I crouched next to the doorway waiting for the Nár to pass me. I kept still and took a soft breath, even though the dead were rotting away like any other corpse they had an incredible sense of smell and hearing. Their eyesight on the other hand was crap, I once saw one of them attack a cardboard cutout of Keanu Reeves as John Wick. As funny as that was, the next thing it tried to bite into was me. That was when I was naive and the dead were just starting to rise. Nobody knows how it all started, it may have been a n ancient virus, or a new mental disease, or even a pathogen from space. Whether the case may be, it happened and it caught us off guard.

I snapped out of my memories as the last of the Nár lumbered past. I silently got to my feet and used a small extendable mirror to check if the coast was clear. It being so, I copied the stumbling lumber that the Nár used and made my way down the hall to the apartment that Timothy had indicated to me. Once again checking to see if the coast was clear, I looked at the door. The entire thing was reinforced with steel plates, the door frame looked like it had been made to withstand a stick of dynamite, and the key pad next to the door was state of the art. There was no way of getting in through the front door.

Me being the expert tactician that could only be learned from the harsh and deadly class of surviving the end of the world, I opened the unlocked door of the neighboring apartment and cleared it. There was a window in one of the rooms at the back of the apartment that came out onto a small ledge that ran along the length of the building. I used that ledge to open the window of the bedroom of the apartment with the reinforced front door.

I silently entered the room, the window that I entered from was right above a large queen sized bed with fancy sheets. When I stepped down from the bed I felt hands from under the bed seize my leg. Before I could prevent what came next, the jaws from a Nár clamp down onto my calf. Pain flooded through my leg and I was forced down onto my knees. Grunting in pain, I drew out one of the knives from the belt and drove the blade into the foramen magnum of the cadaver that was currently trying to munch on my calf.

When I drove the blade in, I gave a sharp jerk on the hilt. I heard a pop and felt the spinal cord give under my strength. The corpse let go of my leg and went limp. I looked down at my leg, it was covered in the black goo that is produced from the gaping maw of the Nár. I grabbed an old cloth rag that was on the dresser next to the bed and wiped as much of the horror off of the Paracord Armor that I had on.

I heard something strike the door to the bedroom, “Looks like they heard me” I said to myself. I reached down and unbuckled the Paracord cuff that was around my leg and inspected the skin. Luckily there was no broken skin, but there was a bruise that was starting to form. The Paracord Armor that I wove together protects the skin from being broken, but it does not protect from the crushing force of the undead jaws.

I buckled the cuff back on and carefully withdrew the knife that I used to give the Nár pease. With one hand I slipped the knife back into the belt and with the other I drug the corpse out from under the bed. It was a young boy about the age of ten, he was in what were once rich kid clothes, but now they were ripped up and caked in congealed blood. I sighed, people say that it gets easier the more you see it but that is anything but close to the truth. “I give you mercy, may you find peace in the afterlife.” I said in a mock prayer.

I stood up and looked around the room. It was quite fancy for an apartment. I looked in the dresser and in the closet and found a nice pair of running shoes along with a semi casual suit. Deciding that I needed a change of appearance I changed into the suit, along with my armor, and put the shoes in my pack. The whole time I was doing this the thumping from the other side of the door was getting more violent. Mentaly preparing myself for the upcoming battle I checked over my list once more then I opened the door.