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He didn’t have a shirt on, and his reflection in the wall mirror across from him showed the many scars he had gotten leading a bad life, a few bullet holes in his shoulder, and the raven tattoo that covered his back.
He grabbed his shirt off the couch, and once it was on, he went over to his things. Slinging his bag over his shoulder, taking one more look at the life he once lived, a life that was no more, he set out to start over.
Collin left his apartment, started making his way down the stairwell, and stepped over a few rotting corpses. They wore employee outfits, their bodies partially eaten from the few straggling infected who made their way back here months ago. The smell was intense, but Collin was used to it, used to the death that was part of his world now.
His descent was far, since he had been on the top floor, and when he finally reached the bottom, he stopped, hearing the low groans and shuffling coming from behind one of the two doors.
One exit led out to the back alley, which he knew was thick with infected, and the other went into the employee kitchen. The groaning was coming from the staff entrance, and although he could have taken a big chance and risked going out through the back, he was playing it smart.
He had a better chance of going through the main part of the apartment building and dealing with what leftover corpses were walking around than braving the small, narrow alley that wouldn’t allow him to move very well.
He walked over to the staff entrance, listened to see if he could hear how many infected were behind it, and when he only heard the one, he held onto the lead pipe he had in one hand and gripped the door handle with the other. He had a few weapons on him, one being the pipe, a couple of knives, even a thick bike chain.
He had no more ammo for his guns, so the damn things were useless unless he wanted to chuck them at a motherfucker’s head.
When Collin pulled the door open, he held the pipe up high, saw the infected slowly turn around to face him because of the noise, and watched a spark of energy come to life in the asshole. The guy was badly decomposed but not nearly enough for him to be one of the original people who had gotten that damn vaccine that started all this shit.
No, this poor bastard had been infected by a bite, and that was confirmed when he lifted his arm toward Collin and the grisly looking bite mark was prominent on his inner bicep. His head was cocked unnaturally to the side, and when he opened his mouth, Collin saw the way his tongue hung over his bottom lip, no longer fully attached.
Collin moved forward, bashed the pipe on the side of the man’s head, and heard the sickening crunch of his skull caving in. The corpse fell to the ground, and black blood pooled beneath his body, covering the red-tiled floor beneath. He stared at the kitchen, the large stainless-steel appliances, the few dead bodies on the ground, and the fact that it was scavenged clean.
He had come down, as had many of the people still toughing it out in the building, and taken what supplies he could.
There had been riots and looting, killing, and overall chaos. The apartment building he lived in catered to the wealthy, included room service even, and because he had been on top of the world, owning his own empire, albeit an underground one, Collin had ruled like a king. But that was in the past. He was alone now, and it was kill or be killed.
The building had been closed up, and with no windows in the kitchen, the only light came through the open doorway from the stairwell, the one that led into the main foyer of the complex. The place stank to high hell and looked like a dark wasteland.
He moved around the dead bodies, pressed himself up against the wall, and listened to hear if there was any movement in the main lobby. When he heard silence, he leaned over the side, stared out the doorway, and saw that it was clear.
Collin moved through the lobby, stepped on broken glass, walked over the body of the security officer that had been named Robert, and went to the front doors. The glass on the front part of the building was reinforced and had withstood the destruction of the city. He peered through the foggy, filthy glass, saw a few infected across the street, more down the way moving slowly away from him, and he knew he would need to just make a run for it.
