Decay

You awoke with a groan, quickly snapping to attention and drawing your combat knife. Another dream. You've been having these for awhile. You sheathed the knife and undid the rope binding you to the tree branch. Trees were not the safest, not to mention not the most comfortable, places to sleep. Still, you were always good at climbing, you had no trouble with heights, and you were impervious to the WD up there. You surveyed the campsite below, checking for any unwelcome visitors. There was one, a raccoon rummaging through your bag. You smiled to yourself. "Little bastard would make a well balanced breakfast for a hungry camper such as myself" you thought as you drew the .22 pistol from your belt holster and took aim at the raccoon. You squeezed off a round, catching the raccoon in the head. The sound was muffled by the jury-rigged Maglite suppressor. The raccoon dropped instantly and you climbed down from your perch to claim the kill. It was skinny. Like everything was these days. "Might as well light a fire now that i have something to cook" you said to yourself. You retrieved the zippo lighter from your pocket, and some old newspaper for tinder. A few minutes later, you had a decent fire going. You took care to keep the smoke and flames to a minimum, so as not to attract any uninvited guests. Skinning the raccoon and separating the edible meat, you threw the rest of the carcass into the woods. Sure, it would attract vultures, flies, and WD, but you planned not to stay here anyway. You stuck the cuts of meat onto a sharpened stick and started cooking.

You licked your fingers as you took the last bite of meat. It was good. Best thing you had in a while. You grabbed your bag of survival equipment and threw it over your shoulder. You then walked over to your motorcycle, a four-stroke Honda. You had always loved these bikes for their legendary power and reliability. You'd been on the road, living like this for months, ever since Fort Bradley was overrun. You tried not to think about that. You folded your black bandanna into a mask, tied it around your face, and threw up the hood of your grey sweatshirt that you wore under a well-worn leather jacket. While dressing like this did make you look bad-ass, there was a more practical purpose- concealing your identity. There were some pretty unsatisfactory people out there in the world and they wouldn't hesitate to shoot you on sight. If you got away, they would hold a grudge and try twice as hard to kill you if they saw your face again. It also served as a filter between your lungs and the nasty shit in the air these days. You fired up the motorcycle and drove off.

After driving for some time along highway 12, you found yourself in a ruined town. It looked like the military had once had a presence here, as evidenced by the Abrams tank and the 4 Humvees parked in a circle. WD corpses lined the outside of the circle. Soldier corpses lined the inside. At least these men were trained. They knew enough to shoot each other at first sign of infection. You picked up an M4A1 with a reflex sight and a grenade launcher. You detached the launcher and chucked it aside. Dead weight. You hadn't had an assault rifle in a long time. Not that there was a shortage, but it was hard to travel with one and it was too loud. The suppressed .22 did just fine. You picked it up here because of the possible presence of live enemies. You left the bag near the bike and slung the M4 across your back. Drawing your pistol, you began moving through the rubble.

Avoiding the occasional WD, you slipped through a window into a house. It might have been a nice place once, but not anymore. The insides were a mess from looters. You didn't care about jewelry and plasma TVs though, you only needed canned food. You made your way to the kitchen pantry and liberated a few cans of beans. You put those i. Your hoodie pocket and proceeded upstairs. You entered a bedroom that looked like a kid's. There was an Xbox and some Call of duty posters. You smiled. You missed call of duty. Occasionally you used the small solar charger to charge your old cellphone. It was useless for anything now but playing some games once in a while. You were about to leave when something out the window caught your eye. Movement. You took a closer look. A human form was moving across the street. Another WD? No. The movements were too precise. Too crisp. And the figure held a 12-gauge shotgun. A WD stumbled around the corner of a house and shuffled towards the man. The man simply racked the slide of the mossberg, took aim, and blew it's head off. You tensed at the loud noise. The fucking idiot was going to bring a pack down on this town. You had to get back to the bike.

Too late. The man noticed your motorcycle and walked over to it. He sat on it and laughed before dismounting and kicking it over.

That was the last straw. You drew the M4, pulled the charging handle, and sighted on the man's center mass. You could get him from here. You were about to pull the trigger when the man yelled out something and waved his arm. 5 more people walked into your view. "Shit! I can maybe get 2, but the rest will be coming after me after that..." You thought to yourself. You had to resort to stealth. You crept out the back door of the house and fired three rounds into the air, before sprinting off to another building nearer to the men. "What the fuck was that? We're all here, who the fuck is shooting?!?" The men shouted confusedly. "This way! We'll find out who's shooting and make sure he doesn't shoot anymore! Let's go!" The men ran off towards the house you had just left. While they were distracted you sprinted towards the bike, grabbing your bag. You picked the bike up and frantically kicked the starter. It was flooded due to the man knocking it over. You swore, but then heard screaming and saw the men running towards you. You fired off a few shots in their direction and continued trying to start the bike. "Come on you-" your sentence was cut off by a piercing, fiery pain in your side. You let out a groan and fell to the ground.  You looked up towards the sky as everything went black.