1 Act: 1 Part: 1

The wind caused the leaves to rustle. The sun peaked from the clouds, glistening down onto David, through the tree limbs the suns rays washed against his skin. David had woken from his sleep in the tree. "Yup...this was a horrible idea...why did I think this would be a good idea?"

Whilst sleeping in the tree did keep David from the ground, the hard wood did nothing soothing for his aching back. As David began to stir himself awake, he rubbed his back, trying to relieve the pain. David suddenly notices rustling in the bushes close to the tree as a raccoon lept out towards his bag. Using it's claws, it tore at the rugged bag and stole a granola bar from the side pocket. "Oh what the hell!"

David dropped from the tree, scaring off the raccoon as he retreated back into the bushes. "Damn rodents, lucky I don't hunt your asses down...shit..." David grabs his pack and begins walking into the close town, hoping for a better start to his day.

The store fronts and sidewalks are barren, trash litters the streets along with cars wasting away. David looks inside the stores, hoping to find something of interest, but all turn out the same; broken windows, empty shelves, some with bodies..."Great, today just keeps getting better and better..."

As David walks along and he eventually comes onto grocery store, it's parking lot is mostly empty, a few barren cars sitting around. He begins to walk into the store through a broken window. He starts down the aisles, searching high and low for supplies. "No fruit, no veggies, no meat, not even dog food...would I even resort to dog food?"

Just as David began wrapping up his search he hears the sound of paws scurrying across the floor. He gets down and began to investigate, he moves past a shelf and sees it, the raccoon from this morning, gnawing on an apple core. The moment David's eyes notice the small animal, his stomach growls, the raccoon turns and looks at him. "Alright, that's it, come here you furry bastard!"

David pounces at the raccoon but isn't fast enough, the raccoon moves under him and runs for the door. By the time David is up, the raccoon is moving the the door way, David sprints after it. He makes it past the door and turns to see the raccoon running back towards the woods, he continues to chase after the raccoon, thinking of what he would taste like over an open spit. Sadly, by the time David reaches the wood work, the raccoon moves to fast though the trees, and David loses sight of it.

He bends over, breathing heavily, "okay...You win this time...you're clearly...the better runner..." just as David began to stand straight, he hears shuffling and that old familiar gurgle that still makes his hairs stand on their ends. He turns around and there it is, a zombie, it's a man in a Hawaiian shirt, tan kakhis, and a nice pair of loafers. If David wonder if that man died comfortably, for all he knows, he could have been some smooth talking, cigar smoking adventurer. David walked up to him, side stepped, and drove his survival knife into the back of the zombies head, slowly laying him down. It's not the first he's killed, and definelty not the last.

David wipes off the blood from his knife on the man's shirt, then he heard more foot steps behind him. He quickly jerks around with his knife in his hand pointing at his new adversary. It's a woman, she had both hands up, showing she has no intention of attacking him, "Wait! I just thought you might need some help." David looks at her confused, it's not everyday that he meets someone who actually wants to help, unless they wanna help drive a knife through your ribs. "Uhh, no, I have everything under control..." David puts the knife away and stands up, extended his hand, "I'm David, nice to meet ya." The woman accepts his handshake, "Same here! I'm AJ."

"Do you have a camp nearby?" David asks, looking into her eyes.

"No, I was kinda hoping you did..." she replies with an awkward smile

"Well, I guess we can stick together and look for one."

"That's fine by me, we can watch eachothers backs!" AJ smiles as she says this.

After searching the zombies corpse (and only finding a mostly used cigar) both David and AJ go back into town, and decide to find a place to stay. "So...how many people do you think there are out there?" Asks AJ.

David looks back, "I have no idea, but I hope there's enough to rebuild all of this..." he says, motioning toward the deserted buildings.

As they walk, David hears that familiar patter of paws on concrete. He looks over and spots that damned raccoon again, "Oh you're mine now!" David gives chase and the raccoon runs down an alleyway to get away from him.

"David wait!" AJ follows, trying to stay close to him.

David notices that as they follow the raccoon down the alleyway, that it is a dead end, the moment the raccoon reached the end, it grabs onto a pipe leading up the building and climbs up it too escape. David stares the raccoon down as he climbs, "One of these days...I'LL HAVE MY REVENGE!" David yells, swinging his fist.

"Uhhhh, David, we have a problem..." Says AJ as she tugs on David's shirt. David turns around and notices multiple zombies shuffling down the alley way, as David looks, he notices over a dozen of the undead, if it were more open they could easily take on this many, but since the space is so small, it can make it easy for the zombies to grab them, and pull them to their deaths...

"What do we do...?" AJ looks to David.

"Well, we could die, or we could fight and die...I like the second option better." As David says this he reached in his bag and pulls out a Glock, AJ sees this and pulls out her knife, preparing to fight. Just as David is about to pull the trigger, a crossbow bolt hits one zombie directly in the temple.

"OVER HERE!" Both David and AJ look up to see two people on the roof, one holding a crossbow bolt, the other holding a...flamethrower? Suddenly a stream of fire bursts from the tube of the weapon, roasting the living dead, and leaving a very unpleasant smell all over the area. Once the stream of fire ceased and the zombies laid on the ground sizzling, David and AJ ran through them out of the alleyway, David began to notice more zombies began coming into the town, most likely attracted by the noise and the smell. "This way!" To the right they saw the two people again, they were waving for them to follow, so David shrugged,"Why not?" And ran after them, AJ was right on his tail.

Once out of the towns reach the strangers slowed down for David and AJ to catch up. "Thanks for saving our asses back there." The stranger looks back at him "No problem, just glad we could help, the name's Ryan..." he gestures to the woman holding the flamethrower, "...And that's my girlfriend, Lily." David puts his hand out, "Well I'm David and this is AJ, on behalf of us both, thank you for not letting us get devoured back there."

"Hey, us live ones have got to stick together right?" He takes David's hand and shakes it. "You wouldn't happen to have a camp, would you?" Ryan smirks, "Sort of, it's an underground bunker, you're welcome to join us, but we need to go now, before it gets dark." David smiles at this news, he can finally have a place to stay that isn't on a beach or a tree, "Lead the way boss."

Ryan, Lily, David, and AJ, head off towards the bunker, after a few miles, they find a small, storm cellar door, once opened David could see a metal trap door leading down underground. David goes down first, the rest follow. Once inside David smells completely fresh air, going through doors that reminded him of something you'd see on a submarine, he sees more people working on various things, food, supplies, ect.

"My God...this place is amazing..." Ryan chuckles and pats him on the back, "Let me introduce you to everyone." First he walks them over to a woman with a dog by her side. "This is Ginny and her dog Dewey, he makes a fantastic guard dog and is still as sweet as can be, they've been around for a month or so." Ginny nods at them both and returns to what she was doing.

Next he walks up to a man who seems to be working on a few parts, "This is Ronald, Ron for short, he does good around here and does whatever he can to help." Ron turns and smiles to them all, "Welcome back! I see you brought back some new friends, it's great to see some new friendly faces." He shakes David's and AJ's hands and returns to what he was doing.

Ryan moves on to the last person, "This is Jay, he's was a combat medic so he's the closest thing we have to a doctor." Jay shakes both their hands, "I promise I'll do my best to keep you guys alive." Jay laughs but it makes David a little nervous.

Ryan finished up and takes David and AJ to some fresh beds, "Its getting late so I though I might as well show you where you'll be sleeping." David opens his door, but stops to turn to Ryan, "Thank you for this Ryan, this seriously means alot." Ryan looks back to David and smirks,"Its nothing man, just get some sleep."

David enter his room, inside is a neatly made bed, a nightstand, and a few posters, nothing of interest is really in the room, but David has never been happier until he opened the bathroom and noticed the shower worked.

After a nice, hot shower and a change of clothing, David got into bed, opened his pack, and retrieved a journal, it's had some wear from months of travel, but it's still holding together.

Today I went from wondering when my next meal is too chasing a raccoon, meeting a new friend, witnessing a zombie barbeque, and living in an underground bunker. Hopefully I've found the key to survival in this apocalypse. I'm just glad I can finally say that from now on, life is gonna be easy...

With that, David closed his journal, laid back in bed, closed his eyes, and fell into a comfortable, deep sleep.