Richard had spent the whole night in a closet of a rundown building, there was nowhere else for him to go, and there was no way he had the resources to survive out there. The sounds had slowly began to leave the door, they were unable to find where he was hiding, they did bang at the door a few times but they seemed to lose interest when there was no response. Richard was lucky, though he didn’t really consider himself lucky. He’s been in three groups ever since this thing started and everyone in these groups has died but him.

He slowly opened the door of the closet revealing a room that was not quite the same as it had been in the dark. It was destroyed, trash everywhere, paint peeling off the wall and in one of the corners you could see a spot where someone slid down the wall no a very grotesque demise. There was only a pile of meat left at the end of the blood streak.

“Woah”

He took his time walking out of the door making sure there weren’t any infected still hanging about the house before walking to a gaping door letting in a blinding light. Yes, he remembered having to slam the door on the infected faces to get some distance, dint work quite well but here he was alive, that’s more than could be said about most people these days. He walked outside into a quite rural neighborhood, dirt roads cheap looking houses just the works.

Left, Right… nothing. Awesome

The area around him seemed to be void of zombies, it was time for him to go, the stalkers liked to re trace their steps at night

Jenna woke up, and covered her eyes from the blinding sun. She rolled over and starred at her backpack, hanging off the edge of the balcony she had chosen for the night. Turning her head over to check the glass door that lead to the room of the 4th floor apartment, she found it as empty as it was last night.
Groaning, Jenna turned back over to grab the crowbar out of her backpack. She stood up and slung the bag and the rest of her tools over her shoulder. She bent over to pull down the bottoms of her skinny jeans, and tucked her red racer-back tank-top into her pants. She leaned over and checked out the scene below, hoping to find it clear. Unfortunately there as 3 stragglers that she could see, but she needed food.
Taking a deep breath, she opened the sliding glass door and braced herself for what ever could happen at the base of the building, tightening her grip on her crow bar in her left hand as she headed out.

]The military loves to drop supplies to help the poor few living people on Bohmia. These drops have been a godsend to many but you have to get there fast or everything would have been scavenged. You have a chance to meet allies near the drop site, but you have an equal chance to find bandit aswell. The crate seems to have fallen at the very top of a 30 story office building that doesn’t seems very structurally sound. Some aim, am I right? They like to drop food, water and medical supplies, if you need supplies and your willing to take a risk this is where you go.

It was relatively quiet before Richard heard a plan overhead. It seemed to drop something as it flew past the island. It must have been another supply crate they take to dropping, though they really should work on trying to evacuate us rather than feed us. The decent of the far away object seemed to slow as it disappeared out of sight. How far away was he from that crate? Could he get there before others did?

Then the moaning started, they were drawn out by the noise of the plane. Now that crate was less of a blessing and more of a curse. He quickly made a dash backwards trying to avoid all the zombies shambling their way towards where they thought they heard the noise.

Crap, Crap, Crap
Richard turned the corner only to be greeted by another group of curious monsters. They went from quietly wandering to loudly screaming for their next meal. Richard turned back around the corner to see that the zombies he initially wanted to avoid had found themselves walking in his direction, effectively trapping him between two groups of zombies. He immediately ran back into the building he just came out of, instinctively trying to close the door even though there was no way to actually close it. He ran up the stairs and went into a nearby room instead of the closet he found refuge in the night before.

When he got into the room he saw how the room was completely empty. Why was it empty, did people actually want to save their furniture? Maybe some lucky souls moved right before this thing happened.

Stop, it doesn’t matter

The zombies were banging at the door, there was no time to think about how or why. He looked around for something to use but there was nothing, but still there had to be something he could do here. The door began do creak and break from the monsters just outside. He ran up to the only window, opened it and pushed the screen out into the street below. It was a straight two story drop onto hard concrete.

Then there was a crash, all the zombies came pouring into the room, screaming and wailing for flesh. There was to ways to go about this and only one would let him survive. Richard gritted his teeth, braced himself and jumped out the window.
He hit the floor and immediately fell to his back; there was a pain in both legs but a much sharper one in his right leg. He tried getting up but and walking but his leg didn’t allow him to do such things with ease. It would now seem that Richard needed that crate more than he thought he did now. He limped as fast as he could out of the living area and towards where he saw the crate fall.

**Injuries: Fracture, sprained ankle

Isaac fingered the release mechanism on the pistol once again, allowing the clip to fall into his hand. He inspected the single bullet that he had yet to chamber into the pistol, for fear that, even with his expertise and the safety being on, he would accidentally fire the shot, and ruin his chance for a quick death, if need be. More than likely, someday he would have to, but until he found some more ammunition, he would take no chances. He slapped the clip back into the gun once more, as he had so many times that night. He lost count at around forty times.

Cold sweat poured down his face, cooling him from the humid island air outside, but it came far from comforting him. Sitting with his back against a grand-father clock, with his knees up at chest height, and his arms wrapped around them, he slowly rocked back and forth. Fuck, I could use some juice... He hadn't shot up in four days, and his sense were being dulled by the undying need for a needle piercing his vein. His glock hung loosely from the trigger, against his trigger finger, and it swayed along with Isaac's monotonous motion. He released the clip again, to make sure the bullet was still there, and it was.

The small, half-built summer home he now rested in was being built for a client of his. A former drug kingpin, who Isaac had came here to deal with. The place was in shambles, as it must have been raided before he got here, but the undead rarely came by the place, since there was no light or movement inside to attract them. A small, battery powered fan droned on a few feet in front of him, keeping his body from practically bursting into heat spasms, despite his cold sweat. Time slowly passed by, and was being documented by the black-wooded grandfather clock that he rested against. Luckily, the bell was broken on the inside, so when an hour passed, the clock only made soft knocking noises. The clock began it's hourly ritual, and knocked. Click. Click. Click. it kept going, and stopped at seven. It was seven in the morning, and only now did Isaac notice the sun was up. He checked his gun again, making sure the bullet was still there.

"Another night..." He said aloud, to no one in particular. Not that there was anyone around to hear him. He wondered if anyone else was alive at this point. He wondered if there were others, locked up tight in their fortifications, waiting out their demise. He wondered if anyone outside of the island and the military actually knew what the hell was going on in Bohmia. Another droning noise was slowly breaching his ears. It sounded familiar... like he had heard it many times before, but couldn't place it. Isaac looked up, and out of the small window that allowed a small amount of sunlight into the room. The sunrise loomed ahead, piercing the lightly clouded sky, as well as a figure in the distance. It grew as it approached the city. The noise he heard before became more prominent... and he now knew what it was. Standing up, allowing his legs but a moment to catch up with his shaky body, he half-jogged to the window. It was a plane. The supply plane.

"This could be it..." Isaac said, again, to no one. He checked his clip one last time, allowed his shaky hands to push it back into place, and put the pistol into the back part of the waist-band of his pants. "I can do this shit..." He said aloud. He snatched up the nailed 2x4 that he had fashioned together the day before, and slipped it into a makeshift carrying cloth that looped around his belt loop. Running on pure adrenaline, he knew that today he would go to the city, and take some supplies to allow him to survive another few nights alone, or he would die trying.

Stepping outside of the half-erected home, Isaac noted three shamblers, and the tail end of a stalker running into one of the nearby homes to avoid the sunlight. The slow ones were easy to get by alone, but he didn't want to stick around to see if they had any friends nearby, so he began his half-jog down the street. His head was pounding from withdrawal, and he knew he had to avoid eye contact with the sun, or it would all but blind him, and he couldn't have his migraine stopping him. Two more shamblers stumbled outside from a nearby home, and began to growl and gape their jaws as Isaac made his way past. He knew the city would have many more of the bastards, but he couldn't stop now.

The first of the larger skyscrapers came up on his left as he slow jogged into the city. He turned past it, and began to head into the city, when suddenly, a bustling group of shamblers began pounding on a door that must have only recently been closed. It didn't hold them very well, and they flowed in quickly. By now, Isaac was planted in a ducking position, behind a public mailbox. Whoever had ran inside attracted quite the horde, but gave Isaac a free block or two to keep moving. As he moved down the recently emptied street, he heard the sound of shattering glass, and a thump. It seems that some of the shamblers must have saw him jogging, and smashed their way through a window. He picked up the pace a bit, trying to shake off his sleep deprivation, and shakes. As he came to another blocked off roadway, covered in car wreckage and bloody bodies, he checked his corners. His heart sank as he looked around the building. A huge horde of the undead were idly limping about the roadway. An over-turned Humvee was scattered with discarded clips of ammunition, probably for a rifle, and a half-eaten body seemed to have been flung about, as half the vehicle was doused in blood.

"Fuck..." Isaac muttered, seeing that he would now have to make his way stealthily across. He wasn't in good condition, but he prepared himself to sneak across, hoping to use the wreckage as cover from the shamblers... "Alright... here we go..."

Jenna heard the plane fly over head, and heard it drop the supplies maybe a block or two away. Unfortunately, she was still heading outside so she had no idea which direction. The door heading outside wasn't clear, so Jenna raised her crow bar and pushed open the door slowly, and poked her head out to check see where those zombies were. Finding all of them to be facing another direction, she snuck out and ducked behind another building.

"Shit" she thought to herself. "I bet that's the direction that the crate was dropped in" She turned behind her, hoping to find an open area she could escape to. As much as she needed those supplies, there was no way she could fight off all the zombies that would indeed be heading towards that sound. She turned the rest of her body around and headed for the nearest building. The window on the ground floor was missing, so she jumped in and hid. Slumping down as to not be seen from the outside, she took a look around the room. I was bare, and the walls were a mix of red and brown and blue...with blue being the original color of the wall. Or at least that was Jenna assumed. The door to the room was closed, meaning Jenna only had to watch one entrance. She leaned her entire body weight against the wall and mumbled "well shit."

If you know your enemy, and you know yourself, then you need not fear the outcome of any battle.

Theo whispered the words to himself a sixth time. He brought his hands together in the hopes that they would cease their shaking.

It was making it hard to aim.

"If you know your enemy," he began again, ensuring his sweaty palms maintained a firm grip on the pistol. With his eyes closed, he took a slow, deep breath.

"And you know... yourself." He spoke this next sentence methodically, mouthing every syllable.

Theo opened his eyes then, taking caution not to let his gaze wander. He stared as a small cloud meandered by overhead, the bright blue sky providing the peaceful canvas on which it travelled, reflecting across the boy's irises. The cloud reminded him of a miniature dragon, its wings folded in, it's mouth wide open, ready to swallow the very sun itself.

That's what he needed to be now. As strong, as graceful, as majestic, as powerful as a dragon.

He inhaled sharply, taking in the ambient scent of the environment around him. He was met with the tinge of grease and asphalt, a jab of rust, and the ever-pervading aroma of exhaust. It was the archetypical smell of a city, and for a moment, Theo forgot where he was. He forgot his worries, lost track of his woes, and, just for one insanely miniscule instant, felt like he was back home again.

His father was sitting on the bench in their yard, smiling at him. The old man would always come out on days like this, when the sun was high and the sky was clear. He was a very mellow man when he wanted to be, always with a book or two on his person, and on this day he made no exception.

He stood in front of his father, but a child, looking up at him with unadulterated admiration. The man opened his mouth to speak, and Theo repeated his words verbatim:

"Then you need not fear the outcome of any battle."

It was something his father had told him the clear blue morning of his 4th grade taekwondo competition.

If you know your enemy, and you know yourself, then you need not fear the outcome of any battle.

That was seven years ago.

Theo looked down at himself. He knew who he was. He knew himself. He'd spent countless hours throughout his admittedly short life in base introspection, trying to answer what he believed were the "big questions". He knew himself better than anyone.

So why? Why wouldn't his hands stop shaking? What was he afraid of?

The floor under Theo's feet shook violently, almost causing him to lose his balance. He regained his composure immediately, planting both feet firmly on the roof of the car on which he stood. The episode snapped him back to reality like a bucket of cold water.

He was surrounded. He'd been surrounded for the past hour and a half. Maybe longer. Looking around, he noted the new positions of his enemies as they shambled about. Most just stared up at him, reaching, clawing the paint off the car on top of which he stood. Their hollow eyes were everywhere, seeing everything. Wanting everything.

Wanting him.

They were zombies. Yes, zombies. The walking dead. The eaters of brain. Whatever you want to call them.

Everyone thinks they'd do well in a post-apocalyptic undead hellscape, that their every shot will be a headshot and they'd just outrun the rest. Well, that didn't work out too well for Theo.

Plus the uncontrolled shaking, generally bad aim, and lack of experience with firearms wasn't doing him too well, either.

And now he'd managed to get himself stuck atop some car for the better part of... was it three hours now? He wasn't really even sure how long he'd been trapped on top of the thing—a dinky silver sedan with its windows blown out.

"I know all about you," he said, aiming the pistol at the face of the creature that was nipping at his heels. He didn't pull the trigger though, lest he summon even more of them to the party. Currently, there were maybe fifteen walkers, max. He didn't want to deal with any more if he could help it.

"I know my enemy."

This was the last location he'd spotted the people that took his little brother. Yeah, people—as in humans. As if walking flesh-eating blights weren't enough, there were kid-snatching douchebags and hostile gangs on the loose in the city too. He knew because he saw a lot of what was going on around the inner city and its metropolitan areas; it was all thanks to an expansive traffic camera array, an electrical grid that putted on like the little engine that could, and a liberal application of keyboard magic back at the lab.

Ah, yes, the laboratory. A secure private research facility built atop of a fallout shelter. It was his only safe haven on this island of horrors.

He had to escape this encirclement and find his way back there ASAP. It was definitely past noon, and the sun wasn't going to stay around forever. Theo had never been outside during the night—not in this hellscape, not even once.

What happens when one doesn't know their enemy?

Theo bit his lower lip, nearly drawing blood. He heard them from time to time—the corpses that roamed about at night. They weren't the same as these meager shamblers. They couldn't be, not sounding and scratching and razing as they did. No, the nighttime darkness was the demesne of the denizens of hell itself, let free to torment men with their piercing shrieks and alien speed.

They were enemies the likes of which he wasn't even sure a pistol would be effective against.

He refused to be outside during that time. Absolutely refused. Not for any reason. Never. No. The very thought of it sent shivers down his spine. It was a battle whose outcome he certainly feared.

His plan was to find and liberate his little brother before the night came and brought its hellish creatures with it. So much for that.

In the middle of his frantic puzzling, Theo didn't notice the faint hum of a jet's engines as it grew from a far-off buzzing to a roaring crescendo. Next thing he knew, something had smashed into the office building across the street from where he was surrounded, causing debris and a few window panes to shake loose and smash on the concrete below.

Looking up past the 30-some-story structure, he could see the contrails of a plane that had made a rapid departure after unloading its cargo. The military must've executed yet another supply crate dead drop.

This wasn't good. Not at all. That crate would draw every survivor group, murderous gang member, and starving cannibal for miles... and with more people come more zombies. Hordes and hordes of zombies.

Theo stomped his foot, exasperated. "Fuck! Why me?!" He gritted his teeth and clenched his fists, fighting to hold back tears of anger. "On top of everything...!"

Along with the sun setting, his brother missing, and everything else, he now had to move up his timetable on figuring a way out of his car dilemma or risk a run in with an unfavorable faction. He'd witnessed over the city's cameras how these animals made war with each other while the world around them fell apart. They had no sense of society. No hope of salvation.

"Humans". Fellow survivors. They were an enemy he knew all too well. Shoot to kill before they kill you—that was his policy, though he'd never had a chance to put it into practice. Not yet.

Theo sighed heavily, shrugging, the straps of his backpack digging into his shoulders uncomfortably. The more time that ticked by, the more logical just jumping into the horde and running for it became.

The universe just wasn't giving him a break today.

"Shit..." Isaac muttered, for the ump-teenth time. Shamblers seemed to litter the streets as far as his eye could perceive. It reminded him of living in New Orleans. He worked with a group of bikers who had recently entered the area. They were looking to purchase some heavy weaponry; anything that launched a fatal projectile, they wanted it. And he was happy to deliver. New Orleans was busy in the summertime, and the streets could get hard to navigate. But at least, back then, it wasn't a crowd of flesh hungry undead.

"Alright... fuck it, I can do this... I hope." Isaac thought back to all the fire-fights he had ever been in. He had never been this afraid, before. I guess things change when, instead of dodging bullets, you were dodging hands and nails and chomping teeth. The fact that he was having a withdrawal fit wasn't helping much, either. So, he decided to move as stealthily as he could, through a large bit of wreckage that would, hopefully, get him past unseen. Most of the undead seemed to be rather lame-brained, and a lot of them were still trying to make their way towards the sound of the supply drop.

When the shamblers were all in position to not give notice of Isaac, he moved. Crouched, he moved as quickly as he could from the banged up police car he had hidden behind, and stepped behind a bloodied, bullet ridden S.W.A.T. truck. It sounded like a few dead were slowly rummaging around inside, so he decided not to look inside for supplies. Instead, he made his way to a station wagon that was smashed into the front side of the S.W.A.T. vehicle. Isaac took a peek into the window, but saw nothing useful, at first glance. So he continued, waiting for another horde to slowly shift their view to a bird that had landed in the street. The bird began to strip the flesh from a shambler that was just a torso and a snapping head. It tried it's best to snap the bird up into his jaws, but failed, and watched the bird fly off as the others approached. By now, Isaac had gotten to the next vehicle; a bright yellow Hummer, that was missing three of it's tires. There were crusted. bloody hand marks splashed against the side of the vehicle. Ignoring the blood, he peered into the broken window, and saw a hand-gun poking out of a bloody pile of old organs. Slowly, he reached in, hoping to find some ammunition. Unfortunately, the gun was dry, and was probably useless, having been sitting in a mush pile for days. He slunk back, and took a step to the front of the vehicle, and peered over. What he saw caught him off guard.

Someone had gotten themselves trapped on top of a nearby vehicle. A man. Well, a kid, more likely. The guy didn't look much older than eighteen. He looked exasperated, and seemed to be aiming his gun at a shambler's head. Seems like he couldn't pull the trigger, though. It was either someone he knew, at one point, or he was smart enough not to attract the whole damn city.

More than a dozen of the dead-heads were clawing at the man, and were not letting up. They must have been there for hours; some of the walkers had clawed their finger nails off, and one even filed his fingers into bone. Isaac sighed. He didn't know this guy, and didn't know what the man would do if he helped him off of the vehicle. Maybe the man would be grateful. Hell, maybe they could work together. Or, maybe, the man would thank him by shooting him in the head. Or he might try to hold him up. It was a toss up, now, in the age of the end of the world. Now, that is a fucked up thought. Humans are fighting each other, simply because everyday life was interrupted...

"Shit..." Isaac spat, once again, and looked around for a way to distract the shamblers. Maybe some flares, or a car alarm, or...

An emergency siren.

Towards the back of the pack, maybe about forty feet from the shamblers, sat an evac van. It was littered in blood, and in bad shape, but he didn't look to drive it. Atop of the van sat three loudspeakers, that were meant to activate alongside the city's own sirens. It would be loud as hell, and would attract a lot of the creatures... But he could get into one of the buildings nearby for a little while, and the man atop the vehicle, who was still staring down the shamblers and was now mouthing something to himself, could escape. Whether the man would see Isaac or not was none of his concern. Maybe the man would seek him out, or later, vice-versa, but until then, Isaac had to do this quickly.

Sighing, he got himself off of the ground, ignoring the need to break down in a corner and wait out the withdrawal shakes. Still crouched, he kept low, and made his way from behind the Hummer, to a public mailbox nearby. Behind it, was a legless shambler, and he could just barely see it around the corner when he arrived. Isaac sighed, and slowly unsheathed the make-shift 2x4 at his side. Standing for just a moment, he took a swing at the shambler, and the nails of his weapon dug straight into it's skull. The shambler fell silent, and lifeless, against the cold, blue mailbox. Luckily, the group that surrounded the man was much too loud for them to have heard his swing, and they continued to claw at the man. Pulling out the 2x4, with a bit of brain matter still attached, Isaac ducked again, and moved silently across the sidewalk, and came up behind the emergency van. Slowly, he opened the backdoor, preparing himself for a shambler to jump out. Luckily, inside, the van looked normal, relatively speaking. Isaac entered, leaving the door open for a quick escape.

The controls to the overhead loudspeakers seemed to be extremely simple. A small, green button, labeled "Play Recorded Message," was the first to catch his eye on the small panel. Another, directly left of it, was a red button, labeled "Start\Stop Recording." And finally, a third button was to the right. It was blue, and labeled "Emergency Siren." Isaac, sighing again, mentally prepared himself. He counted down... Three... two... one... Click! Isaac pressed the button with a closed fist. Suddenly, the moaning of the undead was completely drowned by an ever-growing, piercing siren. Isaac caught a glimpse of a few of the undead turning to see what was making the noise, as he scrambled backwards to run to safety.

He fell backwards out of the van, and hit the ground on his left shoulder. Ignoring the pain that shot up his arm, he stood quickly, and began to run into the alley way that was not visible to the shamblers on the ground. The sound of the siren was so ear shattering that he doubted there was anyone in the city who hadn't heard it. It was much louder than he expected. Isaac turned at the end of the alleyway, hoping the man had seen him, as now he realized that he needed more help than he could get. Not sure if the man saw him or not, Isaac opened a door labeled, "Employees Only." Isaac slammed the door behind him, and slowly let his body slink down against the door. Before he could see what building he had entered, he realized that running had worn himself out, and the pain from his shoulder, combined with his withdrawals, caused him to close his eyes, and black out, slumped against the cold, metal door.

Almost without thinking, Haytham dropped down onto his stomach, gun out off to the side, careful to keep his limbs out of reach of these hungry groupies. Something black had darted across his peripheral vision. Something that didn't shuffle about like the other mindless husks that currently filled the streets. No, this was something else.

From his prone position, he carefully scanned the scene before him, wiping sweat from his brow at steady intervals. There were several shamblers in the distance, as well as innumerable crawlers roving about like possums, slinking along the ground, snapping at anything that moved. Maybe they really were possums or some other type of vermin since they were too far away for Haytham to properly discern.

Between him atop the sedan and those distant zombies were several downed or inactive vehicles. He could just make out the front of some black army vehicle, its front-end smashed in by a rusted green station wagon. Closer still were the remains of a bright yellow Hummer, most of its wheels missing. Haytham never liked hummers anyway, so seeing one in such a dilapidated state brought a short-lived grin to his face. Still, nothing seemed amiss—well, nothing that wasn't already amiss. Just a bunch of zombies ambling about. The usual.

As his eyes came to rest upon the emergency vehicle that had cratered itself a dozen or so meters behind creatures that tore at him, he became more and more convinced that what he had witnessed earlier was nothing more than simple pareidolia.

Haytham pushed himself up, sitting crosslegged, temporarily placing his gun on his lap. His shirt was sopping wet with sweat, which was only made worse when he wiped his hands on it. Baking atop the sizzling roof of a sedan under the afternoon sun certainly wasn't his idea of a fun day out. Then again, neither was being eaten alive.

Haytham took up the gun in his lap, taking a few moments to gather his resolve.

"I think I'll take sunburn over death by zombie," he muttered, standing. It was another moment before he realized that was not the best idea. Coming to his feet so quickly made him light headed, and he almost stumbled off the car and into the claws and teeth of his new friends below. Haytham was twirling his arms, attempting to keep his balance, the legs of his sweat-drenched pants clinging uncomfortably to his calves and thighs, when something unexpected happened.

The vehicle off by the sidewalk came to life in a furious explosion of lights and sounds. At the same time, Haytham noticed that same black blur—a man?—dart into the alleyway with several walkers following suit, apparently finding the man more interesting than a wailing siren.

For Haytham's part, he was taken completely off guard and, in an almost-amusing attempt to both aim his weapon and regain his footing, fell forward off the sedan and into the miniature horde below.

He could feel the various jagged instruments and heavy objects in his bag digging into his back as he lay face up on the ground, head still spinning, ears ringing. It took him a second to realize that the ringing had a familiar rhythm to it.

Like the annoyingly loud bellow of an ambulance.

What was an ambulance doing here? Or maybe it was the police, finally here to save him. Or maybe it was his brother. Or his father. Or his mother—even her. Anything, anyone.

Please.

And then Haytham felt a pressure on his arm. He slowly looked over to his side, the scene before him slowing its dazzling twirl. There he spied a naked foot oddly variegated, as if brownish mold had taken over most of the appendage. Of course, it was attached to a similarly rotted leg, which itself was attached to...

Haytham inhaled sharply, shucking off his grogginess like a thick blanket.

He'd fallen off the car.

He'd fallen off the car!

Panicking, Haytham attempted to pull his arm out from underneath the creature's foot, but the weight of its rotting body was too much. The zombie, on the other hand, seemed to be focused on the blaring siren. Looking around, the kid noticed most of the horde that had surrounded him earlier making its way towards the emergency van. Those already close to it were ripping at it with an inhuman ferocity, rocking the entire vehicle.

Unfortunately, Haytham's continued struggles gave the zombie a reason to look down at what it was trampling underfoot. For what seemed like an eternity, Haytham locked eyes with the thing. It was the creature that moved first. It purposely fell to its knees, further pinning Haytham's arm under its weight. It could smell his flesh, and not even the siren could distract it now.

"No!" Haytham screamed, punching and kicking at his attacker. Of course, as his luck would have it, the hand that was pinned also happened to be the hand that held the gun. If the zombie was affected by being repeatedly punched and kicked in the face, it wasn't showing. Haytham cocked his hand back, preparing to deliver the punch of his life, but as he swung, the creature caught his arm and opened its mouth. It was gonna take a chunk out of his fist.

Alarmed, Haytham snatched his hand back with as much force as he could muster, which brought the zombie's decaying body down upon him like a ton of bricks. Haytham rolled immediately, determined with every ounce of his being to keep from being bitten. One full summersault untangled him from the zombie, who seemed to be confused as to where its prey had gone. Haytham kept rolling until he bumped against the tire of the sedan about a meter away.

The zombie turned its head towards him, locking onto its target. Haytham flexed the fingers of each hand—something was missing. Looking down, he realized.

He dropped the gun.

"Fuck!" He stammered, breathing heavily. As the zombie crawled towards him, he looked around frantically. First left then right before his eyes finally landed upon the shimmering black metal that was his weapon. The pistol. He must've let go of it when he was tossing and tumbling with the zombie. Only thing standing between him and his firepower was, well, said zombie.

Haytham righted himself, something akin to a plan forming in his head. He got atop the hood of the sedan as the zombie reached his earlier position. Without pause, he leapt straight over the zombie's outstretched hands and snapping teeth, landing in a crouch directly behind it. In one fluid motion he snatched up the pistol, stood, turned, and aimed, both hands pointing the weapon at the zombie's head.

He pulled the trigger, the pop! barely audible over the siren.

Thanks to the recoil, however, he missed, making a hole in the sedan instead. It took two more tries before he marked the zombie square between the eyes, downing it once and for all.

He turned then, back to the sedan. The horde that previously had him pinned was completely gone now, having chosen instead to surround and brutalize the vacant ambulance.

Haytham exhaled deeply, rolling his shoulders and using his shirt, bespeckled with dirt and small rocks, to wipe the sweat from his face. He was totally exhausted, and his bag felt like a lead weight pulling down at him with all the force of a second gravity. He'd also scuffed his hands and knees while tussling on the ground with the zombie. A particularly nasty scrape along his forearm started to bleed, the blood welling up and rolling down his skin.

He felt sick, like he was going to vomit, but managed to hold it back. The siren was beginning to die down, and now was his best chance to make it back to the lab before sun down, or before he ran into someone he shouldn't have.

Haytham's legs preempted his conscious mind, as he was already running towards the nearest intersection when something stopped him mid-step.

Right. He'd seen someone escape from the ambulance after activating its siren. Haytham turned, looking back over at the ambulance and the zombies that surrounded it.

If the guy wanted to kill him, he could have just shot him, or waited for the horde to finish him, or just let him rot in the sun, but no. He activated the siren.

The man had done that to save his life. He could think of no other reason. But then, where did he go?

Haytham looked towards the alleyway that led between two buildings, one of them being the abandoned office complex that the military so kindly dropped a supply crate on top of. He was sure he'd seen the guy run off in that direction, but it was currently full of the undead, so no bueno. Haytham had spotted that alley when he was first making his way towards this location and knew it ended in a dead end. If the guy survived, he would have had to enter the office building through a side door or something. Or maybe he didn't survive.

Hmm...

He chewed on his lower lip, deliberating.

What if he knows who took Max? His imagination did him one better. What if he's the one who took Max?!

Then this was most certainly a cleverly devised trap, meant to get him to—

Haytham shook his head, dismissing the conspiracy theory. This entire situation was far too variable for it to have been controlled like that. Still, the guy did save him, and he could have information about his little brother.

The kid didn't want to acknowledge that he was also desperate for human contact—that being away from his father, mother, and, now, Max, was having a negative psychological effect on him. He was scared of the zombies. Scared of the night. Scared of the gangs. Scared of being eaten or beaten or tortured or worse... but he was also scared of being alone. Positively terrified, to be exact.

And that terror began to invade his thought process until he could think of nothing else.

He didn't want to make the run back to the lab unaccompanied, especially with everyone and their grandmother headed towards this exact location. Getting here had been hard enough.

The street Haytham was on, a boulevard, ran north-south and stretched for many blocks straight in either direction. Far off, maybe a mile down, Haytham descried a humvee clad in digital-camo barreling down the road, smashing through overturned cars and any zombie that happened to be in its way. Atop it flew what looked like a flag, but it was much too far away for Haytham to make out with any accuracy.

But that settled it. He was out of time. The others were coming.

Turning back to towards the ambulance, Haytham began sprinting, heading for a busted window that lead into the total darkness that was the 30-story office building's ground floor.

If that guy survived, he'd be in the office building somewhere.

Shortly after making his way into the building, Haytham realized he'd made a mistake by not packing a flashlight. The lab had fifty million of them lying around, yet the notion totally slipped his mind. He stopped for a moment, taking in the scene. Thanks to the light that filtered in from the windows, he could make out his surroundings in the form of transient adumbrations. He was definitely in what remained of an office building of some kind, complete with overturned desks and bloody papers shrewn everywhere. It looked like a tornado came through.

Haytham was careful to make as little noise as possible while trekking through the mess, every crunch of paper or squeak of floor tiling sending shivers up the kid's spine. Soon, he made it far away enough from the light of the windows that he was faced with a wall of blackness.

An odd sensation settled in his stomach, causing his to pause. He'd had the feeling ever since entering through the window, but now it dropped in him like a rock, coalescing in the middle of his abdomen.

Back at the lab, he and his brother would pass the time by doing all sorts of stuff, but it was the near-daily pirate radio broadcasts from Collin Baytor that kept them sane.

Collin Baytor. If that's his real name.

The guy would talk about all sorts of interesting survival-related topics between intermittent bursts of music, and one of those topics was, of course, the darkness. More specifically, the darkness within buildings, and what manner of creature might be hiding within it. Maybe even the same types of creatures that come out during the night around here.

It was Collin's warnings that weighed heavily against the kid this day. He was entering the darkness now. The unknown.

Haytham bit his lower lip, holding his breath.

Not good.

To his right, he spied a light switch dangling out of a hole in the wall. Even if it did work and he managed to turn the lights on, he was certain he wouldn't like what he'd see. And it probably wouldn't like seeing him all that much, either.

Haytham gulped, gripping his gun a bit tighter, electing to move towards the switch. Next to it was a door that was slightly ajar. Haytham peeked through the gap and into the room, but before he could analyze what he saw, something went bump! behind him.

The kid froze, hackles raised. He didn't dare move a single muscle.

Bump! Bu-thump!

Something fell to the floor. Very slowly, Haytham turned his head, looking over his shoulder. Behind him was the simple impenetrable nothingness that is the dark. A wall of blackness that his eyes could not pierce. He simply stared into it, all the while feeling as if it were staring back into him.

Haytham turned, back to the door, and aimed his weapon blindly at the darkness before him. His hands were shaking so much that the gun was rattling in his hands.

Something was there. Things don't just move on their own, right?

And then a low-pitched hissing sound reached Haytham's ears. After a moment, he recognized it, his eyes growing big.

Something was being dragged across the floor. Leisurely. Gradually. The disembodied sound seemed to be coming from every corner of the darkness, yet nowhere at all—both at the same time.

With a horrified yelp, Haytham pushed backwards into the door behind him, slamming it closed and twisting the locking mechanism on the knob. He then pressed his back against the door, fully anticipating an attack.

But it never came. Just silence.

After a tense couple of minutes, he finally relaxed his posture, his back sliding down the front of the door until he was sitting on the floor. There he sat, shoulders hunched, shaking uncontrollably, his pistol gripped firmly in his hands. He didn't immediately notice the tears streaming down his face, using his shirt to wipe them away. He was scared out of his mind, in some scarcely illuminated room full of monsters that wanted to eat him, alone, with his brother out god-knows-where, and gangsters baring down on his position.

Why did he even come into this stupid place anyway?

That's when Haytham noticed him. The man. The guy who he'd seen running. The one who turned on the siren. Who saved his life. He was slumped against a door that Haytham presumed led out into the alleyway.

The kid sighed, relieved somewhat. At least he wasn't in this mess by himself. Some amount of time passed before he stopped shaking, but eventually he did, electing instead to simply stare at the body of the stranger from his position on the other side of the room.

He could see the man's chest moving up and down in steady rhythm. He wasn't dead, that's for sure.

Haytham gripped his gun even harder, putting his index finger on the trigger.

"Hey," he whispered to the man, but received no response. "Hey!" He whispered it a bit louder this time. Still, no response. After another moment of silence, Haytham spoke up one final time, artificially deepening his own voice.

"If you try anything funny," he began, gulping in between, "I'll, uh... shoot you."

Collin rolled off of the couch of the employees lounge where he had been sleeping every night since the outbreak. He scratched his neck to notice he had neglected to shave this week and folded up the wool emergency blanket he had been using and left it on the couch. He meandered into the bathroom and fixed himself up a bit before going into the studio and flipping on the generator to sit down for his first broadcast of the day "Goooood mooooorning Bohmia!...Wow that was horrible. Anyways lets start the day with some tunes for now until it gets late enough for everyone to start thinking straight. Remember, your brain doesn't boot up all the way till about ten so here's some tasty ass jams till we're all charged up to learn something". Collin still wasn't so good at sounding cool so he just decided to play the dork and let things flow in his broadcasts. He reached into a box of records he found in some most likely very angry very dead kids bedroom on one of his reported supply runs and put the needle down on it Album and laid back in his chair and hit play. He liked to play entire albums mostly because they allowed him to take naps and read in between.

For split seconds at a time, a scarred, disgusting face pierced the darkness, accompanied by a shrill, inhuman screeching. The darkness slowly faded, into a scene of his childhood. Begging a man for his life at gun point. Music played this time, and the world around him was suspended in air. A small box of alcohol floated by, as the man opened his mouth in slow motion, and in an impossibly low tone, told him to "empty his pockets." A white flash, and he was now staring at himself as a child. This time, Isaac had the gun in hand. He aimed the weapon at his childhood self. "Hey...," said his childhood reflection, as it slowly spun out of control, into an almost infinite blackness, "Hey!" His reflection shot a beam of light from it's eyes and mouth, blinding Isaac.

It was then that he opened his eyes. The light that blinded him now was an overhead LED, that flickered from time to time. Probably bad wiring. The room seemed to be some sort of janitorial space, or a small section of a warehouse, or...

Sitting across the small room, was a man holding a pistol at him. "If you try anything funny," the guy was obviously nervous, and seemed to try to swallow his next words, "I'll, uh... shoot you." Isaac's heart sank. This guy... He was almost certain this guy was who he tried to help out. How the hell did he get past Isaac, when he was slumped against-

He shook the thought away, as it was stupid. Obviously there were other ways to enter a large building like this.

Isaac slowly lifted his hands into the stereotypical submissive stance, showing him he meant no harm. "Alright, alright... Just be careful with that thing. You're shaking like a leaf." Isaac's voice felt rough and low, probably from dehydration. "I have a gun, a handgun, in my waistband. I'm going to slowly lift it, pointed away from you, and place it on the ground, at my left side. It has one bullet, so if you're robbing me, it's not going to help you much. I planned to save it for..." Isaac's face fell a bit, "well, you can guess for what."

Isaac did as he said he would, slowly taking the handgun from his side, and held it limply with his thumb, against the opposite side of the trigger. He set it off to the side. Remarkably, he was able to set it down without dropping it, as he now noticed his own hands wildly shaking. It was probably a mixture of adrenaline, from having a gun pointed at him, as well as his withdrawal hot flashes. Then, Isaac slid the pistol as far as he could away from himself, watching it stop midway across the room.

"I also have a 2x4, but unless science has once again outdone itself, I doubt you'll have to worry about being shot by it." The 2x4 laid across his lap, as his legs were spread out in front of him. "I got nothin' worth stealing on my person... Unless you're some weird, clothes snatcher or something." Isaac grinned like an idiot at his own joke. The sound of a few undead, smashing themselves into the door behind him, finally caught his attention. The door was sturdy though, and nothing short of an explosive would get through, so he relaxed.

"So..." Isaac said, trying to calm himself and the other man down, "My name's... well, Isaac, but most people call me Ares. Yes, like the god of war. Stupid, I know, but I didn't pick it... What's yours?"

My name's... well, Isaac, but most people call me Ares. Yes, like the god of war. Stupid, I know, but I didn't pick it... What's yours?" The man's voice was unexpectedly low and oddly sharp, giving it a somewhat eerie feel, like a mobster speaking to an associate in a dark corner.

Despite himself, Haytham chuckled softly. Maybe it was the fear in him, or maybe he was just finally going crazy, but that name, Ares... the god of war. God of War. It was the title to a game Haytham had back at the lab, with a main character who was named Ares.

The Ares in that game was powerful. Strong. Fearless. Unstoppable. He could defeat the gods of he wanted to. Haytham eyed the man before him, both with suspicion and a hint of hope. Perhaps this Ares was similar to the hero in the game. Maybe he was strong, too. Maybe he was unstoppable.

Or maybe he had his little brother.

Haytham lowered his gun ever so slightly, his arms straining against the weight of the weapon. His eyes adjusted further to the gentle darkness that surrounded him and the stranger—this Ares. He could make out more of the man's features. He seemed pretty solidly built, if not a bit bulky. His eyes were light grayish with just a hint of blue. His head was shaved clean, and he had deep dark spots under and around his eyes. All in all, he looked pretty beat. Not like a kidnapping gangster or crazed ax murderer. Still...

"Have you seen my brother?" He asked breathlessly, avoiding the man's inquiry about his name. "If you know anything, you b-better tell me now."

Outside, the rhythmic pounding against the door and surrounding wall grew more frantic. The door wouldn't hold them off much longer.