The Last of Us: New Normal

by TheConqueror74

As the apocalypse ravages the world, a man and his friends try to keep on living as if nothing has gone wrong.

"What about this one?"

I looked at my friend and moved toward his side. "Really?"

"What? What's wrong with this one?

"Would you want to watch this shit?"

"Come one! What is wrong with it?"

"It's the third movie in a series about a bunch of guys getting hit in the nuts. Why is that fun?"

"Fourth."

"Fourth?" I said incredulously.

"Yeah. They released '2.5' which was stuff cut from the sequel," he laughed. "The first sequel!"

I shook my head and muttered, "Jesus Christ, why?"

"You're one to talk by the way! You said 'Machete Kills' looked good!"

"I didn't say it looked it, I saw it. It was good - fun. It was fun!"

"So watching a washed up old never was in a shitty B-movie is more fun than watching people do real, actual stunts?"

"When said stunts are a bunch of frat boys doing nut shots and covering each other in shit, no, I don't find it fun."

He groaned and walked to the next poster along the side of the theater. "What about this one? Would this not be fun enough?"

"Well…the first one was pretty boring…"

"I…ugh yeah. Can't disagree with that."

"Not to mention the reviews didn't help its cause much. There's a reason why I skipped this one."

Kirk just grunted in response. We just stood there for several seconds, looking at the inoperable movie theater as a warm nearly summer breeze worked its way through the quarantine zone.

"What time is it?" I asked.

"You need to get a watch," Kirk said as he looked at his. "Nearly noon. Where are we supposed to meet Tonya again?"

"Shit man! I thought you knew!"

"You bastard!" he laughed as he shoved me. "You're going to tell her that when we're late."

I knocked his hand away; "She's on the front gate today. We'll be fine."

We set of on our path, first crossing the nearly empty parking that lay next to the theater. I looked towards the small pile of boxes piled in a parking spot and barely visible across the fairly large parking lot. On the opposite side of the lot, at the furthest spot away from us (even as we crossed the raised concrete sidewalk that nearly split the lot into two rectangular halves) was an ever-growing collection of building supplies. No one that I had talked to really knew what it was for, but the current rumor was that it was the beginning of a permanent housing project. I stared at the collection as Kirk and I walked across the second half of the lot in silence, my mind contemplating the rumor.

Even after the walls went up, we didn't visit this theater often. But, as anyone who decided to venture away from the constantly buzzing marketplace could tell you, the supplies being gathered had been an increasing presence in the past two weeks or so. I felt a slight tingle of sadness as my mind continued the slow process of accepting this rumor.

As soon as we stepped foot onto Entertainment Avenue, the small road that ran between the derelict movie theater and the marketplace, Kirk brought up the first time we snuck into a movie with a laugh. It was a bit strange since the theater we had just departed wasn't the one that we had snuck into (a fact that I'm not quite sure how I remembered), but I went along with it. Somehow neither of us could remember what movie it was, other than it was an action movie. As we walked along the avenue we spouted off every action and war movie we could think it might be, but most of the ideas we had were shot down by the other on account of the fact that the suggested movie wasn't released (or in theaters) back when we were sophomores. All of the talk about movies from our teenage years got us to start reminiscing about movies of years past and the conversation shifted away from the utterly forgettable movie that we wasted our first R rated movie going experience on.

The conversation suddenly screeched to halt as Kirk turned to walk down the diagonal stretch of roadway that connected Entertainment Avenue and Carnabt Street. He turned around an answered my question with a confirmation that he was going to use Carnabt Street as a short cut. I reminded him that, although the market was located further down on Broad Street, Carnabt was part of the Restaurant District. His eyes light up with his remembrance of this fact and he strained his neck to look around the building and down the main part of the street before we carried on our way.

We continued to look at our high school past with rose tinted nostalgia goggles as we continued to make our way to the Tonya, except now the topics of conversation revolved around teachers, sports and the girls who got away. The conversation paused briefly once again as we stopped along a once busy four-laned Chinden Road to watch a couple military trucks with a few planks of wood poking out the back drive towards the movie theater.

My interest in the conversation waned as we drew closer to the north gate. Everything north of Chinden was open to public but purely for military use. I hadn't been to the north gate since arriving in the quarantine zone and there hadn't been much a reason to visit it in the past year and half or so. It felt strangely like visiting your childhood town after being away for a while. The appearance of this section of the quarantine zone had changed from when the walls first went up. The thin of black metal were still scattered around the place and fulfilled their job of temporary barriers. As we got closer to the inner gate, the second of two massive doors that constituted the main gate, the thing metal barriers gave way to thick olive green and concrete ones, uniformly waist high and standing guard over what must've been important buildings. The green camo tents that housed the barracks, command center, processing and other such things were gone, replaced with single story buildings painted just like the waist high barriers.

The area had a surprisingly relaxed feel to it. Although at first glance all I could see was drab military architecture and uniformed troops moving about, longer inspection changed this perspective. For every soldier walking around in full uniform, there was another wearing half his uniform or one indistinguishable from us civilians, except for his military approved haircut. Brief views into buildings through opening doors or thin window panes revealed some strangely personalized rooms; posters of bands and movies hung on walls alongside the occasional painting or photography. The walls themselves were covered in wallpaper or paint, but it looked far more like what you'd see in someone's home than on a military base.

We finally reached the north gate, strangely now nothing more than a few doors, turnstiles and a couple of concrete cubes that were supposed to function as guard posts. I pulled my increasingly useless phone of my pocket and checked the time. Surprisingly, we were actually a few minutes early. I looked around for our companion as I relayed this information to Kirk. Despite the small size of the quarantine zone and its population, I didn't recognize most of the faces I saw. One of soldiers posted in a guard post was eyeing Kirk and me with an expression that was both bored and suspicious. He wasn't the only one however, and the longer Kirk and I stood there, the more eyes I noticed were on us. I started to just look at the faces, Tonya but an afterthought, paying attention to who was glaring at us. Sure it wasn't often that civilians came into the military districts and thus we stood out like a sore thumb, but why was it necessary for every other person to be watching us?

My attention was drawn away from these voyeurs when Kirk dug his elbow into my side. I followed his arm and saw he was pointing at a group of three soldiers, two men and woman, walking. Even fully geared up with body armor, her black hair tied up and tucked under a helmet and a rifle hanging in front of her chest, I nearly instantly recognized Tonya. I called out to her and waved with Kirk, not oblivious to the dozens of sets of eyes that had just been drawn to us. She said something to her compatriots and ran over to the two of us as they stood and watched.

"Wow! Look who's actually early!" she grinned. Kirk opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted. "I still have to go check all this shit back in and change. You guys are welcome to wait outside the barracks! Just follow us, we're going to pass by 'em and I'll point mine out when we do so."

Kirk shrugged his shoulders and utter an affirmation, which Tonya accepted with a smile before returning to the two other soldiers she had left. Kirk and I dutifully followed behind the threesome. It was almost like the military district was separated into its own smaller districts; the olive green barriers gave way to similarly colored half cylinders. Unlike the buildings we had passed earlier, what little I was able to see of the inside was just several rows of bunk beds and lacked their personalization. Eventually Tonya turned her head to look at us and pointed at one of the buildings.

Kirk and I dutifully stopped walking and awkwardly stood in the middle of the street. We briefly discussed as to where we should stand and wait; standing across the street from the barracks seemed like a place where Tonya could easily miss us on her return trip. However, a couple of gruff locking soldiers were standing around the entrance and, in all honesty, were a bit too intimidated to go wait around them. After a quick deliberation, we walked and stood across the street, and waited for Tonya there. The two of us talked in slightly hushed tones, trying not to draw any attention to ourselves. And, although passing soldiers would throw glances in our direction, they paid very little attention to us.

Our conversation stopped and started in abrupt pieces, which only got worse as time went on. Hours seemed to pass and I could've sworn that hundreds of soldiers passed by before Tonya showed up again. We eagerly waved at her and, as she smiled and waved back, I took a step forward to join her. Before I could take another step, she turned her attention away took skipped a step on the stairs in front of her and was inside the barracks. It took me a second after the door closed behind her to reset myself at Kirk's side.

He wasted no time teasing me for eagerly moving towards Tonya and our broken, choppy conversation was rejuvenated. The two of us spent the next several minutes teasing the other for various faux pas in interactions with love interests in the past.

Kirk elbowed me and pointed at Tonya, who had just emerged from the barracks and was walking towards us, smiling. She was strangely petite woman, especially for one in the military. Even with more form fitting, non-military clothes she didn't look overly muscular, which many an unlucky frat guy had discovered the hard way. The best (and only) guess I had was that her height was the reason why. She was an inch or so taller than I was and was about as tall as Kirk. She wasn't just tall for a woman; she was tall as a person. As these thoughts ran through my head, I noticed that I was paying a lot of attention to her long legs. I blinked a few times to snap myself out of it. However, my attention was nearly immediately drawn towards her beautiful smile. Her shoulder length black hair served as a perfect accent to the gorgeous, vaguely Slavic features of her face. I managed to shake myself out of this trance when my platonic friend was mere feet from us.

"You guys hungry?"

"Well we've been waiting for you for several hours, so yeah, we're hungry," I teased. She laughed and angrily wagged her finger in my face, causing me to flinch and Kirk to laugh. "Hey man, she could easily kick your fat ass too!" I smiled.

"Now, now! Let's go get some food before you two assholes make things violent," she said before turning to lead us towards our lunch spot.

The conversation on our walk contained more of the same, mostly joking and friendly insults. She led us down Carnabt Street, from the opposite side that we had passed by earlier. We followed her into a former sports bar. The restaurant, now renamed "Buster's", served as a place for soldiers who got off a long security shift. At least that's the best I could figure, judging from the fact that the only patrons in place were soldiers; most of whom were either hunched over their food or slowly talking to one another. Kirk and I trailed behind Tonya as she made her way towards our table.

"So what'd you get us?" I asked as I pulled out my chair.

"I managed to pull some strings," she leaned back in her chair and strained her neck, trying to peek into the kitchen. "I got the three of some good shit."

Kirk pretended to slam his fists on the table, "What exactly is good shit?"

Tonya simply smiled in response and chuckled in response. Even as we prodded her more, Tonya reused to budge and tell us. But then I smelt it. So instantly recognizable that, even with all of the ration restrictions that prevented certain foods from being available, I could tell it was. Kirk's head perked up too as Tonya started to laugh. We happily looked at each other as the smell of that sweet, greasy, sizzling meat seemed to grow stronger. As the waiter rounded the corner, I looked at the rest of the restaurant and even the most tired of soldiers woke up and drew their attention towards us – and I didn't even mind it this time! As he drew closer, you could hear bacon sizzling on their plates. Kirk and I were practically drooling as the waiter set the plates down in front of us.

I had to pause for a moment, my eagerness to devour the delicious bacon temporarily put on hold. Life in a quarantine zone wasn't too bad, but when compared to life before the outbreak it was quite a shock. Hell, even before the outbreak I rarely ate like this, especially for a meal that was apparently supposed to breakfast: a stack of pancakes with butter on top, a pile of scrambled eggs and a handful of bacon. I flipped the top pancake over, squashing the small square of butter between the one underneath before taking a chuck out of a piece of bacon and shoveling some eggs into my mouth before I was done chewing.

I looked up at Tonya, who was holding a bacon strip and had already finished half of a pancake, laughing at Kirk, who had already eaten a full pancake and was sticking bacon into a folded one. Tonya and I locked eyes and both laughed as Kirk paid no attention to us and shoved the pancake-bacon sandwich into his mouth. The other soldiers in the restaurant had reluctantly returned to their far more meager meals.

"Holy shit!" Kirk attempted to say through his still full mouth. "How the hell you'd manage to pull this off!"

Tonya and I broke eye contact and she swallowed before answering, "One of the cooks owed me a favor, a few favors. I was transporting one of the scav teams and picked up some old shit from his house like he asked. Boom! One of the best goddamn breakfasts you've had since the walls went up!"

"Hey now!" I jokingly wagged my fork at her. "You know that you're supposed to report what you pick up! You don't want me to tell my bosses at Collections about this little transgression, do you?"

Tonya rolled her eyes, "Just eat your damn pancakes before 'Chief Big Round' over there sucks it up like a vacuum!"

Kirk briefly paused to shake his belly and let out a laugh before digging into the remaining eggs on his plate. Tonya and I dug back into our meals, but I slowed down, trying to savor this delicacy in front of me.

Kirk's fork clanged against his plate and he smacked his lips for the last time as he finished the last few bits of scrambled eggs. "Careful! That shit's expensive man! I can only do so much," Tonya said as he reached for his untouched glass of milk. He looked at her and proceeded to down the whole glass in a few seconds. With a thud he slammed glass back onto the table and belched loudly, briefly drawing the attention of a few of the soldiers.

"I don't give a shit!" he proudly exclaimed!

It wasn't the first time I'd seen him down a glass that fast, but it still caught me off guard. "Jesus fuck man! Did you even taste that?"

Kirk rubbed his belly and grinned at me, "Hell yeah! And it was damn good!"

"So," Tonya leaned in and pointed her knife at me. "the professor over there finally has a job, how about you?"

Kirk looked down at his empty plate before glancing at Tonya, "I'm still lookin', okay?"

"Duuuude," I groaned.

"Kirk, man, " Tonya nearly whispered. "If you want to get a spot once the new apartments go up, you've gotta find something to do!"

"New apartments?" I asked.

"Yeah," she said, turning her attention to me. "Over by the movie theater."

I nodded my head. So the rumors are true! I thought to myself.

"Hey, I'm tryin'!" Kirk tried to defend himself. "I gotta find something that's fun, that interests me, that I can do-"

Tonya snapped back to Kirk. "They could kick you out man! And we've got a lot of shit to do and not enough manpower. How have you not found something yet?"

"Well, I-"

"Tell you what man. I'll look into it for you and find you something. Sound good?"

"How do you know it'll be something I like? Huh?"

"We were great fucking friends man! I think I know you well enough to find something."

"Yeah, in fucking high school. We've like what, three fucking times in the past-"

"So…Tonya," I quickly interjected. "How much does all of this cost."

She smirked. "Like I said, one of the cooks owned me a few favors. Shit's all on the house. Except the milk though, I couldn't pull that." I groaned. "Don't worry, I got you two covered though. This place was my idea, so I'll take the hit."

I nodded and went back to my meal, listening as Kirk and Tonya (who had already finished their meals) continued to talk, luckily not about finding him a job. With the exception of the occasional grunt or chuckle, I listened in silence. I wasn't missing much, the two were just bullshiting back and forth, and the only thing I found to be of note was the fact that Tonya hadn't heard of any plans to reactivate the movie theater. I set my fork and knife down on the empty plate and leaned back with a sigh. I think I had nearly forgotten what it felt like to be stuffed. As Tonya called for who can I could only assume was the chef that owed her a favor, I looked around the restaurant. We were the only ones in there, which I found surprising since I hadn't heard anyone get up or seen anyone leave through the door (at least not that I could recall). Kirk and I remained seated as Tonya stood up to greet the man who came from the kitchen and definitely looked like a cook. When he arrived at the table, the two embraced and immediately began talking. The two of them were beaming and conversed for the next couple of minutes. Kirk and I stood up when she handed the cook the little money we owed for the meal, bid him farewell and gestured for us to follow her out of the restaurant. Kirk and I said our goodbyes to Tonya, who promised we'd meet up again soon, albeit not with such a feast.

We watched her walk away for a while before we began to follow her path. At the end of the street, she turned right and disappeared around the corner as she headed back towards the front gate. We turned left instead, trying to avoid the still busy (but dwindling) market on Broad Street. For most of the walk back to our room we were gushing over the breakfast we just had. A few of the people we passed threw cursory, annoyed or jealous in our direction, which really only served to increase our happiness over the meal. The two of us finally arrived back at our apartment building and Kirk groaned at the prospect of having to climb stairs. We slowly made our way up the four flights of stairs, with conversation slowly falling off as my friend began to struggle. By the time we reached the top, he was heaving, wheezing and panting, but only paused for a moment before he began to move towards our room.

To say that our apartment was small would be an understatement. I'm fairly certain it was actually an office building before the outbreak, since our apartment consisted of a single living space and a bathroom. The room was physical larger than the dorm I had in college, but that didn't matter much when there was four of us living in it. Although we did actually manage to keep it clean for the first year or so, things had fallen apart several months ago and now it only served to reinforce the stereotype that guys didn't clean up after themselves. The very spacious office room turned out to be a very cramped bedroom; each of us only had a single twin sized bed, a dresser and a shelf mounted on the wall. Any of our belongings were in the various boxes lining the walls and stacked almost to the ceiling. We were lucky in that the outbreak took longer than expected to reach us, so a lot of us were able to get packed up and into the quarantine zone before the worst of the outbreak hit. Too many of us actually, which is why there were four grown men to a room. The room was always kind of dark and brown, with the only real space to decorate anything being the small wall mounted shelves. None of us really spend any significant amount of our time awake in the apartment.

I stood in the doorway for a few seconds and looked at the cardboard boxes; I didn't want to go much of anywhere in the quarantine zone, but definitely didn't want to say here. I noticed that the constraction figure I had on my shelf had fallen as Kirk told me he was going to lie down for a nap. I grunted a response and walked across the room to fix it.

"Why do you even have that thing?" I looked at Kirk and held up the figure in my hand. "Yeah, that."

"It's something I always wanted as a kid," I said as I stood the figure back up on the shelf. "I just wasn't that into this toy line at the time this guy came out, sadly. He somehow ended up in Collections one day and I just figured that well, no one's going to notice if he doesn't show up in some store or somewhere. The story is actually pretty cool. I haven't told it to you, right? No? Okay, well we could control fire and was in charge of a team of five other heroes who could control other elements: air, water, ice and what not. However, at one point they were ambushed and mutated into what you see here. And he, the heroic leader, actually turned evil. He was feeling incredibly insecure about all of his failures as a leader, gave into the bestial side the mutation was trying to bring out and became evil. He did become good again though; it is a kids' toy line after all. His teammates actually-"

The toilet in our bathroom flushed. A quizzical looks spread across my face as Kirk and I both looked over at the door that stood next to Kirk's bed. The sink ran for several seconds before shutting off and out strode Justin, one of my other roommates. "Are you really going on about a kids' toy line?"

Kirk laughed from his bed, "Yeah man, I really don't give a shit about what happens."

The story is actually interesting, so I brushed both of them off. "Did you just wake up?"

"Yes I did," Justin replied as he shifted through a dresser drawer. "I've worked every Saturday Morning Market shift for the past two months. If I want to sleep in to…what time is it?" He looked over at my alarm clock. "If I want to sleep until the afternoon, I think I've earned it. At least this one!" Justin walked back across the room, street clothes in hand.

"So what are you doing today?" I asked as Kirk slipped underneath his blankets.

"Hell if I know," Justin said, pausing between my bed and Kirk's. "Wander around maybe? Maybe see what Andy's doing?"

As Justin turned and reached for the door handle to the bathroom, I stood up to leave the room. "Oh, wait," Justin exclaimed. "There's a show tonight at The Complex. You going to go to that?"

"Who's playing?"

"Uh…The…The Knights of Never. "

I shook my head, "Nah man, I'm good."

"Really? Aren't you into that heavy metal shit?"

"Yea, but not when it's the same songs every single goddamn time. Are you going?"

"I don't know," he shrugged. "Maybe."

"Tell ya what man, you go to the show and, if they play anything new, I'll go next time. Okay?"

"Oh yeah, just make me do your dirty work!" Justin said with a grin.

I simply chuckled and left the room. My mind was blank as I walked down the stairs; I really didn't know where I was going to go. I didn't even think of where I was going to go as I made my way down the stairs. As I opened the door to head outside I decided, partially out of frustration, to just towards Broad Street and see what remained of the market. I hadn't actually seen what Broad Street was like after the morning market yet and it was at least something that would be somewhat new. I crossed back across Sourdough Road and made my way to Edward Street. It wasn't a far walk from my apartment to Broad Street, and the fact that Edward led directly into it definitely helped that fact.

I walked down Edward Street, catching glimpses of conversations as I went.

"Meshari and his damn movie club…"

"…all night long! They never stopped! The two…"

"…just man the fuck up and ask her…"

"Check out Patterson's if you want that. Great music selection over there."

"…fireflies and they're all over LA!"

Broad Street itself was pretty empty. Not quite sure why I was surprised at this fact, the morning market had ended a decent enough time ago after all. It was still plainly clear just how busy Broad Street had been; several shop stalls were still standing, with a few currently being taken down by shop owners. A surprising amount of trash littered the street. From a distance though, it mostly appeared to be the cores of fruits and empty cardboard boxes. Some of the shopkeepers had even set up potted plants in the middle of the street, some of which had been sadly knocked over at some point. I continued to wander down Broad Street as the farmers, at least that's who I assumed they were, began to quickly spread out along it. They were quickly gathering up the discarded fruit cores and other such trash and shoving them into big bags. A couple of them called out to a shopkeeper as they fixed one of the plants that been knocked over, but the farmers and shopkeepers paid very little attention to one another other than that. By the time I had reached the end of the street and turned around, the shopkeepers had returned to the inside of their stores. The farmers were also beginning to disperse, some leaving with their massive bags barely filled and others handing off their stuff so they could remain behind and socialize. A few people were starting to wander into the street – likely those who had avoided the busy market but still needed some groceries.

A light breeze blew down the street, bringing with it the murmurs from the shoppers on the far side. People were starting to enter the street from behind me too, but there was more than enough room that I really didn't feel like moving out of their way.

I heard a familiar British voice come from behind me, "Is that who I think it is?"

I spun around and took my hand out of my pocket. I was greeting with the stupid, boyish grin of Rob. He reached to shake my outstretched hand, which I quickly put back and held in front of my eyes. "Gah! You can't just be sneaking up on people like that man! You need to prepare them for your head's blinding light!"

"Oh ha ha, very funny," he mocked. "At least I'm not standing the street staring at people like a weirdo. And, I'll have you know, when I was your age my luscious black locks would have made anyone jealous!"

"Yeah, whatever man. What's up? And cool scoops you haven't broadcast yet?"

"Yeah, but none that I can tell you!"

"Oh?"

"Yeah," he dramatically looked around before leaning in to whisper, "They're keeping some scary shit quiet." I shook my head as Rob laughed. "But really. There's some things we've become aware of that we aren't supposed to talk about. Well, broadcast, but I don't think my employers will be too fond of us just blabbering it around either."

"Ah, you and you Brits. Just 'cause you aren't used to freedom of press doesn't mean that you can force that upon us!"

"I'll gladly do what I'm told, sure as hell beats living outside the walls!"

I shrugged. "I guess that depends on what the news is."

Rob grinned once again, "Cheeky bastard. It's not much of anything though. Just some crazy terrorist group. Shouldn't last for too long."

I opened my mouth to say something, but Rob pointed his index finger at me before I could get a word out. "Fine, fine. No more questions."

"By the way, me, Nath and Holly are going to The Robin tonight for some dinner. You want to join us?"

I thought about it for a second, but the fact that I'd have to pay for it myself swayed me against it. "Tonight? Nah, I don't think I can make it. Sorry!"

"Don't worry about it! Another time!" Rob patted me on the arm. "Catch you later! I have grocery shopping to do."

I waved goodbye and set off. I wasn't really in the mood to talk to anyone, no offense to Rob. He had always perplexed me. It always seemed strange to me that him, Nathan and Holly had somehow gone all the way from the UK to here. In the middle of bum fuck nowhere. Next time, next time we talked I'd finally ask him how he arrive here when the outbreak occurred. And how he'd manage to get into the quarantine zone in the first place. Not that I'm complaining though, as he was a fun enough person to hang out with and he, along with Nathan and Holly, were really the only people willing to put in the work to get a news station up and going. Even with all of the heavy shit that tends to happen during the apocalypse, they managed to keep things pretty lighthearted.

I made sure to steer clear of the building the three Brits broadcasted from as I wandered around the quarantine zone. I had no goal in mind, and nothing of any note happened. I spent the next several hours walking aimlessly, enjoying the weather that was the perfect blend of spring and summer. I made it back to the apartment in time for dinner, only to find Justin and Andy out in the hallway since Kirk was still asleep. We stayed outside of the room far too late into the night, but Kirk had been up for a while and was playing a game on his handheld device. I hit the hay shortly after getting back into the apartment.

The next day was more the same, albeit much later seeing as how I woke up at noon. I made sure to avoid the market, even though it was always nearly empty on Sundays, and any place else I expected to meet anyone I knew. Kirk was actually awake for dinner then, so we were able to eat inside of the apartment, using a bunch of spare cardboard boxes as a makeshift table. Justin, Andy and I all went to bed around the same time, and a much more reasonable time than last night.

For some reason, I woke up. And, for some reason, someone was lighting off fireworks. A lot of fireworks actually, enough to match the sound of Kirk's snoring. I stumbled over to his bed and felt around the box he used as a dresser. I grabbed his watch and checked the time. It was three in the morning! The pops of fireworks picked up, causing Andy to stir. He whispered something that I couldn't understand over the sound of Kirk's monstrous roar. "What?" I whispered back as I moved closer.

"What is going on?" I could just barely make out the outline of Justin sitting up in his bed.

"That, more or less," Andy whispered.

Justin got up and opened the door to the apartment, causing the pops to get ever so slightly louder. I could hear the voice of a neighbor, but couldn't make out the words. "I don't know!" Justin replied to the unheard question.

Andy and I made our way into the hallway, where it seemed everyone on the floor except for Kirk was. The pops kept going off. I couldn't quite wrap my head around the fact these pops were not fireworks, although the thought had already dawned on me. I tentatively took a step towards the stairs, but was forced back by a bassy, thunderous boom.

"Shit!"

"What the fuck was that?"

"Everyone just back into your rooms!" a voice yelled from downstairs.

"So we can all die here?" a neighbor yelled back.

The guy from bellow appeared on the landing, "And what the hell are you going to do? Beat them with your fists?"

"What if we put a couple people on watch?" Justin suggested.

"A rotating watch," I interjected.

"Yeah, a rotating watch," Justin confirmed. "At least that way we'll have some warning if something reaches us. I'll even take first watch!"

There was a flurry of confirmation and grumbling as Justin and a few others worked out a watch schedule for the next few hours. He then ushered the three of us back into the room, reassuring us that we wouldn't have to go on watch. Andy, Kirk and I all returned to our beds as the gunfire continued to rage outside. I just lay on my back, eye closed but not really trying to fall asleep. Andy kept twisting and turning in his bed and Kirk just lay still his, likely knowing that he wasn't going back to sleep any time soon. My mind raced with the possibilities of what was going on, and I could've sworn that the gunfire was inching closer and closer. But nothing happened. No one came to get us to flee or fight. After what seemed like hours, the gunfire began to peter off, slowing down to only a few pops every minute.

With its signature ear-piercing screech, my alarm clock went off. I shut it off and sat up. Kirk was sitting in his bed, doodling something in a journal as he muttered a "good morning" at me. Andy's alarm had more or less gone off at the same time as mine, but he was quicker at getting out of bed than I was and was already in the process of getting clothes so he could get dressed. Justin was back in his bed, and even the combined volume of two alarm clocks going off hadn't woken him up. I entered the bathroom after Andy left it and got dressed. The two of us then bid Kirk farewell and left the apartment to make our way to work.

Outside of the building, everything seemed normal; people were walking around, making their way to work or back from various night shifts. If it wasn't for the sunken, tired eyes of those of us who had just woken up, it would've been impossible to tell some sort of battle had occurred somewhere in the quarantine zone just a couple of hours ago. The two of us made our way down Sourdough Road towards the building that Collections was housed in.

Despite the fact that Collections was technically housed in the Command Sector of the quarantine zone, it was free for people to just walk into. The building itself wasn't anything special; it was a hardware store pre-outbreak and had been converted into a storage and sorting area for the crap that the scav teams hauled in from the city. Pretty much every that was in the store had been used in some capacity in building or reinforcing the quarantine zone, so most of the building was nice and open. All in all, it wasn't that bad a place to work. It was fairly well lit and a decent amount of natural light from the outside came into the building. The scav teams would sometimes bring in cool shit too, some of which we were able to make off with although this technically wasn't allowed. But, as long as it wasn't anything important or a request from another in the quarantine zone, most were willing to look the other way.

We were some of the first people inside of the building, so Andy told me he was going to head towards the rest room. I continued towards the Supervisor's office, to see where I was going to be stationed for the day. When I got to the job board though, I found that it hadn't been filled out yet. I heard my name shouted at me from behind.

I turned around to face the Supervisor, who was walking towards me, "Yeah?"

"You're early," he oh-so-brilliantly pointed out. "Why are you here early?"
"I don't know, maybe I walked a little faster today."

"I don't need your lip right now. I've had to deal with enough shit in the last hour and I don't need any of yours. You're going to go around and see if any of the stores need anything."

"Inventory duty," I groaned under my breath.

The Supervisor shot me a dirty look, "Just do what I say, dammit. Did Anderson come with you? He here?"

"Yeah, he's in the bathroom."

"He's with you today. Tell him to hurry up, you two need to get out right now, you understand?"

I gave him a thumb up and walked away, towards the bathrooms. Just under halfway there I ran into Andy, who groaned at our assignment just as I had. The two of us went into the loading bay to get the clipboards and request forms that we'd need for the day. And I use the phrase "request forms" loosely, it was simply just several sheets of plain white paper on a clipboard.

We set out into the quarantine zone, first starting with the largest shops on Broad Street before making our way to the bars and restaurants at the Restaurant District and out to the quarantine zone at large. As is nature of being in a resource strapped city, there were a lot of requests for supplies; sometimes someone random would even stop us with a specific request. Despite the relatively small size of the quarantine zone, it still took several hours to collect all of the requests. This no doubt took a little longer than it should have, as Andy and I took a little time to talk to a few people about the events of last night. It seemed that almost everyone had their own explanation for what happened; a swarm of infected, a bandit attack and even the theory that the soldiers themselves split apart and a civil war was beginning. Whatever the reason was, the streets were nearly completely empty.

Anderson and I finished our rounds and made our way back to the Collections building and made our way to the storage area, checking to see if anything on the list was already available. For the handful of things that were in storage, we had to move them to a special marked section inside of the main building itself. We also had to pay attention to those in sorting, to make sure that nothing they had was needed. After going through everything in storage, there wasn't much left to do but wait for sorting to finish up their work, which didn't take but an hour or so. Despite all of the commotion and excitement of the night before and the nearly empty streets, it was a normal, generic day on the job.

Anderson and I clocked out near dinnertime and headed back to our apartment, to see if anyone was there and wanted to get something to eat. As we had figured, Kirk was still in the apartment. And, judging from the smell, hadn't left the room at all during the day.

As Andy began to ask if Kirk wanted to join us, he pointed at me and said "Tonya stopped by earlier."

"Oh?" I asked in response.

"Yeah. She said to meet her at Buster's. Or near it. One of those two."

"Wait what? Which one? When?"

Kirk picked his watch up off of the box by his bed and looked at it, "In like…15 minutes."

"Jesus fuck man! You couldn't have told me earlier?"

"Hey! I was going to, but I just didn't feel like going out today."

I was half listening as I turned and opened the recently shut door. "Well, you two have fun. Don't wait up, I guess."

I turned and existed our room, quickly making my way down the four flights of stairs and back to the street. My mind was racing and my stomach was churning. What could she want? Why'd she come virtually across the entire quarantine zone to come see me? To ask me to meet her somewhere? What did she want to tell me? To ask me? I tried to jam my hands into my pockets as they began to tremble ever so slightly, but I was alternating between a fast walk and light jog as I was trying to get to the Restaurant District as quickly as possible.

No matter what, it would've taken more than 15 minutes to get to the Restaurant District. Outside of straight up running there, I made my way as quickly as possible. By the time I actually reached Carnabt Street, I had a sinking feeling that Tonya would have already left. But when I got Buster's in my sights, I saw Tonya standing outside of it, resting against the metal railing that marked the edge of the outdoor patio of the restaurant.

With a smile I slowed down my pace and began to walk normally towards her. However, she didn't see me turn onto the street so she stood up and began to walk off. I panicked a bit and yelled her name, to no response. I once again picked up my pace and shouted her name again. And again. And again. I finally got her attention, alongside the attention of many of the other soldiers and people eating their dinners.

She waved and began to walk towards me, dodging a few people who hadn't expected her sudden change of direction. Tonya greeted me with a hug and led me into Buster's, managing to snag one of the last remaining tables in the place. As we sat down, I noticed that she was carrying herself not unlike someone who was suffering from a bad cold and she wasn't the only one; several other soldiers were acting very similarly to her. I tried to ask her why she wanted to meet, but she quickly brushed it off with a grunt. We made small talk as the waiter came with the night's food options (pretty much just canned meat dressed up to not taste like canned meat) and as we waited for the meal to arrive. The conversation had mostly fallen off by the time food had arrived. Several minutes into our meal, Tonya muttered something through a mouthful of food.

"Sorry?"

"What are people saying about the commotion last night?" she spoke up.

"A lot of stuff; that it was an attack by some infected, that it was some sort of coup attempt. I'm surprised no one blamed aliens, honestly!" I shrugged and tried to laugh it off. But it didn't have any effect on Tonya, who simply looked down at her plate and stabbed another hunk of meat with her fork. "What actually happened?"

She leaned in over her food and began to whisper, "So I was on guard duty on the main gate. When Nesbitt came to relieve me at the end of my shift, we saw what looked like a group approaching the main gate. He radioed in the possible contact and I decided to stay with him to see what was up. The group was massive though. There was like, 50 people in it, all screaming and yelling and hollering, begging to be let in. Nesbitt radioed back in the news of this large group when they got to the gate, and we tried to calm them down. But no one listened. They just kept yelling, and started banging on the gate.

The more of us that appeared, the rowdier the group got and they started to bang on the gate with more and more ferocity. We had to call up a goddamn Humvee and some extra troops to man The Chute. We even pulled out some bullhorns to try and be heard over the sound of the group, but they just screamed louder to be let it.

That's when Nesbitt said he thought he saw some movement coming up the road. We tried to discreetly get some light off into the distance to see what it was, but some took notice. And guess what they saw. Infected. Fucking infected. Bastards were making a beeline right towards the main gate. Everyone began to panic, right as someone began to open the gate under the Major's orders. Damn thing flew wide open. The poor bastards down in The Chute tried to slow the tide, but the group just kept pushing them back. Nesbitt took fired and killed the first infected that was coming our way. I joined in, as did everyone else who was positioned above the gate, but it just wasn't enough. Every infected in the damn city must've been coming at us. I don't know what happened next, maybe we didn't see some infected and they started attacking the group, but someone in the crowd fired a shot.

The guys in The Chute panicked and began firing, but half of the group had to be armed. Bullets were firing every which way as we were trying to stop the infected from reaching the gate but it just…just wasn't enough. Bastards hit the gate like a fucking tidal wave, and I sure as hell couldn't tell who was infected or not. The guys in The Chute were swarmed. Just totally and completely fucked. So we all just began shooting, shooting at anything that moved. Just trying to stop the mosh pit from reaching the inner gate. I couldn't even tell you what I was hitting; it was a flurry of gunfire and bodies that never seemed to stop moving.

Some crazy guy, or maybe a hero, he could've been bit, ya know? Some guy pinned against the Humvee detonated explosives. Grenades, pipe bombs, whatever the fuck it was it must've ignited some fuel, 'cause the entire Humvee went up with him. A powerful enough explosion to damage the walls and destroy part of the catwalk on the right. Poor guys didn't see it coming, and sure as hell didn't last long in the fray.

But we all just continued to keep right on shooting. Some guys acted as runners, grabbing crates and boxes full of ammo and bringing it to us as we kept on shooting. Shooting and shooting until everything stopped moving. Then…then…" Tonya briefly stopped to catch her breath. "Then we had to pull over watch, keeping and out on the city and on the mass of bodies, making sure no more infected were coming or could ambush anyone. But at least I wasn't put into The Chute. All those bodies had to be cleaned up and moved, quickly. Through the mess of blood and all of the…all the body parts it was tough to see if the wounded were infected or not. Impossible. It wasn't spoken, but the order quickly came to treat everyone as infected. Dozens of people. Dozens of dozens. All…"

I reached forward and grabbed Tonya's hand as she tried to catch her breath again. When she pulled away to wipe her eyes I assured her everything would be okay, but the look she gave me was fierce and scary and told a drastically different story.