The First Night

It's getting dark, and I still have yet to find a place to stay. I don't know a ton about survival, but I know, in situations like this, it's better not to be out after dark. I start walking along the fence away from the house that has a new giant resident. As I walk, I start seeing some old gravel and tire marks. 'This area must have been an alley and became unused at some point.' I continue walking along the fence until I come upon a road. I peer around the corner of the fence, checking my surroundings for threats and potential sources of food and shelter.

I don't see any danger, but every single house that was within sight looks as if the giant tore through them looking for something. It had probably been looking for food. When it was done, it must have fallen asleep in the house I found it in. I turn right, down the street destroyed by the giant, and walk crouched along the sidewalk for a few blocks until I come upon what must be the main road of the town. It was a four-lane road, so the city must have been somewhat decent sized in its prime time. I look around to see what kind of shops were around but don't see anything useful, just a couple of diners, undoubtedly full of rotting food and potential enemies. A couple of bars where the only helpful thing might be alcohol that I don't need. A few abandon cars that looked like they would never run again, having popped tires, broken windows, and rusty frames. One car even had its entire engine block smashed, as if the giant had decided it was a nice place to sit down for a rest. Seeing nothing promising, I decided to go right again. I walk along the road hiding between cars and among the various fences and walls along the sidewalk. After a while, I finally start to see houses that don't look completely destroyed. I decided that it would be smart to walk a little bit longer before stopping, even though it's getting late, to get as far from the giant and zombies as possible.

I walk for another twenty or thirty minutes, by this time it's close to eleven, the moon is high in the sky, but not quite at its peak. I see a house that is two stories tall and has an undamaged red brick wall, about eight feet tall, all the way around the house, with a little gate in the front for entry. I walk up to the gate to test it, and thankfully it was not locked. I start to open it, and squeels the whole way, and I have to use a little force to get the gate open far enough to get through, clearly this gate has seen better days. I get through as fast as I can and shove it closed it behind me, hoping nothing heard it. I look around the yard and see several statues and hedges, I head towards a group of hedges that looks like it would provide decent cover. I finally get under cover and close my eyes and release a breath I didnt know I was holding in. I momentarily relax as I listen to my surroundings. I wait for what feels like ten or fifteen minutes just listening and do not hear anything, so I decide that I'm probably clear, and I head for the front porch of the house.

I open the front door, thankful that it's not locked, it's very dark inside, so I pull out the lighter I picked up off the zombie and light it up. It gives me just enough light to see a hallway with a staircase on the right and a door on my left. It doesn't give me enough light to see to the end, so I shut the door and slowly move in.

I decide to check every room as I go so that nothing can sneak up on me, and I slowly open the door on the left. It's the living room, a nice love seat, a couple rocking chairs, and a fancy leather sofa, and a tv, one you might find in the home of an average family in the 1970s, all old and worn out. There was one other door on the opposite side of the room, so I walked over to it, looking at the family photos and decorations on the wall as I went.

I slowly open the door and see that it leads to the kitchen. I see that the kitchen has an island, and on the other side of the kitchen is a dining room with an antique table. On the other side of the table, I see a zombie. It's wearing the same clothes as the man in one of the photos in the living room, a pair of jeans and a Chuck E. Cheese t-shirt. The long hair he had in a ponytail was just a few lone strands left on his head. He looked to be in his late teens or early twenties in the photo. He was walking into the wall over and over again, I think they are attracted to sound, and every time he hits the wall, it makes a thud, so he just keeps doing it.

He doesn't seem to notice or care about my lighter, so I sneak up behind him and put my knife through the base of his skull, angled up so that it penetrated the brain, killing him instantly. He drops to the ground, and suddenly I hear the sound of two or three sets of footsteps running my direction. I flip the lid over the lighter to put it out and turn around and go back to the living room. As I'm going through the door, I look back to see three other zombies burst through the door in the dining room. I leave the door cracked open, so I can see what's happening and wish I hadn't. The three new zombies, who looked to be the rest of the family, rushed to the body of the one I killed and started eating it with a ferocity I've never seen.

It only takes them about two minutes to completely eat the body, bones and clothes and all. After they finished, they started shambling around the dining room and kitchen, and I decided I would be better off avoiding them. I slowly close the door and lock it. I pull my lighter back out and go back into the hallway to look for the dining-room door. I find it at the end of the hallway, and lock it as well. 'hopefully, that will keep them penned in there until I can figure out how to deal with them.' At this point, I see one more door on the right side, so I decided to check that before going upstairs. I open it, and I see a closet full of canned food and towels. I look a little deeper into the closet and find a large backpack, about the size of the bags people in the military use, inside.

'That will come in handy. I'll take that, some food, and hopefully, I can find some clothes and a sleeping bag or blanket in decent shape upstairs.' As I'm searching the closet, I notice that the panel on the back of it appears to be loose and flimsy, so I look around and see if I can find anything unusual around it. After a couple of minutes of searching, I find a tiny button on the left side of the closet, hidden up close to the door frame. I hit it and hear a lock click, and the back of the closet starts to swing away from me. I push it open, and it opens into a small area with a circular door with "escape hatch" printed in bold letters on top. I see a circular handle, almost like a large valve, of some sort on top. 'That looks like it might be how you open the hatch.'

I set the things I want just outside the closet, push everything else out of the way and approach the hatch. I look at the handle and see a left arrow and text that says open, and a right arrow with text that says close, so I grab the wheel and attempt to spin it to the left, but it won't budge. I try to turn it right to see if it was already open and it started moving, though it was very tough and rusted, looks like it was left unlocked, I turned it back to the left and attempted lifting the hatch. It was cumbersome and rusted a little bit, but after a few attempts, I got it open to the point that it locked in position.

All I could see from the top was a ladder the top half of a door, with another circular handle on it. The ladder looks a little rusty, but it appears to be stable. I decide I'll explore it after I check out the upstairs, and I turn around to leave the closet. As I turn around, I see a zombie shamble in front of the closet and stand there idly.

'Oh that's just great, I have wonderful luck, I didn't even hear it get out of the dining room.' I crouch down and move towards it, I grab a can of food and throw it down the hallway, back toward the door to the dining room. The zombie rushes after it, and I hear the others coming after it as well. I leave the room and kill the zombie that had been in the hallway already.

I back away far enough that I don't get attacked and wait for an opportunity to kill one of the last two zombies. I wait for a few minutes as they devour, what was likely one of their family members, and finally, one gives me an angle on the back of his head. I get close and stab him, killing him instantly. Before I could get away, the final zombie noticed me and lunged at me almost immediately. This time, being more prepared for the possibilities, I blocked with one arm and stabbed the zombie in the temple. I suffered a few scratches on my arm, but nothing horrible.

I search the bodies and find a watch that, surprisingly is still working, I see that it is 11:45 and I decide I should probably do something about the bodies so that I don't barf from the stench and sight, or attract unwanted guests into my temporary home. I take my clothes off so that I don't get them completely destroyed, and grab a few of the towels I found sitting in the closet. One by one, I grab the zombies' bodies and drag them out the back door. I drag them to the wall so that if anything does find them, hopefully, they will not come inside the house. I take a few of the towels and throw them on the floor over the mess of blood and guts and go back into the kitchen. I check the cabinets and drawers for cleaning supplies, and eventually I find some bleach, I take it and pour it all over everything in the kitchen and hallway and throw some more towels over it. 'I'm not going to bother cleaning it because I'm not staying here for a long time.'

I try to get some water out of the sink to clean myself but all I get when I open the faucet is a puff of dusty air. 'Guess I'm gonna have to find some other way to clean myself up'. I think about it for a while and end up using some bleach, mixed with a little bit of my drinking water, and a towel to wash myself off. Nothing like a good shower but at least I won't smell like blood and guts. After I'm done with that, I put my clothes back on and head upstairs. The hallway upstairs is running side to side. I see a bathroom first with the door open right at the top of the stairs. I go inside and turn on the sink out of curiosity, and surprisingly it turned on. 'Must be a block in the pipe downstairs or something' I let it run for a while to get the old water out of the pipes, I take a drink and last minute make the decision to clean myself a little more. 'Can never be to clean after what I just went through'. I look around the bathroom and find the basics so I give myself a quick towel bath with real soap.

I go back out into the hallway and go to the right, and I see two more doors in this direction and two more in the other, two on the side with the stairs and one at each end of the hallway. I check the first door on the left and don't see anything crazy. Its a child's room, a toddler bed, and toys all over the place, but it's in really good condition. It hasn't been bothered since it had been abandoned. I close the door and go to the room at the end of the hallway.

In this room, I find a large bed with a fancy headboard and two nice dressers. A walk-in closet that has fancy clothes hanging up, and enough shoes to go all the way around the edge on the floor. I look around everything real quick to make sure there are no threats and find another door. I open it and find the master bathroom. It's about the same size as the other one but only attached to this room. I look around for meds and find some peroxide and antiseptic gel and some gauze. So I clean my arms and the small cuts on my face from the first zombie and patch myself up as best as I can and pack up the rest of the medical supplies to bring with me. I head back to check the rest of the rooms. I start with the room next to the stairs. It's a teenagers' room, posters on the wall, action figures on shelves, books, you name a thing in a normal teenagers' room in the 1970s, and this kid had it. I left that room alone and checked the final room. This room appeared to just be storage. The whole room is full of boxes of stuff that I didn't think it would be worth going through, so I shut the door and went back downstairs to grab the bag, Pack the food I wanted and went to the kitchen to find a couple of water bottles to use. In the end, I collected enough food and water, because I found a water bottle with a filter attached to it, to last me about two weeks, maybe a little more.

I look at my watch and see its almost 12:30, I head back upstairs and head into the bedroom. I look through the dressers and find clothes that are a little big for me but fit well enough that I take several sets. I also look around and find a pair of boots and a pair of shoes that fit me. I throw the boots and some socks into the bag with the clothes and food and leave the shoes out for the morning. At this point, I'm pretty sure I'm ready to go as soon as I get up in the morning, or if something crazy happens, I can grab everything and dip, so I climb into the bed and pass out almost as soon as my head hits the pillow. It was a crazy first day in this new world.