Dave climbed down the ladder and went cautiously out onto the street. He was amazed that the streets were empty.
Needing to find a camping store, Dave began walking towards the main street where the shops were. The street ran east-west and Dave would follow it west while looking for a camping store.
The sun had just rose behind Dave. His day had begun.
* * *
Dave wasn't familiar with this part of the city. He had walked out from the more residential area that appeared a block or so from the highway, and back out onto the main highway itself. Along the highway were a random collection of stores and small businesses. Dave wanted to find a camping store.
So intent on finding a place where he could get some camping supplies, that Dave nearly jumped when he saw a figure standing in a side street. The figure wasn't hiding but neither was the figure making any effort to be seen.
Whoever it was looked rather strange. Or maybe it was the perfect look for the times. The figure wore a mish-mash of casual and military gear. Camo boots with camo pants. A khaki T shirt over a black jersey. Camo gloves. A full face helmet of some kind that Dave at first thought was a motorcycle helmet but wondered if it was a safety helmet used in some paintball style sport. The figure had a small camo backpack and a bum pack with the pouch turned to the front. Dave had struggled to determine the gender of the figure because the figure was wearing a sand coloured army plate carrier that successfully obscured the chest. There were numerous items attached to the plate carrier that Dave couldn't recognise, but he could see three rifle magazines held in tidy pouches along the plate carrier's front. The figure held an assault rifle diagonally across his chest. Dave hadn't seen anyone like this before and so he couldn't determine what organisation the figure belonged to.
Now came the question of whether this figure was dangerous, but if this person was dangerous then Dave couldn't run. Dave was in the open and could have been easily shot at any time. There was nothing for it but to stand in place.
"I'm human," called out Dave.
The figure stood as if thinking for a moment, and walked towards Dave before standing about a car length from Dave. The figure was surprisingly short and Dave wondered if it was a woman.
"I've not been bitten," said Dave holding out his arms.
"Bitten?" came a muffled but clearly male voice.
"Isn't that how the disease is spread?"
"Disease," said the figure as if unsure.
"I'm not crazy, right? You seen people being bitten? They seem to die but then stand up later. But they have changed and are no longer human."
The man seemed to fidget a bit before looking around. "I don't know what's going on."
"You've seen it though?" asked Dave.
"Yes. But I don't have any intel." The man pointed to a pouch attached to the top-left of his plate carrier. Dave could see that it was a hand held radio of some sort. "I'm not hearing anything on the radio."
"The power went out around nightfall. Maybe the power is out everywhere and nothing electrical is working."
"There should be backup generators."
"Maybe the people who look after the generators are infected," suggested Dave.
"I was trying to not admit that to myself."
"Sorry. I don't think that we will survive this if we aren't honest about this."
"You're thinking about surviving this?"
"Of course," said Dave. "What else can I do?"
"How can you do that when you don't know what's going on?"
Dave gave a morbid grin. "Confusion is the normal state of affairs."
The man must have been giving Dave an odd look, but the helmet prevented Dave from seeing the man's expression. "What are you planning to do?"
"Well," said Dave. "When all this crap went down I was at work in the centre of the city. I didn't bother going home. I just started moving west in the hope of getting out of the city."
"Why are you leaving the city?"
"I don't have any real data. To me the city requires utilities to work. With the power out the city will become unliveable. I don't know anything about farming but at least that's an option which is more than I'd have if I stayed in the city."
"That doesn't sound like much of a plan."
"That's true. But there's another reason to head out of the city. The city has a lot of people who can be infected. The countryside should be, well, less crowded. The fewer infected that I encounter the safer I'll feel."
"You call them 'infected'."
"Actually, when this first broke out I hid out for a few hours with a window cleaner. It was him who called them 'shitters' when he saw what they were doing. I'm not a big fan of that name so I've gone with 'walkers'. Oh. By the way I'm Dave."
The man nodded. "And what happened to the window washer?"
"He had a grandmother over the north and went over the bridge to find her. I nearly went with him, but I couldn't shake the idea that it was important to get out of the city as soon as possible. I'm not sure if was the right thing to do, but I let us go our separate ways. Maybe I should have stuck with him. I guess I thought that there would be more survivors if I headed west. It's alarming just how few survivors there are."
The man turned his head about as if scanning the streets. "There's nothing on the streets."
"I think that they only come out at night," said Dave misunderstanding.
"What?" the man was clearly startled.
"I'm only beginning to collect some data," said Dave pulling out a notebook from a bag, "but I'm trying to figure out what is going on by recording patterns. So far I've noticed that as it gets dark they come out, and when morning comes around they disappear. But I'm not sure if there's a reason behind this."
Dave had thought to mention that he had heard a talker, but even Dave found the idea of the talking dead to be too hard to believe.
The man looked at the notebook carefully. "Is there anything that you need?"
"As you can see," said Dave returning the notebook to his bag, "I'm carrying some bits and pieces in a shopping bag. A backpack would be better for carrying things, so I'm looking for a camping store. Also a camping store would have a variety of other camping gear that could help out. I was actually walking along this street looking for such a store when I spotted you instead."
"There's one on the next block," said the man pointing west along the highway. "It's on the second floor so it's a bit hard to notice. There's a florist store on the ground floor. When you see a place that sells flowers, look to the side and you should find some stairs going up."
"Argh. I was hoping for a store that's more open. I don't like getting into a place where I can't see into easily."
"Do you want me to come along?"
"I can't do that," said Dave. "You look military so you probably have a lot that you need to be doing."
"Strange."
"What do you mean?"
"Most people would have insisted that I be their personal bodyguard or else that I hand my rifle to them."
"I'm not going to pretend to be all virtuous. I really would like it if we teamed up. But I know nothing about you. You could be in the middle of doing some mission that's really important and I would only be getting in your way and in the process endanger hundreds of lives. And as to your rifle, I don't know anything about them. I'd probably do something stupid with it and get myself killed."
"You really are a strange one."
"Maybe you're right," said Dave. "Before this happened I was just a brain dead office worker. If I'm going to live through this then I need to change. I just haven't figured out how to do that."
"You've survived this far. That's better than most people."
"That's pretty grim."
"Yes."
"You're army right? Do you know if the army has set up any evacuation zones?"
"Oh, I'm not army."
Dave looked uncomfortable. "I don't mean to be rude, but are you a gang member?"
"What?"
"It's just in Australia the only people who can get assault rifles are the army and crime gangs."
"Oh," said the man acting embarrassed. "I'm just part of an emergency plan called DOA."
"Emergency plan? I guess that's a hint that you're needed elsewhere. I let you get on with your work. Thanks for telling me where the nearest camping store is. You were a great help."
"Ah, sure," said the men. He turned his head about as if looking. "I'll be off then."
"Good luck."
"You too."
And with that Dave and the unnamed man went their separate ways.
"Dead on arrival?" asked Dave to himself. "What an odd name."
* * *
Dave stood in front of a small florist store. The store front was open as if waiting for customers. Many of its flowers had wilted and yet there was still a pleasant scent coming from the store. Dave looked to the right of the florist and saw a set of stairs going up. A small sign above the store declared that the stairs lead up to a camping store. Dave wondered how the store attracted customers with such a small store front. The stairway up looked clear of any dangers.
Taking a quick look back and forth along the street, Dave began to climb up the stairs. On reaching the top of the stairs he paused and looked about the store. The lights were off but the store was still well lit thanks to the daylight coming in through a surprising number of windows. The surprise came from how large the store was. This store wasn't the size of the store below it. Clearly this camping store was made from joining the area above at least three ground floor shops.
Dave might have felt a sense of urgency but he needed to balance that with caution and so he slowly entered the store and tried to look about the aisles for any kind of dangers. He was on edge and at the slightest sign of danger Dave was prepared to simply run for it. However as he walked about Dave couldn't find anything to be concerned about. That isn't to say that he completely relaxed, only the day before he had thought that he had fully inspected a store, only to be surprised when someone came from a back room. Dave felt that the longer that he stayed here the more chance that he had of encountering a serious threat. The pressure to be fast built upon his nerves.
There was a wall at the back with a large selection of backpacks and Dave looked them over. A lot were simple day packs, some were huge camping packs, but Dave found a simple fifty litre rectangular shaped backpack. It had a large zip opening on the top and only a few smaller zipped pouches on the side. It had padded shoulder straps that clicked together at the front. There were probably better back packs but Dave found himself attracted to the camo paint scheme. Dave wasn't someone who was particularly interested in the military, but somehow the forest camo scheme just made the pack look better in the same way a red paint job made a car look faster.
Dave took the pack down from the wall and opened it up. Inside the pack was a bunch of scrunched up newspapers to help the pack retain its form. Dave pulled out this padding and dropped his supplies, bag and all, straight into the backpack. He felt pushed for time and would worry about organising the backpack's contents latter. Dave picked up the backpack and placed one of the straps over his right shoulder. Now he needed more items, but the trick was deciding which ones would be genuinely helpful. And being a camping store there were certainly a lot of items that would be helpful. Dave frowned as he lack of familiarity with the camping world made itself felt.
So he began walking around the aisles in the camping store. He felt a little out of his depth and was certain that he was going to get all the wrong things. A small first aid kit caught his eye and he dropped that into his backpack. Then it was a seeming random list of items. A map of the state. A compass. A small foldable pair of binoculars. A torch with some batteries. A few knives of various shapes. A small, flat cooker and some fuel tablets. A few water purification kits. An emergency blanket. A waterproof jacket. A plastic poncho.
While passing a bookshelf Dave paused. He noticed a few books on topics that he knew nothing about. Bushcraft. First aid. Camping. How to build primitive shelters. Dave flipped through some of the books and from the pictures he could tell that there was a massive amount of seemingly basic knowledge that he knew nothing about.
Aware that he needed a crash course on anything related to survival, Dave grabbed the books that caught his attention and dropped them into the backpack. Dave felt that he hadn't gotten much, but already the backpack was getting full. Dave decided that he had gotten enough. He should just take what he had and learn from this mistakes. Dave now had a new routine: spend the morning walking, find a place to sleep the night, and spend the rest of the afternoon reading the books that he had grabbed. He thus had a parallel set of goals: one was to leave the city, the other was to study up on useful knowledge - he future required balancing both of these objectives.
Dave began to leave the store when he noticed the sleeping bag section. He picked up a compactly rolled sleeping bag and a rolled up sleeping mat and tied them to the sides of his backpack. The weather was warm at the moment so Dave could sleep on a couch without any bedding, but who knows what the weather would do. A freak cold spell could be dangerous. Having a means to have a warm night's sleep rather appealed to Dave.
Still being cautious, Dave made his way to the stairwell leading down to the street. It was empty. Dave made his way to the bottom of the stairs and paused to look around the street. It was still empty. Dave had been extremely lucky. Dave only had the backpack on his right shoulder. He reached behind himself and looped the left strap over the corresponding shoulder. After adjusting the straps a bit, Dave clicked the shoulder straps together on his front. Dave twisted from side to side, and flexed a little at the knees. He felt a little foolish in not having tried the backpack on fully before this point. However it was a great fit and he barely noticed the weight that he was carrying. Dave filed the experience away in his head. All the little mistakes provided valuable learning experiences.
One more look to see if the streets were clear and Dave began walking west again.
* * *
Dave felt himself getting tired. Beside a quick detour into a camping store, Dave had spent most of the morning walking and had made good progress. Most buildings that he could see from the highway were now single story, and when he looked down side streets Dave could see increasing amounts of single family residential housing.
Through his tiredness Dave wondered if he should stop walking and switch to using a vehicle. It would make travelling faster, but Dave was worried that the noise generated by a vehicle would attract the interest of creatures that Dave didn't want to deal with. Being on foot was slow but being fast had its dangers. That didn't stop Dave from being annoyed. As he looked up the highway in front of him, Dave could see that there were less cars on the roads than he had seen in the city. In the central city area the cars had often been bumper to bumper. But now the streets were empty enough that it would be possible to weave a car through the spaces.
It was another moment when Dave realised that he was being stupid. On the sidewalk nearby was a bike rack with some bikes chained to it. Dave walked over and looked at the bikes. They were simple pedal-powered bikes with no engine to create a loud noise. Dave almost slapped himself in the face thinking how easier it would have been to ride one of these bikes. But there was no chance with any of these bikes as they were all solidly chained to the bike rack.
Dave continued walking and now with an eye out for a bike that wasn't chained up. He was hoping to see a bike just abandoned on a road. A bike store would have offered a huge choice, but Dave knew less about bikes than he knew about camping. Walking by a fast food joint, Dave looked in and was surprised to see a single bike leaning up against a table. Why someone pushed a bike into an eatery and left it against one of the tables was beyond Dave. It seemed to have just been left there. It wasn't secured in anyway.
Looking around carefully, Dave entered the fast food joint, grabbed the bike by the handles and pushed the bike out
of the fast food joint. Back out on the street Dave looked the bike over. He really had no idea what he was looking at but he basically understood how a bike sort of worked and this looked good enough. Dave rolled the bike onto the street, gave it a little push and tossed his leg over it. It was a balancing act to ride a bike while wearing a backpack but after being unsteady for a moment Dave found his balance and got himself smoothly moving forward.
His tiredness faded as Dave settled into riding along the street. A bike was much more easier to guide than something like a car, and it made weaving between the abandoned vehicles that were on the street much easier than a large vehicle. Dave could really feel he could cover a lot more distance now.
Dave looked up the sky. It was nearing midday. Maybe it would be an idea to find a safe place for the night. Dave was a little worried though - he didn't like the idea of idea of sleeping on the ground floor. The sooner he secured a place the better he would feel. The walkers were fast at night and Dave didn't want to experience that speed first hand.
* * *
Dave slowed down at the intersection. Coming to a stop, Dave stayed on his bike while resting a foot on the ground to stop himself from falling over. Just off the highway was a small two story apartment. Not great, but it would get him off the ground floor. It had only been a few days and Dave had developed a strong discomfort with being on the ground.
Dave pedalled towards the small apartment and looked the building over, checking to see if the place would be a safe place to stay the night. The bigger problem was that Dave couldn't at first see a way to reach any of the first floor balconies. He had lucked out with ladders so far, but now he couldn't see anything that he could use to help him climb. Dave looked around at the other buildings in the hope of finding a place that he could access easily but they all shared the property of being difficult to defend. Besides this apartment, all the other places were just single floor houses that could be easily broken into by a swarm of walkers.
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