Day 26 (Austin)

The last day had been utterly uneventful. I listened to the sounds of the camp for a moment. Panic, was the leader among the crazed sounds of desperate men. Gavin had found himself a Ruger Mini-14 hunting rifle for the upcoming battle.

I outfitted myself with a new shotgun: a CA 870 sawed off. Six round clip, powerful, short, easy to conceal. We loaded up our supplies and headed to our heli, which was ironically the same one we came here in. Johnson, our pilot, was waiting for us outside the copter, checking last-minute gas and ammo amounts.

“All set?” he said to the five of us.

Day 23 (Austin)

I came up the stairs that led to the roof and shouted, “Top floor is clear of food or supplies.”

“Dammit,” says the pilot. “We’re out of food and only have water for another few hours, guess we should think about liftoff soon, sorry, kid, we can’t wait for your friends any longer.”

“I understand,” I say dejectedly, distantly. “Man I hope those fuckups are okay.”

Standing on a rooftop of a broken and rundown Chase building, I stare blankly into the evening sky. There are three military personnel around me,

Day 19 (Austin)

Stumbling down the train tracks, exhaustion threatens to drop me on my knees. Earlier in the day, I used the rest of my bag of shotgun shells. Hefting my axe on my shoulders, tired as hell, and following a helicopter that passed over my head about twenty minutes ago.

Staggering along, killing only necessary Infected and hoping to find the Resistance before nightfall. At train crossings I had to climb over cars, which didn’t help my exhaustion.

Noticing another helicopter veering off to the east, I pull my axe out of yet another zombie’s skull and walk toward it. About a mile away, I see it begin to make its vertical descent onto a helipad.

Realizing that I’m almost at my goal, I begin running. Sprinting past undead, too exhausted to make another swing, I begin to turn around a large building.

A sea of the undead greet me, hungry for my flesh, and that awful moaning.

“Deja-vu, anyone?” I say pessimistically.

Day 18 (Austin)

I jolted to my feet and smacked my head on the railing above me. Bright stars flashed in front of my face, ruining my temporary balance. Staggering to my feet again, I inhale the fresh air.

Nothing new. Just buckshot, sweat, decay, and fear. Among the strong odors in the atmosphere, I smell the sickly sweet of burning flesh and the raw throat of smoke.

“Fuck…” I say to myself.

I glance over the edge of the fire escape that I sort of slept on.

“Seven, eight, nineteen. Nineteen. I can do this. I can do this….”

Day 17 (Austin)

Stepping over the slain zombie whose head I just cut off, I try to ignore my anger.

What were they thinking? Putting me with the bitch… Looks like I got screwed over on this deal. I’m beginning to think splitting up was a terrible idea… I thought. I wouldn’t regret painting these buildings with her brains.

“So what was your life like before all this?” Jessie vaguely gestures to the rotten streets around us.

“Shut up.” I say

“No need to be rude. I guess you’re still mad at me for dropping my gun.”

“Being rude doesn’t almost kill my friends.” I mutter angrily under my breath.

“What was that? I didn’t quite catch what you said?” she says sarcastically.

I stride over to her angrily and grip her arm.

“Hey! Let go!” she nearly screamed.

“Shut UP!”

Day 13 (Will)

I awoke drearily, the others were not there. My first thought was that they went out to check 0n a noise and were killed by the undead, rationality came back as I see Austin walk into the room. “Hey dude, it’s noon, you’ve been sleeping for hours, we were going to wake you but figured you needed the sleep.”

I roll up my sleeve to check the time 12:01, “Damn, well are we ready to get going?”

“Yes, we were waiting for you to wake up.”

Still very tired, I get up off the tile floor of the gas station, and pick up my pack. I pull an item out of it, my “face”, the Guy Fawkes mask. “All set,” I say to Austin and we leave out of the glass door east of where I crashed for the night.

The ghouls were plentiful now, the outbreak seemed to have escalated to a low-level Class III out break, I hoped that it would not escalate to Class IV, because that would literally mean “Zombie Apocalypse”, they would take over making up most of the population.

My foot feels better, I’m not sure if it’s fully healed yet, but it is a lot easier to walk on and I don’t need the splint. Now, hopefully, I won’t slow us down as much and we can reach San Antonio as soon as possible, most likely today.

We reached San Antonio after about four hours of travel; it was extremely cold and I had no gloves so my hands were freezing the whole time, I could barely fight because my hands were so numb.

But when we finally got to the (once) bustling city of San Antonio it was more of a city of the dead.

Day 10 (Austin)

I rubbed my neck, its been hurting for a couple of hours now, from keeping my head down for so long. The man I killed had been bothering me still. No matter how far my thoughts get from the current situation, I stay alert, listening for the signature moan of the hunting undead. I haven’t heard much but the sound of my comrades breathing since nightfall so I assume we disappeared in the eyes of the following zombies.

I hear it. There’s no mistaking it. The moan of a ghoul who smells flesh. This isn’t my overactive imagination this time, you never forget the sound. We’ve been detected. I listen harder, trying to count the number of them. I count four.

Day 9 (Austin)

We staggered along a dusty trail, the five of us survivors, Taylor, Will, Jack, Vincent and I.

“So,” I said to Taylor, “Tell me how your life has been after you left Houston and before all this shit happened.”

“Well,” said Taylor, “I had been working at a dead-end job washing dishes at a diner, and at night, I had been street racing for some extra cash.”

“Haha, I remember we wanted to do that as kids, guess you were living the dream, huh?”

“Fuck that, I hate doing dishes” Taylor laughed.

Day 8 (Austin)

I snapped awake. I heard it again, the peal of shattered glass on tiled floor. It was distant. I assumed it was on the first floor. I wasn’t too particularly worried, there were still five flights of stairs and a large metal door to get through, which we had piled up a mountain of cheap hotel furniture. But then I heard a shout of a man.
Zombies can’t yell. I thought in my head, suddenly alert despite the late hour. I pulled the silver pocket watch out of my coat. It read 3 A.M.

Why can’t I seem to get any good sleep? I complained in my head.

Day 5 (Will)

The morning sun began to peek over the hills behind the small forest. I stood with my M1 ready to shoot any undead that come our way.Vincent and Jack were going to the car to get any supplies that weren’t destroyed. Austin stood a few feet away from me, the cold must have been getting to him, he took his black trench coat out of his bag, and draped it over his body.

Vincent came back with nothing, “Uh, there wasn’t much to be salvaged, it was either broken or missing. “He said, for some reason sounding guilty. “But there is a supermarket and an Army Surplus Store on the way to our camp, if you would like to restock we can and get new weapons as well.”