As the days went by, the food in Alan's house became increasingly scarce.
Of course, he could survive for at least a month, but if the goal was not to starve to death, he needed to find food as soon as possible. His exercise routine slowed down, prioritizing staying at full strength at all times so he could face any situation.
After counting the food in the kitchen, Alan sat on the bed and began making a decision that would change how he had been spending his days recently.
He had to go out. First, he needed to find food and water. Then, he would have to fight the infected again and, if he was lucky, encounter some survivors.
Alan had been avoiding his duty for a long time, but as a soldier, it was clear that a part of him wanted to act for the common good.
However, he knew that if he did and found dead soldiers or civilians who weren't infected, he would definitely go against those who were once his comrades or subordinates.
From his own experience, he knew that orders from higher-ups were terrible, and no one knew that better than him, because since his last mission, he had gone against anyone who tried to give him orders.
But fortunately, no military personnel had set foot in this area, and Alan planned to clean the upper floors of this building first.
In the hallways leading to the rooftop, there were infected; cleaning the area where he was staying seemed like a good idea. Then, if he was lucky, he might find some food in good condition.
Of course, he also considered facing the infected with minimal noise. Being alone, there was no need to risk making noise and getting caught in a fight with numerous infected.
This time, Alan carried a pistol, leaving behind his AR-15 rifle. He wouldn't need it if he was just clearing rooms of potential infected.
"Here we go…" Alan murmured, deciding which apartment he would enter.
His target was an apartment not far from his own, but where he clearly knew no more than two people had lived. It was a fair fight for Alan, who was just starting to learn about the behavior of the infected.
When he reached the door of the apartment, Alan clearly heard footsteps still moving inside. Calmly, he drew his knife, switched on the flashlight with his left hand, and prepared to open the door.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
Three light knocks on the door made the infected inside the apartment agitated. Not only that, but it seemed like all the infected in the apartment were overly sensitive to sound.
It was then that Alan realized there were not just two infected. "One, two, three… This is a problem…"
Arrghhh!
But before he could back off, the infected in the room reached the door and kept banging on the wooden door.
The sound was alarming, and the infected from other apartments began to stir in the same way as in the room where Alan was standing.
"Dammit!" Alan grabbed a hammer from his tools, nailed two nails at each end of the lower part of the door.
Similar to tripwire mine traps, Alan set up a barbed wire at calf height. His plan was that when he opened the door, the infected who rushed out would be slowed for a limited time, allowing him to eliminate them one by one.
For this, a single wire was more than enough. As long as he could slow down one or two infected, it would be enough to eliminate them.
Just as Alan was preparing, changing his fighting strategy, a crack was heard, and one infected pushed its hand through the wooden door.
Alan didn't care about the cable that hadn't been properly coiled yet. He took a few steps back while seriously observing the behavior of the infected.
"I still have time…" Alan ran to the emergency stairs and grabbed an axe from a glass square.
Then he returned, looked at the infected's hands, and without emotion, cut off the hands that were sticking out from the wooden door.
Once cut, the infected pushed the door with more force. The rage in its actions led Alan to draw more conclusions about the infected.
"Seems like it's still alive…"
Crash! Crash! Crash!
The noise grew louder. When Alan prepared himself, he saw how the infected finally broke through the door. One of them crossed, but the others tripped over the wire.
Gripping the axe tightly, Alan stepped forward and aimed for the head of the infected. In critical situations like these, a soldier always thought about eliminating. There was no guilt in the act of killing; in these moments, all Alan felt was rage.
Arrgh!
The infected in that apartment couldn't get out all at once, so they fell to the ground and tangled up in the wire.
Alan carefully observed the infected on the ground. Its skin appeared a bit wrinkled; what stood out the most were the mushrooms growing from its head. When they realized they were being hunted, they retreated back into the apartment, leaving Alan in silence.
"Do they have intelligence?" Alan was surprised, looked at the infected he had killed, and instead of continuing with the killing, took out his knife again. The situation had changed, so he needed to enter the apartment and finish the job.
Unlike the first infected he had killed, these were slower, but their attempts at survival were stronger.
Silent, lethal, and they understood something Alan believed set them apart: the fear of dying.
When Alan entered the apartment, this time he carried his pistol in hand.
Crack!
At that moment, a noise was heard in the first room at the entrance of the building.
Ahhh!
Alan stabbed the roaring figure in the heart. The figure's lips moved several times; it tried to scratch Alan but couldn't do anything.
While Alan dealt with this infected, another one emerged from the bathroom, and without thinking twice, he aimed his pistol with precision.
Bang!
The shot came from a silencer, but it still made a considerable noise.
Arrgh!
Bang! Bang! Bang!
A series of shots followed from the dark apartment. The noise of the infected and destruction was the only thing coming from the darkness.
Minutes later, after killing more infected than expected, Alan reloaded his pistol and cleared the apartment.
"Dammit…" Alan took a deep breath, and after ensuring there were no more infected, he began finishing off the ones on the floor.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
You just had to damage their heads enough to ensure they weren't alive; it was the safest way to make sure they were completely dead.
Then Alan approached the infected in the kitchen and looked at it closely. All the details of them were being noted in a small notebook, where, by the way, Alan was drawing them.
Later, after finishing his observations, Alan took the food and useful survival resources that would help him later.
In the end, cities would no longer be safe, even for someone like him, which is why he was thinking about how to find shelter in a forest.
But that was a thought for later; for now, he had to keep eliminating the infected.
...
After three days of killing infected in the building, Alan had come to his own conclusions.
"Report 4, Day Zero…" Alan, sitting in front of a radio, reported: "To all combat stations still standing, this is Captain Alan Rogers from the special forces, transmitting from a fallen zone…"
"If anyone is listening, I repeat, if anyone is out there: this information is important for you to know. Listen carefully. I don't have much time." Alan grabbed his notebook and said, "I've been observing the dead for weeks, and during that time I discovered that the infected are not all the same. They change. They evolve. There are two clear stages that happen, and following the course of these changes, there's one more that we don't know about."
"First, there are those I call Runners… You'll see them shortly after someone is bitten. One day, maybe two at most. They still look like us, but inside, they're dead. They scream, cry, stagger as if they have a fever… and then they run. Damn, they run. If you see them alone, you can end them by being smarter. But if they're in a group, don't hesitate: run or attack their heads from a distance and keep moving."
After saying this, Alan turned the page in his book and continued: "Then come the Stalkers. These evolve between three days and two weeks after being infected. They make no noise. They hide. They wait for you. You're walking down a dark hallway, and suddenly they're on you. They have mushrooms growing from their faces as if the skin is trying to escape. The worst part is that they know when to retreat. They're not stupid. They flee, regroup, and hunt again. If you think everything's calm… they're probably already watching you from some corner."
"And finally, according to my hypothesis, I think that the longer the time passes, the fungus in the infected's body will grow so much that their heads will be completely covered. At that point, they will communicate with sounds, I think. I don't know when we'll start encountering these kinds of infected, but it will be hard to kill them with a shot to the head if they have all that fungus covering them like layers…"
After saying this, Alan murmured: "If you don't hear my broadcasts again, consider moving away from the cities. The safest thing will be to create shelters in the forests, where our best ally will be nature."
"Good luck, end of transmission." Alan took a deep breath. The tension in his voice wasn't fear. It was fatigue. Pain. The experience of someone who had already lost everything.
The transmission ended with a dry click. The night swallowed the sounds again, while in some corner, within the shadows, something moved.