Exit through the front door

 

Tom knew there wasn’t any time to waste. Leaving through the front door would offer a more direct route to the Reanimated Writers Bunker, but he knew it would be more dangerous. There were the undead outside, lingering on the streets – but at least he wouldn’t be on the streets as long. All he had to do was get to the outskirts of the city.

​

He’d used the previous few days to learn about his unnatural enemy. They were uncoordinated, struggling to climb or operate in a fashion which required any more effort than running or biting. They also seemed to function purely on sight and sound – they hadn’t smelled him despite being close for days. And they would have smelled him; he hadn’t washed since he’d been hiding. The closest they come to finding him was when he tripped over a bucket and the clatter drew them in. They soon left when something else pulled their attention away – likely a poor soul who got to close.

​

So, Tom waited until the moment was right and watched from the window, spying the undead as they lumbered by. When they’d wandered a substantial distance away, Tom opened the front door slowly and exited the store as quietly as he could, taking cover behind a car to survey his next action.

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Tom hadn’t realised how bad the damage to the city had been when viewing the world from his small window. Cars were crashed into buildings and each other – likely to be the result of drivers losing control as they panicked. Glass was missing from windows, blown out by gunfire or looters. Finally, there were bodies everywhere. Most were dead, killed through conflicts with other survivors. The others were corpses wandering the streets – those who had died and not been shot in the head. Both were horrifying and assaulted his senses with the visceral gore and grotesque stench.

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Fortunately, the number of corpses meant that there were no shortage of weapons and, when Tom spied the closest one with a handgun and machete, he had to go for it. It was just a case of when was it safe to do so – there was a zombie nearby.