- Or, “Let’s not die stupid.”
- Your buddy’s got your back. You get theirs.
- If they don’t, trip them and run.
---
We moved like a dysfunctional SWAT team through the broken streets surrounding the Fortress. Same streets we used to run through screaming six weeks ago. Now? We were creeping, communicating with hand signs and whisper-yells, like we were pretending to know what we were doing.
To be fair, it was working.
“Eyes left,” Gail muttered through his earpiece. Alex had rigged them up using salvaged radio parts and sheer spite.
We each had assigned roles now. Gail was point, of course. Jules took the rear. Harun and Alex flanked the middle, and I was second to front, mostly because my ability to improvise had saved our asses more than once.
Also because Gail said, quote, “If someone’s gonna get jumped, it might as well be you.”
Thanks, Batman.
The mission: Clear out ten residential blocks around the Fortress. Secure pathways. Tag houses for future scavenging. Identify any active hives, clusters, or roaming packs.
The rules: Don’t engage unless necessary. Be quiet. Stick together.
So of course, twenty minutes in, we broke all of those.
It started with a noise, gargled snarling, somewhere inside a nearby duplex.
Gail signaled a hold. “Variant,” he said softly. “Blind. You hear that breath pattern?”
I didn’t, but I nodded anyway.
“Alex. Distraction.”
Alex tossed a bottle cap down the road. It clinked once, twice, and then something lunged from the open garage of the duplex. A hunched zombie, eyes clouded, joints twitching like a broken marionette. Long arms. Broken jaw. Moved by sound.
“Deaf and blind,” Gail muttered. “Sensitive to-”
Harun’s foot stepped on a rusted dog bowl.
CLANG.
The creature snapped its head toward us and sprinted.
“Move!”
We scattered.
Jules backed into a fence, Harun tripped, Alex tried to shove him upright, I grabbed Harun’s collar and rolled us behind a rusted pickup. The creature bolted past and Gail tackled it mid-run.
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It was a fast, brutal fight, no elegance, just force. Gail slammed it to the ground, shoved his knife through its neck and held it down until the twitching stopped.
We stood in stunned silence.
"...sensitive to sensations and vibrations." Gail says, as if that salvages his lesson.
“I stepped on a bowl,” Harun said. “That was a bowl.”
“I was there,” I said, patting his shoulder. “That bowl was evil, it ratted you out.”
Jules peeked over the fence. “Teamwork, huh?”
Gail got up, blood on his sleeves. “You saved each other. That’s teamwork.”
“And the part where we almost died?”
“Training. Real-time.”
Harun groaned. “Can’t we just play Uno for team bonding?”
Alex sighed, helping him up. “Next time, look at where you're stepping..”
We resumed the sweep. Slower now. More alert. We worked in pairs, Gail and I taking the front, Jules and Alex watching the flanks, Harun moving between groups, pointing out movement with growing confidence.
By mid-afternoon, we’d marked five houses and cleared two more. A pair of Normals, dispatched by Jules and Alex working in tandem, knife to the throat, pipe to the skull.
Alex grinned. “Dream team.”
Jules nodded. “We still need a name.”
“No,” I said immediately.
“Yes,” they said in unison.
Gail interrupted the bonding. “One more house.”
It was a ranch-style house, mostly intact. Windows busted, but doorframe still strong. Inside, it was quiet, too quiet. The moment Gail stepped in, we heard a groan from upstairs.
We fanned out.
I took the kitchen, empty, moldy food and roaches.
Alex and Harun searched the garage.
Jules guarded the stairs.
Gail went up alone.
“You sure?” I asked.
He grunted. Translation: Yes, but if I die, avenge me.
Three minutes later, a dull thump, then silence.
Jules tensed. “Should we-”
Then footsteps. Gail returned, dragging a Variant by the leg. It was still twitching, gurgling, its body bloated, pockmarked with sores.
“Swollen variant,” he said. “Gas pockets. Explodes when killed wrong.”
We backed way up.
Alex, curious and reckless as always, asked, “What happens if you kill it right?”
Gail dropped it outside, grabbed a long metal rod, and speared it through a leaking sore.
It hissed… then popped like a balloon.
The smell and the... Gas. It was disgusting. It smells like rotting corpse with tear gas.
I gagged. Harun actually ran behind a bush to puke. Jules just winced. Alex said, “Cool.”
We walked back to the Fortress exhausted, but proud. No one died. No major injuries. Ten buildings tagged, and a growing sense that yeah—we were starting to work like a real team.
Even Gail admitted it.
“You’re still all soft,” he said as we reached the front gate. “But not completely useless.”
From Gail, that was a Hallmark card.
---
We stumbled home like post-apocalyptic kindergarteners after their first day of zombie school. Covered in sweat, grime, and the occasional unidentifiable goop, we dropped our gear, wandered into our rooms and plopped onto mattresses, and floors, and promptly began the sacred ritual of ignoring everything around us.
Until midnight.
I woke up to a crack and a scream.
“-ALEX!”
Laughter erupted from the hallway. Not the maniacal kind, just the very specific laugh of someone who got exactly what they wanted.
I sat up, bleary-eyed, and peeked out the room.
There stood Alex, holding what looked like a makeshift taser made from God-knows-what and half a flashlight. Beside her, Gail stood completely still, hair slightly smoking, eyes very awake, face very blank.
She had finally made good on her promise to tase him mid-sleep.
“What did we learn?” she said, smug.
Gail looked at her, looked at the weapon, looked down at his own chest like it had betrayed him, then just sighed. A long, tired sigh that said this is my life now. Without a word, he turned around and led Alex silently back to their shared room.
I swear, I heard Jules laugh in her sleep.
We all went back to bed.
---
The next morning, Gail looked exactly the same as every morning: mildly disappointed in the world. No burns, no retaliation, just an extra few seconds of side-eye aimed at Alex, who winked like she was the queen of comedy.
“Alright,” he barked. “New plan.”
We groaned. In unison.
“Harun. You’re staying behind.”
Harun blinked. “Did I do something wrong?”
“You’re in charge of logistics today.”
“In... English?”
“You’re cooking dinner.”
“Oh,” Harun said. “Okay!"
“We’re low on everything,” Gail continued. “We’ve cleared the nearby zones. Anything left is too picked clean to be worth it.”
“So...” I squinted. “Scav run?”
He nodded. “Other side of Cleveland. We take the Peachmobile.”
The Peachmobile gleamed in the morning sun like an ironic war chariot. Pink-ish purple, armor-plated, solar-enhanced, and painted with a poorly drawn peach by Harun, it was both ridiculous and glorious.
Jules rolled her shoulders. “Alright. Who’s with who?”
“Alex with me,” Gail said. “Elliot with Jules.”
No objections. Not anymore.
“Scavenge what you can. Tools, canned goods, wires, meds. If you see something useful, take it. Avoid fighting unless you have to. Don’t engage packs. Don’t chase lone zeds. And be back before sundown.”
“And if we’re not?” I asked.
He gave me the classic Gail answer: “Then don’t bother coming back.”
I think he meant that affectionately.
---
We packed light, loaded up the Peachmobile, and Harun waved us off like a mom sending kids to school.
“Please survive,” he called. “And come back hungry, I’m trying something new!”
“Define ‘new’!” I shouted back.
“You’ll know when you taste it!”
We all exchanged a glance that said we’re doomed.
The engine purred, well, more like rattled. Alex drove, Gail navigated, and I caught Jules watching the road ahead with that look on her face. Half focus, half nostalgia.
She didn’t say anything. Neither did I.
It was time to scavenge. Time to play the game again.
And hope the board hadn’t changed too much since last time.
