February 27, 2028 – Three Days Later, Wayne, NJ
Three days after the new Day Zero, but from another angle.
The strip mall looked unremarkable at first glance: grocery store, bakery, clothing outlet, sushi joint, even a survival-and-gun shop wedged between them. To anyone else, it was a row of half-abandoned businesses. To De Leon, it was a potential stronghold. Food, tools, fallback rooms, even some choke points. The outline of a near-perfect base.
The grocery's lights buzzed half-dead. Some aisles were cast in a pale fluorescent wash; others were dark except for the red hum of emergency strips. Backup generators still pumped life into parts of the store, but only in patches.
De Leon pushed a cart, M4 slung tight to his chest. His boots squeaked faintly on tile sticky with spilled soda. Barkley flanked his right side, carrying his odd little pet project: an AR pistol chambered in .22 with a red-dot optic and a makeshift suppressor: a red-and-black can bolted on the end. De Leon ground his teeth whenever he looked at it. It wasn't NJ legal, definitely wasn't military issue, but it spat lead quietly. Ugly or not, it worked.
They had only a handful of hand signals. The Guard had drilled them on patrol formations, convoy procedures, radio etiquette. None of that prepared them for clearing strip malls three days into the end of the world. Still, noise and light discipline carried over. That had kept them alive.
A groan floated from the next aisle. De Leon raised his hand, shaped a finger-gun, and jabbed it forward twice. Through.
Barkley smirked, lifted the .22, and rounded the corner. An overweight man shambled out, face slack, bite wounds ragged along his arms and legs. Pfft. The shot landed with a wet thud. The body folded like a sack of meat.
For a half second, silence. Then the shelves rattled. Low, hungry growls echoed back. Barkley sighed like he'd been waiting for this. "Ah, shit. Here we go again."
De Leon gestured sharply: handle it.
The dead surged ahead, stumbling fast enough to close the aisle. Barkley crouched, firing soft coughs of suppressed .22 into skulls. His first shots went low: neck, jaw, but the third drilled through an eye socket and the target dropped limp. The trigger didn't reset. He crouched, signaling out.
Two more came shoulder to shoulder. Bang bang. De Leon's borrowed Glock barked twice, skulls bursting in sharp echoes. A freezer door banged open behind them; Barkley pivoted, exhaled, and popped one clean above the eyes. The corpse twitched, slid into a puddle of milk.
The fight lasted less than a minute, but the aisles were a mess of bodies, shattered glass, and blood streaking tile. The buzzing lights made it all look staged, obscene.
Barkley straightened, grinning. "Clear."
"Work on your holds," De Leon muttered, holstering.
"Yeah, well, I liked the machine gun better," Barkley said, thinking of the 240 he'd handed off to Knight. His grin slipped when something metallic clattered behind the stockroom door.
They raised their M4s. If it were zombies, they'd already be clawing out. De Leon's pulse ticked higher. Could've been the smart ones: the infected that remembered Humvee latches, and the command team. And tore through their convoy.
"…don't know who they are," a man hissed from behind the door. "They might be here to take from us… or worse."
"They have guns with silencers. Maybe they're a rescue party," a woman whispered back.
De Leon signaled steady. He knocked twice, firm but calm. "We mean no harm. We just want to talk."
The pause stretched. Then the door cracked. A scrawny kid peered out, uniform shirt wrinkled. A crooked name tag read Jasper. His eyes darted between them, their military gear in civilian clothes, and the aisle full of corpses.
Barkley stayed off-angle, weapon raised. De Leon lifted empty, albeit gloved, hands.
Inside, fifteen people crammed tight. Parents clutching kids. An old woman perched on a crate. Bats and knives clutched in clumsy and awkward hands. One man carried a pistol, lowered but not relaxed. He looked the part: broad shoulders, short hair, mustache, the posture of law enforcement.
"You a cop?" De Leon asked.
"State Police," the man said flatly. "Jackson. Cut the bullshit, why are you here?"
"Supplies, mainly," De Leon said, gesturing at the aisle of dead. "You're welcome by the way."
"You military?"
"Guard," De Leon admitted. Murmurs rippled. A mother hugged her child tighter. Someone asked if the safe zones were real.
De Leon's jaw tightened. "We were in the city when it hit. Our convoy was chewed to pieces. Don't expect the Army to save you. They're fortifying bases, maybe some cities. They don't care about neighborhoods like this. Haven't you seen the news?"
"No signal since yesterday," Jackson said, voice taut. "How'd you learn all this?"
De Leon shrugged. "Caught bits online before it went dark. Everyone started calling the twenty-fourth Day Zero."
Barkley tilted his head, smirk fading. "Not the first talk of zombies. But the day people stopped pretending it was riots. The day the world finally said, 'yeah, this is it.' Has a ring to it, don't you think?"
Jackson muttered it under his breath. Some of the survivors echoed it, uneasy.
"Name doesn't matter," De Leon cut in. "What matters is it's already three days behind us. You want to see Day Four, you plan now."
Barkley added quickly, "Not all cell towers are down. If you've got FirstNet, you get priority. Cops, soldiers—stuff like that."
Jackson's jaw clenched. "Lost my phone when the store got overrun. Called my wife once on Jasper's. Nothing since."
De Leon leaned in. "We cleared this place. We can hold it, but not without structure. We'll bring our families here, rotate watches, share supplies. You get out of this room and into a plan."
A woman by the wall snapped, voice breaking. "We can't stay trapped in here! My kids are here, if you've got people, and there's room—deal."
Jackson scowled but didn't contradict her. Families stared back, waiting. His silence was its own answer.
"What if we refuse?" Jackson asked.
"You were trapped," De Leon said. "Now you're not. You're free to leave if you don't like it."
Questions bristled: Roads? Bases? Rescues? De Leon answered carefully. The dead?
"There are smarter ones," he admitted. "Infected that opened doors, even turret hatches. Army trucks didn't stop them."
An older man in the back let out a low breath, shaking his head. "Figures," he muttered, not loud but enough that the others heard. No one corrected him.
De Leon went on, quieter now. "Out of over thirty soldiers, seven of us got out."
"Look," De Leon finished. "You can gamble on a 'safe zone' if you want. But Knight, our buddy, told us to get home. He's the only reason we're alive. We're sticking with his plan."
The survivors shifted. Jackson's scowl didn't fade, but silence was consent enough. Barkley cracked a grin, tossing him a look. "Told you. Nobody's here to rob you."
They left with a small bag of snacks and energy drinks. "Why not take more?" Barkley asked, loading the truck.
"Because we're coming back," De Leon said. "Strip everything and we come back to enemies."
De Leon paused for a second before adding, "besides, it'd be like moving money from one pocket to the other."
The drive home was quiet. The highway lay in broken fragments: abandoned cars at odd angles, doors hanging open, signs bent. Shadows twitched in the tree line. Outside the cities, the infection spread slower, but every silhouette made Barkley's grip on the wheel tighten.
They reached Barkley's house, tucked back from the road. His brother, Josh, opened the door before they could knock, grinning wide. "Glad you made it, Matt."
"Thanks, bro." Barkley clapped his shoulder.
De Leon handed back the Glock. "Appreciate the loan. Came in handy."
Inside was noise and heat. Barkley's siblings, De Leon's parents, younger brothers and sister—all crowded into a house meant for fewer. The detergent smell couldn't mask sweat and nerves. Kids leaned on each other in front of a TV full of static.
The two families had blended fast. Barkley and De Leon had been inseparable since JROTC in their freshman year, and that bond carried. De Leon's sister and Barkley's engagement before deploying sealed it even tighter. Blood or not, they were one family now.
Adults gathered in the kitchen: Barkley's two older brothers and older sister, De Leon's father, the two soldiers.
"We cleared a grocery," De Leon explained. "Survivors inside, led by a trooper. They'll pull weight if we bring ours. The strip can be fortified—plenty of space, fallback positions. Plus this house is already cramped."
Josh leaned on the counter, face tense. "So we give up our home?"
"Not yet," Barkley said. "But long-term? Yeah. Supplies go faster here. We can't keep packing everyone in," he said, frowning.
His sister looked down, jaw clenched. The house was more than just a safe haven; it was their home.
De Leon softened. "I get it. It sucks leaving home, but the strip's the better play. We came to your place because it was safer, this is no different."
The room settled. They hashed out roles: rotations, watch lists. The business of survival. The mood lightened with structure. Still having fresh food and electricity helped; though they were careful about advertising it.
That night, kids laughed over cards by candlelight. For the first time since the city burned, the Barkleys and De Leons felt tomorrow might hold more than fear.
Outside, the strip mall waited. Inside, hope returned to the extended family, for more than just survival.