February 28, 2028 - Albany, NY
Making it to the original Day Zero, Alex finally gets a chance to breathe and take stock. How long will his respite last?
"...Ninety-nine, one hundred."
Alex popped up from the living room floor and shook out his arms. It was late in the morning, but the house stayed dark: blackout blinds down, bars on the windows, and heavy curtains hiding both. The light bulb overhead hummed.
John, Carol, and their father collapsed back, arms jelly after the last set. Nick had bailed after round one.
They'd run the usual circuit: jumping jacks, running in place, mountain climbers, then push-ups to close. Everyone went until Alex hit a hundred. It wasn't pretty, but they finished.
Carol dragged in air. "Why… are we doing this… again?"
Alex rolled his eyes. She'd asked that five times since yesterday. Before he spoke, their father cut in. "Because your brother is trying to keep us alive. And after what happened the other night, you should thank him."
"Good work," Alex said, calmer. "Hydrate. Stretch. It'll boost your recovery. If we have to run, at least we won't be so sore."
He tapped John's shoulder, grabbed the shaker bottle waiting on the kitchen counter, and headed downstairs. Chocolate-peanut butter with enough protein to hit roughly a gram per pound of bodyweight, but sweet enough to be tolerable.
His legs trembled a little on the steps. He should stretch. Maybe after inventory.
The basement smelled like oil and cardboard. Rows of labeled cans. Stacks of rice and ramen. Ammo cans in neat lines with marker on the lids. He paused and let the sight settle him. He used to open his brokerage app to feel that way. Now this was the portfolio.
He showered in the laundry bathroom, changed into jeans and a T-shirt. This way, it'd be easy to throw kit over if he had to move. He'd taken the final four hours of night watch so the family could sleep their full eight hours. He set an alarm on his watch for four hours, left the door cracked just in case, and lay down. Sleep took him fast.
It was the Parkway again.
Knowing it was a dream didn't help. The sky was the wrong color, dark red like coagulated blood. The moon wore SFC Morales' half-eaten face, the same bone-chilling smile the real one bore. The highway was clogged with abandoned cars and dead Humvees.
His friends were gone, replaced by monsters in multicam. Hands clawed at the glass of the Humvee he'd stepped out of. Arguenta's face looked back at him, gray and starving.
He looked up the highway. A horde led by the late SFC Morales barrelled toward him. He looked down: an M240 rested in his hands, belt full.
He fired from the hip. No controlled bursts. Just a steady, ugly rhythm. The belt ran and the crowd didn't fall. They closed the distance, step by step. The horde took him with hands and teeth. The gun's beat turned into a beeping that drilled into his skull.
Alex jerked up. Cold sweat on his back. He braced his palms on the mattress until the shake in his forearms quit. A copper taste sat at the back of his tongue.
He went to the locker and strapped on his belt rig. Holster. Two spare mags. For the first time since he'd come home, he wore the pistol in the daytime. He wondered how his family would take it, then decided he didn't care. He had work.
He pulled the chain on the basement light and read the paper he'd taped to the wall in his own hand:
Food & Water: Weapons: Ammo:
-MRE Boxes (3) -AR-15 -.223 (3,000)
-40 Pack of water (5) -M4A1 -5.56 Green Tip (2,000)
-Rice Sacks (5) -M17 -5.56 M855A1 (360)
-Bean Sacks (7) -Mossberg 930 -9mm (50)
-Boxes of Ramen (10) -M240G -12 Gauge (150)
-Boxes of Cereal (10) -7.62x51 (1,700)
He moved shelf to shelf, opening a few cans, fingers tracing the cold steel lip before closing each.
He checked the locker: rifles, optic caps, the pile of magazines that weren't already staged. He unzipped an old bag from the armory and lifted the single-tube NODs. A cheap monocular, scratched. He grimaced. De Leon's duals had spoiled him. "It'll do," he muttered. Night vision mattered, even bad night vision.
Plate carrier and helmet sat ready with ear pro clipped. He ran a dry-reload by feel, then set the mags the way his hands expected to find them. Most had 55-grain .223. Enough for unarmored bodies. He kept one mag of M855A1 front and center. Insurance in case the dead, or the living, wear armor.
Satisfied, he headed upstairs.
The kitchen smelled like bacon and coffee. He didn't touch the pot; that was a fight he didn't want. The living room had turned into a little command post: card table with a laptop, printed PDFs in a stack, a whiteboard with ration math. Phones on battery packs. Cables everywhere.
His siblings sat with their screens. He hoped it wasn't doomscrolling. The internet still worked, slower than normal, so he'd told them to grab everything useful while they still could.
"I hope those are welding manuals," he told John.
"Of course," John said, tapping his screen with a pencil. "MIG, stick, joints, safety. I'm taking notes."
John had two years into welding already, with some part-time work. He just wanted money without college. Barkley had done the same since high school and ended up married with six figures saved by twenty. Trades were lucrative. The same could be said in the apocalypse.
"Hey, Alex," John said, finally looking up. "Nice piece." He nodded at the M17.
"Things are getting rough," Alex said. "When I came back from the city and you were sneaking out to see your girlfriend, Dad met me at the door with my rifle."
John blinked. "He actually carried it?"
"As the founding fathers intended," Alex deadpanned.
Carol rolled her eyes and bent over a gardening PDF. She'd fought him on the idea until he framed it as a management position. "You don't have to dig," he'd told her. "You'd run the plan. You know, assign hands." That finally motivated her.
They found books and PDFs on soil prep, fast-calorie crops, seed saving and compost. She bookmarked pages and started a layout sketch like she was designing a class project.
Nick was a different case, he was thirteen. No trade yet, and Alex wasn't going to force one on him today. "Do a bit of everything," he told him. "Safety first. Watch how people work. Then help them do it."
So Nick bounced: firearm safety and marksmanship basics with John and Alex; note-taking with Carol; kitchen work with Mom; inventory and ration math with Dad.
From upstairs came the quiet edge of his parents' old fight. Softer than it used to be. Either they weren't as mad, or they respected the sound discipline rules for once.
Their father came down, ready to argue that he could handle logistics without help. The words died when he saw the belt rig. He took a breath. "Alex… is that necessary?"
"Yeah," Alex said. "Night watch is good, but trouble doesn't just come knocking at night. We'll go over it in the meeting tonight."
Oddly, his father nodded without a second volley. "Whatever you think is best."
"I already counted downstairs. You can take the pantry, fridge, and bug-out bags. Mom cooks, but you decide the portions."
His father's face lit a little at the job. "Thanks, son. I've got it."
Alex exhaled. His dad could handle it. The supplies still felt personal, like cash in a safe, but letting go of control for the house's systems would keep Alex free to handle the other thing: security.
He pulled out his phone. Military/first responder priority service still pushed his signal through. He'd set his friends up with the same. Time to check heads.
[Yo, who's still alive?] he typed in the group chat.
Morgan: [All good].
De Leon: [Me and Barkley are chilling. We gotta talk].
Alex hit the video button, hoping Arguenta would join. He didn't. De Leon's face appeared first, then Barkley leaned into frame. Morgan connected a moment later.
"What happened?" Alex asked. "You hit that store? Risky move this late."
"We scouted first," De Leon said. "Came back with full kit."
"It was infested," Barkley said, shrugging. "Light work for us."
"Place is a gold mine," De Leon added. "We didn't take anything yet. We're thinking about moving in. Thoughts?"
Alex asked his questions in order: location, loading docks, exits, roof access, generator status, sight lines, nearby cover. How many survivors. He built the picture in his head and liked what he saw: open approaches and clear fields of fire.
"I'm in," he said. "Lock it down. That group can't hold on their own. That's where you come in. Morgan, your family good?"
Morgan nodded, too fast. "Yeah. Mom wanted to go to the safe zone in the city. I talked her down. Told her about the last two highways."
"Good," Alex said. "Head straight to Jersey instead of here. They'll need you there. I've got business here for a few days."
All three frowned. Barkley spoke first. "Damn it, Knight. That leaves De Leon in charge. When you're gone, he reverts to a bootleg version of you."
De Leon snorted. "Someone has to be the voice of reason."
Alex smiled. "If Arguenta checks in, send him to you. Keep the family meetings. Stay productive. Most of all, stay strapped."
They nodded. The call ended.
By evening, the house had a rhythm. Carol studied raised bed dimensions. John sketched a gate latch and a brace that wouldn't sag. Their father wrote "daily portions" across the top of the whiteboard and laid out a week's worth of rations.
They ate quick turkey burgers and then Alex ran a tight brief: supplies good for about four weeks if they stretch rice and beans; posts with one on for ninety minutes; noise and light discipline after dark; wake him if anything feels off. He passed the roster, no one argued. Even his stepmother just nodded.
When the meeting ended, he cleaned the coffee pot, filled the kettle for morning, checked locks, checked his belt, then stood at the basement door and listened. The house settled like a tired animal. The street outside was the quiet kind of empty that Albany never had. It made the hair on his arms lift.
Returning to his basement before his shift, he let himself think about Brooklyn. Morales pulling men out of trucks. Freiman fumbling his Humvee door with dead hands. The net full of orders that came late.
He set his watch alarm and lay down with the door cracked again. The gun locker sat where he could see it if he rolled over. His pistol lay within reach.
He slept.