Dead Man Walking: Living By Day, Dead By Night

Zane spent the night with Angelica, it was a long night, and particularly suffocating due to the fact that the woman clung to the man in her sleep. At the very least, Zane was comfortable even if he had a hard time breathing.

By the time the dawn rose on the next day, not that they would really know due to being underground in a bunker, Zane left Angelica's bedroom and entered the dining area where he found Olivia and Elena in a heated debate about the sleeping schedule.

Yes, that's right, Olivia was serious when she said she would draft a schedule for what woman Zane slept with on what nights. Zane honestly did not know how to deal with such a situation and instead decided to get to work at breakfast.

It was best for him if he let the women take care of their dispute themselves. Eventually Angelica also arrived in the dining room where she joined in on the conversation. The debate between the three women turned fierce, and at one point Zane genuinely thought they were going to scratch each other's eyes out. But luckily for him, it seemed to have resolved itself.

With breakfast eaten, and the schedule decided upon, Zane decided it was time to go out into the city and do what they planned on the previous night. He and the girls kitted up, and woke Madison from her slumber, forcing her to partake in the scavenging mission before setting out from their bunker complex and into the city, which was filled with the unknown.

Zane had passed through Carson a few times in his youth to go to Lake Tahoe, but that was a long time ago, and he genuinely did not know much about the city or its layout. He had no idea where a hardware store was located, which would be the prime area to scavenge supplies.

Because of this, Zane and the girls drove through the city's abandoned streets, passing by hordes of undead, which chased after the armored car for a short while before being left in the dust. By now, Zane and the girls were used to such scenes, with only Madison having a very limited experience with this new world.

No matter how much she stared out the windows, Madison could not believe what she was seeing, and was quick to ask a question aloud to nobody in particular.

"Is the entire world like this? Are there even any other survivors?"

Zane was about to say something when he witnessed what was in front of him, hitting the brakes as hard as he could, just narrowly avoiding ramming the armored Humvee into a small group of survivors who were trying to flee from the undead.

There were three survivors in total: a man who appeared to be in his thirties, along with a woman slightly younger than them. The man was the only one who was armed, and the weapon he carried was an old rusty crowbar.

As for the woman, she was carrying a young girl, no older than five, who was crying profusely. When the trio of survivors saw that there was a Humvee in front of them, they reacted with surprise, at least at first ,but they immediately began pounding on the windows asking for help, mistaking Zane and the girls for soldiers.

"Please! You have to help us! Please!"

Zane immediately stepped out of the car, his rifle in hand as he pointed it towards the Walkers, which were about to surround him. At the same time, the girls also got out of the vehicle, weapons drawn as they mercilessly gunned down the undead. But Zane did not flip on the safety after terminating these undead. Instead, he pointed his weapon at the survivors, all while issuing orders to them.

"Drop your weapons! Now!"

The man instantly dropped his crowbar, which clanged against the asphalt. He begged for his and his family's life when he realized that Zane was most likely not associated with the old world's government.

"Please! I'll give you anything you want, just spare my family!"

The woman also got on her knees, and was begging for her life, and that of her family. In between their blubbering, Zane kept a close eye on the survivors, while also looking around for any other survivors. He quickly interrogated the mother and father about how they ended up running through the streets alone.

"Is it just you three? Are there others? Where the hell did you come from?"

There was a paranoid tone in Zane's voice as he continued to point his muzzle towards the survivors. No matter how innocent they may appear, one could never trust other human beings in an environment like this.

The father was quick to inform Zane that it was just him and his family, and how they had come to such a precarious situation.

"It's just us… After the virus hit, we boarded up our home and stayed indoors like we were told to do. But we only had a month's worth of food in the home. I tried to go find help, but when I did so those things… those monsters broke into our home.

We were forced to flee. I grabbed the first thing I could find to defend myself on my way out. But… There's so many of them! What the hell is going on!?! Where are the police? Where is the army?"

Zane did not initially back down after hearing this story. He thought for sure the group was lying to him. His experience with survivors other than those in his own group had been nothing but negative. And, of course, he had a natural distrust of humanity.

The young man continued to aim his rifle at the couple and their small child while demanding a reason to believe their story.

"Give me one good reason I shouldn't blow your brains out here and now?"

There was a cold look on Zane's face, a look that told the couple he had done just that before, enough times to the point where killing was no longer an issue to him. The woman continued to cry, as did the child in her arms. But there was a single voice that convinced Zane to trust these strangers.

"Zane... They're telling the truth...."

Zane momentarily took his attention off of the family, and looked over at Angelica, who had a blank expression on her face, almost as if she were in a trance. Zane did not know just what had come over the woman and was quick to ask why he should believe her.

"What the hell do you mean they're telling the truth, Angelica? We have no reason to believe that!"

Angelica, however, shook her head. Her emerald eyes were practically glowing as she observed the three strangers in front of her. There was an expressionless tone in her voice, one similar to that which Zane frequently used as she explained her reasoning to the man.

"I can't really explain it.... I think my skill.... It might be more than just healing. But I know with absolute certainty they are telling the truth...."

After saying this Angelica snapped out of her fugue like state and returned to her usual chipper expression, seemingly not aware that she had previously been acting as if she were under a spell.

"Zane, you trust me, don't you?"

Zane grit his teeth. Every fiber of his being was telling him not to trust strangers, especially in this new and hostile world. While it was true that he had wanted to recruit strangers to aid in the construction of a long-term settlement. Believing in doing so, and actually going through with it, were apparently two very different things.

Ultimately, however, Angelica grabbed hold of Zane's hands, and forced him to turn the safety selector on, lowering his rifle away from the crying family as she did so. Her tone was calm and soothing as she assured Zane that everything would be alright.

"It's okay Zane... They're not bad people.... If you can't trust them, then trust me!"

With a heavy sigh, Zane did exactly that as he took a moment to recompose himself before explaining the current state of the world to these ignorant survivors.

"Sorry about that.... The world today... It's dangerous... You can't be to trusting, or you could lose your life... Anyway, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but there are no police, there is no army, it's the end of the world our here…

The largest group of survivors we have met in our travels is back in Reno, and there's a few thousand of them at most. The rest of the region, and likely the world, is like this. You are the first living beings we came across since we rolled up into Carson almost a week ago….

If you need a place to stay, we know an area that is semi safe, but if you want to stay there, you're going to have to work. There are no free meals in this brave new world of ours. We came into town to look for supplies to build a proper wall, but we honestly didn't think we would run into any survivors before we secured the necessary resources…."

When the woman heard that the whole world was in a similar state of the abject horror she now found herself in, she broke down into tears. She was crying just like the little girl in her arms.

While Zane felt no real sense of empathy for her, the girls by his side definitely squirmed in discomfort when they realized this couple was going through the same horrific epiphany that Madison underwent just a few days ago.

Luckily for Zane, the father of the little girl seemed to be able to quickly wrap his head around things, and understood the situation he and his family were now in well enough to offer his services.

"I don't know if I can be of too much help to build a wall, but I'm a welder by trade… Or I was…. Either way, I'm used to physical labor, so if you can set us up with some proper shelter, and some food, I'll help you in any way I can…"

Zane was surprised that the first survivors he came across actually had someone useful in their group. If he had stumbled across a white-collar worker who, before the end of the world, worked a useless corporate desk job, Zane may have been mildly irritated.

But he was much more willing to have someone with actually valuable skills loitering around his current residence. And thus Zane's demeanor shifted mildly. It wasn't noticeable to the man and his family, but the girls who knew Zane extremely well understood there was a hint of favor in his tone.

"That's good enough for me… How about you and your family cram yourselves inside the Humvee, and we'll take you to some shelter… Just a warning though, I've got my eye on you, make one wrong move and I won't hesitate to terminate you all...."

The man was quite thankful for Zane and his help, and reached out to shake Zane's hand, an offer that Zane refused. Not particularly as a slight against the man, but more of his cautious nature. After which, the man and his family crammed themselves into the Humvee's back seats.

It took some effort, and Madison, who was the smallest of the women, had to sit on Zane's lap. But they managed to fit everyone inside the small military transport. At the same time, Olivia and Elena were sitting on the edges, keeping a close eye on the family. If they made a move that was remotely suspicious, they'd find themselves frozen in time and temporarily paralyzed with a slight jolt.

Luckily for them, they behaved themselves on the entire journey back to the neighborhood where the bunker was built beneath.