Being a small, scrawny teenager with a disposition towards Vans products and band t-shirts might not sound ideal in the event of the undead rising to consume the living, ushering in the collapse of society, but you know what they say about clouds and silver linings.
My name's Harrison Black (Harry to my friends), and for some strange reason I've not been eaten yet.
In a fair fight I'm pretty screwed; I skipped off most gym classes to sit around and smoke with friends and the idea of playing sports even now remains about as appealing to me as jabbing glass shards under my fingers. So these last five months I've learned how to fight unfairly, how get the advantage over the things trying to eat me and exploit it. I'm no combat machine; I can barely lift a fucking shotgun, nevermind shoulder the recoil, and the last thing you want to do is go toe-to-toe with a biter. But I'm good at staying unseen, at moving quietly, at avoiding a fight.
It might be the end of the world, but I'm coping so far.
There are still some people who've managed to avoid the compulsion to start trying to eat the faces off of their fellow man, and we've holed ourselves up in an old settlement nice and far away from any major metropolitan areas. We're few in number, and every so often a scavenging trip gone wrong or a couple biters staggering into camp will mean we're one or two fewer, but we make do as best we can. It's by no means ideal, but we're surviving.
Which is a damn-sight better than a lot of people can say these days.
But you'd be amazed at how quickly even a small group eats through supplies, and so once again it's time for the brave (or stupid) few to venture out in search of more.
That means moving into the parts of the world that used to be more populated.
That means drastically increasing the odds of you getting eaten alive, like Tim that last run.
I probably don't make for an inspiring sight as I step forwards; tatty old Seether hoodie, stained skinny jeans that are barely holding together and a set of heavy hiking boots that just scream "I was prized off the feet of some dead guy". I'm still wearing my old backpack from before the outbreak, a handy place to store scavenged goods, and I clutch a claw hammer whose head is stained a rather grim and dirty brown; a testament to the various close calls I've managed to scrape my way out of.
Yup, I'm sure as shit no-one's idea of some apocalyptic hero.
But I don't see most of these fucks volunteering.
"Maybe less guns this time, huh?" I suggest to Sarah, the de-facto leader of this merry little band, "Or if you insist on bringing them, make sure you give them to someone who's not gonna freak out. As entertaining as Timmy suddenly deciding he was Ash Williams was, he nearly got us all fucking killed as well with that shit. And I'm kind of a fan of the idea of not getting torn apart by walking corpses." I scratch the back of my neck with the claw of my hammer, a sardonically-rueful expression on my face. "Call me old fashioned, but the whole 'not dying horrifically' thing just appeals to me."
