Dead Man Walking: Living By Day, Dead By Night

Chapter 36: A Murderous Fiend

Zane ran off from the gas station where he had nearly been forcibly taken by the soldiers of the National Guard to what he could only expect was some kind of force labor for the sake of what little control the United States government still had over its cities.

And it was only after he was safely in the crowd of undead that he could sigh in relief. It was funny when he thought about it. To everyone else, the undead were the most frightening part about this whole apocalyptic reality that humanity now found itself in.

But among the dead, Zane could breathe a sigh of relief. It was among the enemy of humanity that he was safest. But even then, he suspected that the moment humans attacked the undead he would immediately aggro those creatures which were this new world's masters.

Because of this, he could only stay among the living, and use the undead hordes as a means of an escape, and temporary safety. There was some good that came out of this encounter with the local security forces. And that was the fact that he had scavenged an M4 Carbine, along with a plate carrier.

Though Zane did not know what level of protection the plates inside his vest were rated for, he knew that he would be safe from the most common form of ammunition. Should he be unfortunate to get shot in the vitals?

Aside from these two monumental gains, Zane also scored a military ruck, which allowed him to increase his carrying capacity, albeit at the expense of carrying more weight. Perhaps when he next leveled up, he would invest two points into dexterity so he could raise his stamina.

With his current stats, Zane could only walk so far before needing to take a brief break to gather his breath. And this is exactly what Zane did as he tried to circle back to the high school where his base of operations was currently at.

But on his way there, he came across a relatively small supermarket, or perhaps it could be described as a convenience store. Where it became immediately apparent to Zane that the building had yet to be looted.

Though there appeared to be signs of some kind of engagement between potential looters and those inside. The store itself appeared to be intact. Along with the supplies inside.

As a result, Zane forced his way through the front door, which appeared to have been barricaded by the store owners, by smashing the glass with the stock of his rifle, before pushing the furniture aside.

Knowing that there was a high probability of the store owner, or employees being holed up inside, Zane flipped the safety to his m4 carbine off, and changed the selector's setting to full auto. His experience with firearms was limited to semi-automatic weapons.

After all, automatic weapons, or as they were more commonly referred to as "full auto" firearms, were for all practical purposes banned in the united states. There were, of course, exceptions to this rule. For example, firearms manufacturers were permitted to some extent to possess full auto weapons. That is, of course, if they had the right licensing.

Aside from this, law enforcement departments commonly carried such weapons, and finally there were those filthy rich private citizens who could afford to drop tens of thousands, or even potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars on the finite supply of legally registered machine guns that existed on the civilian market.

But for an average citizen like Zane, the idea of legally getting his hands on a "machine gun" of any kind was nothing short of a fever dream. Or so was the case before the apocalypse had begun. Now if he wanted a full auto firearm, he just needed to loot it from one of the many corpses of America's soldiers. Or some police officers, for that matter.

The moment Zane peered through the door, and activated the weapon light on his rifle, he saw a muzzle flash which fired a shot that went just past his head. Knowing that he was under fire by the occupants of this convenience store, Zane ducked behind cover and raised his rifle above his head, randomly spraying a burst of five or six bullets in the direction where the gunshot had come from.

His body had acted on its own before he even realized that he had just mowed down an innocent civilian. Or should he say someone that would have been considered an innocent civilian by the laws of the old world?

But those laws no longer existed, nor did the society that was meant to enforce them. Since the moment the undead had begun to swarm across the world, devouring human life, and its civilizations, Zane was no longer obligated to follow these laws. Nor the social norms that were designed to enforce them.

If he had to kill the occupants of this convenience store to get his hands on the supplies within that he and his followers needed to survive, then he would do so. And he would do so without a second thought. This was evident by the screams that came from inside the store as a childlike voice called out to the person who Zane had just riddled with bullets.

"Daddy! Daddy, are you okay? Speak to me, daddy!"

Despite the desperate tone of the young girl calling out to her father, who was lying in a pool of his own blood, Zane did not despair. Instead, he called out to those survivors who remained inside.

"I'm going to give you this one chance… Lay down your arms, and come out with your hands up… Or I will kill all of you. I'm not fucking around. You have thirty seconds to make your decision."

The people inside the store shivered in fear, knowing that a man was now dead, having bled out from the multiple bullets which struck his torso. Meanwhile, he had the only firearm within their sanctuary, and if they made a move to grab it, the murderous fiend outside their barricades doors would open fire on them, killing them like he had done the young father….

It was not until Zane began counting, however, that these people realized the situation they were in.

"29… 28… 27… 26…."

Time was running out, and Zane was quite serious about killing the inhabitants inside. After all, they had opened fire on him first. To him, this was a matter of survival. He needed the supplies inside this store, and since these people had already proved hostile, he would have no qualms about taking their lives to ensure his own safety.

As for the inhabitants in the store, they did not trust that Zane would not just outright kill them if they revealed themselves.

Thus leading to a critical decision that the adults among their group were forced to debate upon, all while the wife of the man who had been shot tried to console her young daughter who was now crying profusely over the fact that her father was now lying dead in front of her.