playing it smart.
He had a better chance of going through the main part of the apartment building and dealing with what leftover corpses were walking around than braving the small, narrow alley that wouldn’t allow him to move very well.
He walked over to the staff entrance, listened to see if he could hear how many infected were behind it, and when he only heard the one, he held onto the lead pipe he had in one hand and gripped the door handle with the other. He had a few weapons on him, one being the pipe, a couple of knives, even a thick bike chain.
He had no more ammo for his guns, so the damn things were useless unless he wanted to chuck them at a motherfucker’s head.
When Collin pulled the door open, he held the pipe up high, saw the infected slowly turn around to face him because of the noise, and watched a spark of energy come to life in the asshole. The guy was badly decomposed but not nearly enough for him to be one of the original people who had gotten that damn vaccine that started all this shit.
No, this poor bastard had been infected by a bite, and that was confirmed when he lifted his arm toward Collin and the grisly looking bite mark was prominent on his inner bicep. His head was cocked unnaturally to the side, and when he opened his mouth, Collin saw the way his tongue hung over his bottom lip, no longer fully attached.
Collin moved forward, bashed the pipe on the side of the man’s head, and heard the sickening crunch of his skull caving in. The corpse fell to the ground, and black blood pooled beneath his body, covering the red-tiled floor beneath. He stared at the kitchen, the large stainless-steel appliances, the few dead bodies on the ground, and the fact that it was scavenged clean.
He had come down, as had many of the people still toughing it out in the building, and taken what supplies he could.
There had been riots and looting, killing, and overall chaos. The apartment building he lived in catered to the wealthy, included room service even, and because he had been on top of the world, owning his own empire, albeit an underground one, Collin had ruled like a king. But that was in the past. He was alone now, and it was kill or be killed.
The building had been closed up, and with no windows in the kitchen, the only light came through the open doorway from the stairwell, the one that led into the main foyer of the complex. The place stank to high hell and looked like a dark wasteland.
He moved around the dead bodies, pressed himself up against the wall, and listened to hear if there was any movement in the main lobby. When he heard silence, he leaned over the side, stared out the doorway, and saw that it was clear.
Collin moved through the lobby, stepped on broken glass, walked over the body of the security officer that had been named Robert, and went to the front doors. The glass on the front part of the building was reinforced and had withstood the destruction of the city. He peered through the foggy, filthy glass, saw a few infected across the street, more down the way moving slowly away from him, and he knew he would need to just make a run for it.
Because the infected were already dead, the infection that killed them rotting their bodies from the inside out, they were slow, had no conscious thought, and were only intent on feeding. Collin could handle one or two head-on, but if he got stuck, cornered by a horde of them, he’d be outnumbered and done for.
Even a scratch from one of these motherfuckers would infect him, and he wasn’t going to die that way.
If his life in this world ended, it would be because he fought to survive, not because a nasty corpse got to him. He opened the door, and the damn thing creaked. Pausing, he hoped those bastards didn’t hear the sound, and he waited to make sure everything was clear to go.
When they didn’t turn and notice him, he slipped out the door and started moving toward the city limits. The road ahead of him would be pretty damn long, but he had nothing but time anymore.
He made his way quickly down the street, stayed close to the side of the buildings, and kept