The Many Faced Man

I woke up with a splitting headache, if you've ever had an amateur at acupuncture with needles try to use them on your head? It's like that. On top of that there is debris all over.

I happened to be very lucky, the debris around me happened to be mostly in larger pieces, but not too large so I couldn't move them. They ended up being held up by the pillar I passed out next to. I can't help thinking on what was going on with that freak meteor shower though.

Normally if that many asteroids broke through the atmosphere.. Asteroids, unlike meteors, have to be big enough to survive the atmosphere, if there are a lot of them that are big enough to do so coming our way then it's a big deal.

And it's not like there aren't astronomists that track these sort of things. Hell, there are even plenty of hobbyists that watch the stars in the world who should have been able to see it coming. Not to mention the professionals paid to do so.

They couldn't have missed something so major. Unless everyone was made to keep quiet about it with mass conspiracy, through several countries, it should have been public knowledge.

But that doesn't seem too likely, there just isn't any apparent reason to keep it secret. To avoid a panic? Who would give a f.u.c.k, there would be ways to combat such a thing if people knew it was coming, but they didn't say anything.

Well, wild speculation doesn't count for much. I'll leave figuring that out for later. I gotta get the heck out of this rubble.

Going up against the pieces of wooden boards and concrete, I push up against them. It takes some serious effort but I manage to push, pull and move the pieces of rubble I can out of the way enough to squeeze through.

Sure enough, the first thing I see isn't a pretty sight.

Two bodies lay on the ground, gruesomely burned. What looks like ashes that was once their skin is smeared in a trail behind their bodies. The side of the house looks heavily burnt as well.

The burnt smell lingers heavily in the air. It looks like they died instantly from an intense heat wave. The fact that I didn't die from such a thing could only be attributed to that healthy layer of rubble encasing me.

Strangely enough there were still 8 more ash stains on the ground. Counting the stains you can account for all 10 people besides him who were out by the campfire at the time of the meteor fall. But no corpses were there left for the ashes to belong to.

I decided to check around inside the wreckage of the house for anyone else who may have survived. There should've been a couple who were inside...

I searched for them for maybe an hour before giving up, even yelling a bit to see if anyone answers. There weren't any signs of anyone else being alive inside the rubble of the house. It may be callous to leave them to their fate, but even if they are stuck, I doubt I'll manage to make it to them when I can't even know where they are.

And it's not like I could survive out here, where there is nothing to live on. I needed to hike out and find some sustenance. I can't keep looking through this rubble for people forever.

Any food that was in the house was buried too deep to get out anytime soon, but somehow I found a kitchen knife though among the rubble. I took it since it's better to have a lame weapon than none at all, just in case.

Then I headed out on the road. By the time I got into town my paranoia was acting up, and I was making sure to avoid anything where it looked like somebody might pop out like bushes and taking wide approaches to street corners... I get overly paranoid when I'm on my own.

It was probably around 10-ish and I was still wandering down the road, I had finally made it into town and had already forgotten my paranoia. I walked right around a street corner with a tall building.

And then I found them, you know, all the people I was looking for. Except there was something off about them you could catch with just a glance. Something that makes your heart drop and makes a sort of dread begin to dwell in your heart.

Obviously, it's easy enough to guess, it's zombies. But in the moment it's not like I had the calm to think about what to call them. It was more of an Oh-Shit sorta moment.

Almost all of the zombies were badly burnt, likely from the meteors. Many of their skins were badly disfigured due to having been melted and scorched by extreme heat.

Worst off, they were legion. A giant horde of zombies, exuding an oppressive aura and inducing fear in any who saw them. Only a mere 20 meters away.

Now, I suppose if that whole zombies being slow thing would turn out true, that'd be great. Maybe I would be able to run.

It didn't seem like that was the reality of it.

I could see some of them moving toward me and it certainly wasn't at a pace any slower than your average person, maybe even faster.

By the time I finished my thought confirming it was a zombie horde, it finally registered that this horde as a whole was headed in my direction.

At this point, if I turned around I would be asking to get bit. I had just enough time to turn on the fight part of my fight or flight instinct.

I was certainly gonna kill more zombies than what would be created from my death, so hopefully it benefits someone.

My own death wasn't even on my mind, only how many I can push through and end as many as I can on raw willpower before they manage to stop me.

Thinking violent thoughts, I was pumping myself up for my finale... But it never came.

The horde parted as it went around me. The undead were actually making some more exaggerated movements just to avoid coming near me.

My resolve to fight to the death was suddenly shaken.

The knife remains in hand, but my hand shakes intensely.

Uncertain if the danger has truly passed or if I'll still get attacked from all directions, I try to maintain vigilance despite the futility of the effort.

Trying to ensure any movement in my peripherals can be quickly reacted to.

After a very long minute passed the entire horde has migrated past me.

Reflecting on my actions a bit... I don't know how I thought I was going to try and fight a zombie horde with a kitchen knife.

It's a better than just laying down and accepting death, but really not that much better either. I kind of doubt I would have been able to take any of them, I'd have probably just been run over and eaten on the spot without killing a single one.

After all, if you get hit from multiple directions instantly, how are you going to land a proper hit yourself? That is exactly what would happen for anyone going straight up against this quick and vicious zombie horde.

Why the did I stop being paranoid over this situation? It was clearly the onset of an apocalypse, it is exactly the appropriate time to be a become a bit more cautious!

If I took a wider turn around that street corner, I'd have had a chance at running in time to avoid the Horde.

Aside from that, maybe I've just gone crazy and I am hallucinating?...

Yeah, it's kinda messed up, but I'd rather be a crazy dude who attacked people and gets punished for it than a dude getting eaten by zombies...

I'm pretty sure I'm not crazy though?? I don't do drugs either??

So let's just say, yeah, they are real zombies.

As for why they avoided me...

I'd like to believe I have some sort of super power, but maybe it is because I'm covered in the ashes that came off of the rubble... Some of it was a strange blue-green color, I had seen similar dust before, all concentrated around the crash site I had seen near the house.

Remnant dust that had come off the asteroid?

Similar reasoning to the stuff they have in movies, except asteroid dust instead of zombie guts? Not saying I would prefer zombie guts either though.

After the horde passed me by I calmed down a bit.

If the ashes keep all the zombies away, then even though there are still some zombies here and there, it shouldn't be too dangerous to scavenge the shops in town.

Thinking that, I went straight to the supermarket.

Whenever I passed, a zombie or two they would just scatter away.

The ashes were like zombie repellant, very convenient. It was too easy to just grab a cart and go shopping.

It seemed like some other people had already scavenged quite a bit here, but there was still plenty left. I actually grabbed a good bit of fruit.

I like fruit, and it'll go to waste if I don't eat it right?

I made sure to get some of the natural grown fruit with seeds still in them. Those seeds could be super useful eventually in an apocalypse, right?

Plus, there is no seeds and plants section in here. So, there are no bags of seeds to be found, so it'll just have to do with this limited amount.

I filled up my cart with plentiful canned soup and other non-perishables.

Weapons section was cleared out though, unfortunately.

I found an old push lawnmower. With one of the long metal start levers.

I finagled that long metal lever right off of there and had myself a long solid metallic club. Which, despite the fact it's an improvised weapon, I think looked quite badass. After which, I headed to the next section.

I go and see that the gallons of water are essentially untouched. Yet essentially all of the bottled waters are cleared out. Gallon jugs are more convenient anyway since I'm pushing my cart anyways, right?

Since I don't have to worry about running from zombies for now, I grab a few more decent kitchen knives with leather sheathes for them... But it's not like they are made to wear on you or anything so I took a plastic drawer, which I put on my cart, and then stashed my knives away in there.

My cart ended up almost overflowing but it's not to the point where it would hinder my moving about. I'm satisfied with this shopping excursion. As is my wallet which did not even have to open up for it.

As a college student, my wallet was badly damaged from paying for school, thank god for the apolocaypse... Is probably something I shouldn't be saying, even in my head, I'm sorry.

It was a little into the afternoon by the time I walked out of the supermarket pushing my cart.

I hike out on the street pushing my cart past all the zombies, keeping my new 'club' near-hand on top of my cart and keeping an eye out for irregularities in their movements.

I started to hike my way down route 67 heading towards Killen Town.

I figured, if there is anywhere people were gathering, it was probably there right?

Really wish I could have just drove though... But my car was totaled, I don't know how to hot wire, and fishing through corpses to see if their keys are still good just doesn't seem right.

It's still the start of summer, it's not like it's bad out, the temperature is very mild. So there is no big deal, I can walk.

A few hours I see a lone zombie on the road, it's leg is bent at a weird angle and it's crawling. A good opportunity to see how effective my new club is?

I leave my cart a bit behind me and approach it with my metallic club (lawnmower starting lever) and, keeping a slight distance, move closer. As I approach the zombie stops moving and begins crawling off to the side.

I get even closer, when I'm roughly a meter away it finally acts like it noticed me and starts crawling toward me. Making weak snapping movements with its jaw. I move away a bit again. It stops.

Then, again, it starts to move in another direction. I guess they won't come that close on their own but if I approach them too close they'll attack?

I test it a few more times, it's really about a meter distance that makes a difference.

After confirming that I bring up and swing down my club... I hit its head but I just dislodged its jaw... So I swing again. This time I hit its cranium.

Pretty sure I cracked the skull because it's caved in but the thing is still moving. I still didn't damage the brain enough?? So, I swing again.

This time I finally get some serious give, that is some seriously bashed brain right there. The zombie falls and stops moving completely. That was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be.

How exactly was I planning to kill more than one with a knife? In the midst of horde?

Even if I stabbed them in the eye if it doesn't go deep enough or at the wrong angle it still wouldn't be enough to kill instantly. Injuries that would make a human brain dead, might not be the same for a zombie.

To take down zombies is this tedious? How many people can pin-point shoot for a moving person's brain at a distance? Or are strong enough to bash in a head in one go?

Or how many machine gun bullets must one use before finally taking one down, how much ammunition would that expend?

Obviously, you can recycle some parts of the bullets. However, with the amount of people turned into zombies, and unknown amount dead due to the asteroids. A limited and decreasing population to fight with... The difficulty is definitely set to Hardcore mode.

Of course, you can also cut them off at the legs or pull any manner of other tricks. Any one of them is still a rather difficult feat to pull off though, either way.

I kept on trekking down route 67, as the sun was getting close to setting I decided on a house by the side of the road to stay the night in. It was still all in one piece albeit slightly crispy on one side.

I scouted out the inside and found a single zombie, which I coerced into going outside and on its way with a bit of effort.

I spent a minute to lead it further away from the house before closing in and smashing it's head from behind.

Really nailed it this time! I really didn't want to mess up the place I was staying in with blood and guts, it was worth the extra effort.

I went back, made sure everything was locked, and ate some food I had brought along in my cart.

I went up to a second story window I felt was safe to jump out of in case of emergency, and even blocked up the door a bit, for some extra reassurance.

Then, I fell asleep. Night two of the apocalypse, I slept rather well actually.