah, I bought a lot of food stuff because I thought the price was going to skyrocketed, and stores would be ransacked from the panic, but I didn’t think the military would be outmatched and the gas/electricity would be cut.”

 

“By the way, how are the lamps working?” William asked.

 

“I have a solar panel charger and battery I bought for my phone, but it also came with an outlet, so I connected it to my lamp.” It was daytime, but I kept the blinds closed and the lights on, because I didn’t want dangerous people to see I was in the apartment.

 

“Wait you have a microwave right? Couldn’t you power that up to heat the canned food?”

 

…

 

…

 

“Let's do that”

10 mins later we were all eating warm canned chicken noodle soup. 

 

“Err, I think a proper introduction is needed actually, if we are going to be comrades afterall. I’m Alice Aqualia, Junior at South Weston High School.”

 

“Zeke Halcyon, Sophomore at South Weston High School.”

 

“William Smith, Sophomore at South Weston.”

 

“And Jess is a Junior like me, her last name is Tullen(tool-len).” 

 

“...I’m Aisha Ozwn, Freshman from West Weston High School. Then were you four friends before this?”

 

“Jess and I are and William and Zeke were, but we didn’t know each beforehand.”

 

“We’ve probably seen each other on campus, but never hung out. And wow, you’re a freshman? I thought you’d be a senior, well not by your height but because you're so… “ 

 

Whap* Alice smacked him on the head.

 

“Anyways, so about the supplies, we still should do scavenge runs, but we have some leeway now. We don’t need to go for dangerous runs. Lets just safely pick and choose places we can scrounge some stuff up. Here, I printed this map before the electricity went out. Mark the places on this map with information that you know. Circle the areas you think still have supplies. Cross out places that were already looted, or have a lot of undead crawling around.” I handed them some pens to mark the map. 

 

“Well the convention center is out, and several of the stores around it were swarming with zombies last time we saw. I’d assume a lot of downtown is overrun by now since that's where a lot of people were gathered by the government.” Alice said, marking the convention center. 

 

They began marking and talking about spots we could possibly go to scavenge. Most downtown stores were crossed off, while some circles were made around the local grocery stores nearby. 

 

“We actually ran through the mall area. That’s where Jess got cut. We thought it was safe in the beginning, but there’s actually a lot of zombies in the stores and upper floors.  The elevators and escalators stopped working. The stairs and escalator were cut off by zombies, so we jumped off a ledge to get down to the base floor, but a lot of the store's glass walls were broken, either from the zombies or people panicking,” Zeke remarked. 

 

“We carried with us what we could, but these places relatively had some stock left, it's just the zombies in the streets made us want to get out of there as fast as we could.” 

 

“Actually this area seems pretty safe all things considered. While there are some infected on the streets, there’s not a lot, and we didn’t find a single zombie in the apartments yet so far, “ Alice looked curiously at me. 

 

“This complex mainly housed students and travel workers. I imagine a lot of them left at the first sign of trouble. Still, there may be some who stayed behind like me, but I never saw or heard anything so far. If you only searched up to this 1st floor, well there’s still a lot more rooms you probably haven’t checked yet.”

 

“Should we go and look for others then? To join us?” William asked.

 

“We don’t know who to trust.” Zeke stated looking at me.

 

“Zeke’s right, some of them could be trouble. Society is collapsing. There are no police to jail you if you kill or steal from someone, they’re all busy dead or fighting the undead. Tbh, you four were lucky, if the owner of this room was a serial killer with a gun, you would’ve all been killed and robbed of whatever you had left on your bodies.” I nodded.

 

William paled a bit at that thought.

 

“Let's think about others later, for now, let's plan and start a daily routine of scavenging first. There are 4 of us active, and 1 sick. 2-3 of us should go out and scavenge, while one of us stays to protect the room and attends to Jess.  Ideally 3 of us goes out, and we rotate who stays back. If one of us gets injured, we can make it 2 stay back and 2 go out.”