Fool

Three figures were moving slowly and had come across a zombie.

One signalled the other which showed their intentions, it was followed by one of them attacking from the back once they had walked by it while the other had attacked it from the side.

The body of the zombie was left behind as they continued to wander within the outer walls of the Reed residence.

A man was kicking and screaming on the ground as they turned a corner which alerted them to the presence of a human. "Get off.. haah. Aah!"

The zombie on top of him did not show any pain or signs of backing off once it had been hit or pushed away. "Uuh."

A piece of its flesh was ripped off in the struggle which caused the man to lose his grip and the zombie fell onto him.

Footsteps grew closer and an axe hit the back of the head of the zombie but it did not stay there for long because the noise had attracted two more zombies.

Brick was getting more proficient with his weapons and the use of his body as if he had been slowly syncing with his new body and the previous owners natural talents or muscle memory. "Stay down."

The man on the ground showed fear on his face and he struggled to push the zombie off him in a hurry so his actions only made Brick frown and show disappointment.

The man saw the approaching zombies and became paler as he got up to run away but Alice walked to his side holding him in place to watch.

Brick moved towards the first zombie and narrowly avoided the arm which came towards him then his body moved to position him in place to stab the zombie in the eye.

The knife pushed deep into the eye socket and the zombie only wanted to keep moving forward towards its prey so the knife was pushed deeper until it stopped moving and fell down.

The zombie was pushed back into the other zombie behind it which stalled it and made it lose its balance a little. "Uuh."

The axe was swung towards the skull which had been caught a little and would not he so easily moved but Brick did not show any panic as he held on and controlled the handle to move the zombies head to the side before releasing it.

The action caused the zombie to leave its temple open for his attack as the knife in his hand ended its life quickly.

They were both given a second death blow before Brick moved over towards the zombie on the ground which was given the same treatment.

He turned towards Alice and praised her. "Good job. Now for this guy.. who is he again. hmm.."

The man showed confusion on his face as he complained. "What is going on? What are these things and why are you dressed like that? What the hell are you doing walking around with one of them?"

Brick rolled his eyes in annoyance. "Ask one question at a time and only ask once it is safe or you have been allowed to do so."

The man gasped upon hearing Brick's reply then scolded. "Brick.. how could you say that? Were we not pals?"

Brick let out a sigh. 'Pals? Did Brick have room for friends in his life? It seems as if most people have a dark fog over them like he has been cutting them off from his life or has been ignoring them completely. He seems to only interact with his colleagues when he has to and those are just to allow him to not get on their bad sides. Truly he was a one person one track mind.. one woman mind? Whatever. Lets try and remember if he appears in this fuzzy memory somewhere."

He stared at the man's face for a moment then remembered from the fragments within his foggy memory was that there was such a person but it was not like the man had said.

The man was more like an acquaintance or work colleague who kept coming to him to borrow money or was asking for favours.

Brick had found him annoying and had given some money to him so that he could be left alone and be allowed to focus on his duties and training.

His goal was to become the personal bodyguard of Tanya so he was very laser focussed on accomplishing his desire so some people were simply getting in his way.

If a little money could be used to send them away then he was happy to do so.

The man may have been using Brick for their own gains or had genuinely tried to befriend him but none of that mattered to the present Brick.

Brick had turned to the man and then coldly spoke. "Lift up your shirt and drop your pants. Do it quickly."

The man looked revolted upon hearing such words from someone of the same gender. "You.. you were never like this before. What are you saying?"

Alice rolled her eyes and said. "Hurry up and show us your body. We need to check to see if you have been bitten."

The man gasped. "Why did you not just say that first?"

Brick shrugged and then waved his hand impatiently as if to tell him to hurry up.

The man struggled to remove his shirt and there was a small bite mark on his chest but it did not seem enough to break the skin. "There.."

Brick examined it then patted his shoulder. "You are lucky. Any deeper then you may have been turned into one of these things but it is best to put you under confinement for now. Do you have a place to stay nearby?"

The man let out a relieved sigh. "I live close by, if you can take me back then I would appreciate it."

Brick frowned. "Then why are you out here?"

The home of the man was close by and it would be safer for him to remain there but he was outside so early so he was either brave or stupid.

He almost died and suffered a zombie bite through his clothes before Brick saved him so he was incredibly lucky that Brick and Alice had come across him.

The man showed a look of embarrassment. "I.. I thought I could handle them. How was I to know how scary they could be."

Brick and Alice guided him towards his home then ordered. "Stay inside until we come back. You got lucky this time and could possibly survive if the bite was not enough to infect you so do not push your luck."

The man nodded then shut the door behind himself. "Thank you."

Brick turned to Alice and asked. "What do you know about that guy? I cannot seem to remember much about him."

Alice showed a playful smile and explained. "There are a couple of people that have various rumours or gossip surrounding them which has lead to their current nicknames within the organisation so I thought you would have known it all but I guess the rumours were true about you."

Brick frowned showing his impatience so Alice continued. "Ahem.. if you are known as the guy that is difficult to approach and is only interested in work then he is the guy everyone gossips about in another way. They call him the fool because he has really bad luck and keeps getting tricked by others which lead to him falling into debt with many people. Ahem.. well lets just say that he is a victim of the work colleagues gambling nights."

Brick rolled his eyes. "So basically he is a fool who keeps getting scammed by his colleagues but still had the guts to come to lend money from me to pay off his debts."

Alice raised an eyebrow. "You actually leant him money? How unlike you."

Brick shrugged. "It was not out of kindness, I just wanted to get him to stop bothering me during the time I had been training. Sending him away with what he needed was the easiest option."

He did not have that clear of a memory about that person so he guessed that they were either not worth remembering for Brick during the apocalypse or that person had probably died early but perhaps it was Brick's intervention which had saved him not too long ago so his future fate and potential was still left unwritten and unclear.

He was just another no named background character that was among the many that were sentenced to die in the early stages of the apocalypse by the author.

One sentence like 'half of the people in the room died' without any greater details could sentence many people to death no matter if they could have potential in the future or their effects on the world or the people around them were good or bad.

At least the side characters had purpose within the novel so they were given a little care by the author before they were killed off or placed by the main character's side but background characters were often the ones whose fates were easily killed off or used for the main character to look good when saving them.

Whether it was a good thing or not that Brick had saved someone like that, only time would tell so he stopped thinking too much about it.

Alice showed a look of understanding then pointed forward. "We are finally here."

A building was in front of them which looked very secure, nearby was a fire axe lying on the ground and the chains on the door along with the handle had been damaged as if someone had attempted to open it themselves.

A little to the side was a trail of blood and a zombie which only had half a body left as it crawled across the ground. "Uuh."

They had arrived at the designated location but it seemed as if someone had attempted what they had in mind and failed before being killed.

Brick looked over and pointed towards the crawling zombie after picking up the fire axe. "Keep a lookout for approaching zombies.. this could make some noise so a lookout is needed even if we have cleared out many of them."

The fire axe went down onto the crawling zombie which caused it to stop moving then Brick started to aim towards the chains and lock which had secured the door closed.

Bang, bang, bang, clink, clash!

Slowly he was making progress but more zombies came to interrupt so Brick and Alice had to defend themselves.

The fire axe worked well as it was swung around and cut through many zombies that approached but it quickly became useless after the door finally was opened.

It was tossed aside after it had been dulled and damaged through his excessive use of it then they entered the building.

Brick put a couple of pistols and bullets in his bag and secured one to his waist in case of emergencies then left the rest.

Upon placing one in the hands of Alice, he warned. "Only use it if it is an emergency whether it is against a zombie or a human. Do not hesitate to pull the trigger when you have to kill. One you pull the trigger you should run from where you are and hide somewhere that cannot be found easily."

Guns were the best things for the apocalypse to kill others and the zombies during the early stages of the novel but there were many setbacks which came with them.

The limited ammo was one while the noise was the next one but a more obvious one was that not everyone was trained to use one so they had a hard time shooting their target.

One or two bullets should be enough to kill a person or zombie but if their aim was bad then there would be many wasted and possibly an amateur would empty an entire clip into a zombie before hitting its head.

The noise would draw in the surrounding zombies and they would be left with little to no ammo so it was better to rely on more silent methods.

Acquiring a silencer was very difficult and they were only usually issued to the military to handle more covert missions so the room did not have any.

Alice nodded. "I do not have much experience with guns.. only a little practice during training but my aim was not perfect."

Brick shrugged. "It does not matter, just place the end close to the head and pull the trigger when they are close. It solves the problem but expect to get some blood on you."

Alice rolled her eyes. 'What is this guy? A survival expert or a complete psychopath?'

She had been shocked at how calm and adaptive Brick was to the current situation and how he was able to speak about such things without caring too much about others opinions.

It was a little scary to her but it was also a little inspiring to her who had been cowering in front of the zombies and had hidden away until he appeared to save and put her through her current changes.