F city’s Downtown Mall was only a small two story building. Only a fourth of a city block, it could be considered one of the least popular attractions of the city, especially when there were larger, more appealing Malls on the other side of town. Checking the entrance, Rein found the mall’s glass doors still locked up. The building had already been shut down earlier that year when the pandemic hit, so it was safe to say that there was probably nobody inside. Still, the teen felt it was better to be careful. Choosing not to break through the front entrance, Rein rounded the back of the building instead.

Looking for a less conspicuous way to enter the building, Rein ended up finding a second story window he could crawl through. Using a garbage bin, he quickly scaled the wall. Using the crowbar to smash the glass, before hoisting himself through the window, Rein found his way into the building. Ignoring the alarms, Rein quietly took a look around. He appeared to have entered a small office in the back of one of the stores. Satisfied that the area was safe, the he made his way deeper into the mall. The reason Rein chose to break in through the window, and not the front doors, despite knowing both would set off the alarms, is that he didn’t want any zombies entering the building while he searched it. A zombie couldn’t climb walls, yet, but it could still walk through a broken glass door.

Ignoring the safe, Rein stepped into one of the many clothing stores that made up this mall. For most people, they wouldn’t see much use for this kind of stuff, but later on it would get colder, and every now and then it would be a good idea to have a stock of clothes to change into. After gathering together a few sweaters, jeans, and an extra leather jacket, the teen pulled out another duffle bag from within the first one. He then filled it up with the extra clothes. Not even out of the first store and he had already filled up one of his bags. Thinking it over, Rein gauged he could carry about three bags total, before having to go back to the truck. After one or two trips he’d probably stop, and move on to the next destination. It wasn’t good to stay in one place too long. Leaving the full bag of clothes near the window, for later, Rein left the clothing store in search of a place that sold more important things.

The Downtown Mall in F City was a popular place for a lot of people to go to in the area. It had the usual places to shop, game stores, clothes, jewelry, and the like, but it also housed a few less common stores as well. There was a small supermarket, a sporting goods store, and hardware store tucked away in the back of the mall. These were the stores Rein was targeting. Having already hit the hardware store, the teen was currently stuffing a few lengths of rope into a back pack he found in sporting goods store. The bag was mostly full by now, filled with different types of camping essentials. This left one duffle bag available for food. He’d left that store for last, because it was on the first floor of the Mall. This place would be a little more dangerous to loot. He’d already herd sounds coming from down stairs, and was sure there were a couple of zombified security guards down stairs.

Zipping up the back pack, Rein slung over his shoulder, before picking up a duffle back full of heavy equipment. Making the long track towards the supermarket, Rein struggled to carry his loot. Turns out, he may have packed more than he could carry. He was soon forced to leave the hardware at the top of the stairs before descending. He didn’t want have to carry it back up when he made his exit. Just then a loud crash could be herd from the other end of the mall. Immediately a couple of dead bodies started making their way in that direction.

“Fuck. I guess I got competition after all.”

Rein was a little disappointed he wasn’t the only one who thought of coming here, but the fact is, when it came to surviving, nobody was any smarter than the next person. One good idea, could just as easily be thought up as the next person. Having it first only made you a little faster than the next guy. Sometimes that could even be a bad thing. Not having to worry about the two security gaurds now, the teen quickly descended the rest of the stairs and ran toward the supermarket, leaving the new guests to deal with the Undead.

---

“Fuck the alarms are already going off.” A balding man in thirties made a few crunching noises as he stepped on the broken glass on the ground.

“Who cares. It’s not like the police are going to come.” His friend, a rather lanky looking guy with a cooked nose, and beard stepped in. The two men looked like the sort of guy you’d expect to cause bar fight over getting looked at the wrong way. They had the personality, and odor to match. Between the two of them, looked the kind of people you’d avoid getting mixed up with.

“Two bogies at two o clock.” The first man warned the other, awkwardly imitating lines you’d see in a b rated movie. A couple gunshots rang out, hitting the two zombie security guards in the chest. Red blotches started to bloom on the light blue cloth of the undead. The fatter of the two guards was even hit in the heart, causing a small blood geyser to pump what little blood pressure was left out of the hole of the man’s chest. Neither one seemed to of been bothered by the impact of the bullets however. Rather the two began groaning irritably as they continued their approach.

“Your suppose to hit their heads dumb ass, like in the movies.”

“Oh, right.” Another couple shots rang out, but this time one of the undead toppled over, bleeding out on the marble flooring, dead.

“Your aim is shit.” The balding guy complained, before take a steel pipe and hitting the remaining zombie in the head. A loud crunch echoes as the pipe embedded itself in the skull of the last zombie. After thoroughly bashing in the corpse, the two entered further into the mall.

“Damn, look at all this. Where should we start?” The skinny guy asked, clearly excited by the number of stores in front of him.

“Anywhere you want, I’m going to raid the jewelry store first. Then maybe get some new cloths.” The two laughed as they walked through the empty mall, paying no attention to noise they made as they broke a couple more windows.

---

Down the hall, Rein shook his head exasperated. These two weren’t looting after all, they were straight up robbing the place. How could he forget, even after the world ended, there would still be stupid people. Turning back to the shelves in front of him, the teen started stuffing his last duffle bag with dry food.

The Supermarket in the mall wasn’t the usual market people went to to buy regular groceries, instead this one was specialized in things like spices, and other foods one might find through out the world. Though there wasn’t anything fresh, seeing as the place had been shut down for a while, there were still many preserved and pickled foods to chose from. Rein stuck with the simple, yet hard to find stuff that was important in survival. Salt, bouyan, rice, A lot of rice, and different seeds that the place offered for the odd farmer. Rein wasn’t really into farming, and probably wouldn’t get into later, but these were good trading materials later on. After a while the bag started to slowly fill up. He had even raided a few essentle oil and vitimens, take a few vials with him. Though this would not fill up his stomach, this would help him stabilize his diet later on. He still planed to raid a regular grocery store. Just as he shoved another dried bag of mushrooms in, Rein herd some footsteps enter the store.

“Damn, what kinda store is this? I thought you said there was a supermarket here. But this place just looks like a gardening store.” The bald man complained.

“No no, it’s one of those new age vegan places...I guess there isn’t any meat though. Maybe we should try the food court?” The lanky friend tried explaining. Just then a shadow darted across one of the isles.

“WHO’S THERE!” The lanky guy quickly raised his gun and shot in the direction the shadow went, but whoever it was was already gone.

“Quick Fallow them!” The Bald guy took off after Rein as the later escaped out the second entrance.

Knowing that he didn’t want to get tangle up with these two, Rein quickly headed back toward the stairs. Seeing that the two weren’t far behind, he took the steps two at a time, only stopping when he came across the duffle bag full of hardware.

“It’s a kid! He’s stealing our food!” Another gunshot rang out, and a few ricochets sounded as they bounced of the stone steps. The Bald guy was already climbing up the stairs after him. Forgoing the bag of tools, Rein quickly shoved the duffle back down the stairs with his foot, aiming it right at the two men chasing him, before running toward the office he entered by.

“Ouch, Damn it! Damn Brat! I’m gonna kill him.” Being hit by the many tools, that were now scattered about, had caused the bald man to face plant on the steps. He could only watch as the kid ran into one of the other stores, no doubt planning to escape through some back way. Sticking out his arm, he stopped the lanky guy from fallowing. “Wait, lets head him off by going out the front.”

Agreeing, the two guys went back down the stairs.

---

Rein didn’t stop to check if the guys were still following him, instead he needed to leave as fast as he could. Already having lost some of his loot, he was already a little salty that the two idiots ruined his plans. He’d have to make a few more stops if he was going to replace all the stuff he just lost, not to mention the things he planned to get from the other stores. When he entered the office, Rein skillfully grabbed the bag of clothes he left earlier, then tossed it, and the bag full of food, out the window. Without stopping his run, Rein then dived head first after them, his small body flawlessly clearing the edges of the broken window. Twisting through the air, Rein ended up landing on the cushioned bag of clothes as he hit the ground. Looking back up at the second floor, he realized nobody had followed after him to his point.

“Why is it every time I do something cool, nobody is there to see it?”

Checking himself for any injuries, Rein carefully stood up, looking for any signs of the two guys. When the two didn’t show, he shrugged before casually picked up his bags. Once he adjusted the straps of the backpack he was still wearing, Rein headed back to his truck, not thinking much of what just happened. However, just as Rein rounded the corner of the building, another gunshot rang out, hitting the wall close to his face.

“Shit! I missed again!”

Running again, Rein bolted towards the street. Cursing himself for thinking the two idots would just give up, the teen started getting ready to find cover on the far side of the road, the two guys not far behind him. Another shot rand out, and a bullet hit the duffle bag of food. These guys were defiantly out to kill him. What the hell was the point of going this far for a bag of spices?! Suddenly a loud groan came from the right. When Rein looked over his face paled. Just then he had passed the entrance to the subway, giving him a clear view of the sight of the below.

One thing that was noticed about the zombies, years after doomsday started, is that Zombies came in grades. The weakest zombies were those killed by other zombies. Freshly infected, these kinds of zombies usually were pretty inactive after zombification. Only having a few good bursts of movements, such as lunging at their prey, but had little control over their limbs, barley being able to make it up stairs. These zombies would be stumbling about at a slow pace, and due to the rigamortis setting in, would get even slower after a couple hours. This is when a zombie is the least deadly.

As time goes on, and the rigamortis fades, these zombies would then start to gain more mobility, becoming faster and deadlier. In theory, the older a zombie gets, the stronger it becomes. The survivors got use to calling these type of Zombies, 2nd Generation zombies, and they graded them based on the number of years that a zombie had lived for. A Level 5 2nd Generation Zombie, for example, was just a regular zombie that had developed for five years. At five years, this grade of zombie would fairly strong, compared to a human, and could run. They were a lot harder to avoid than a recently turned zombie, which is why it’s important to kill off what you can, and avoid the rest. But there’s another type of Zombies, The 1st generation.

The first generation zombies were those turned on doomsday. These zombies are different by one characteristic, they develop faster than other zombies. While a 2nd gen Zombie takes days to shed off rigarmortis, a 1st gen zombie only takes hours. Which is exactly what Rein was looking at right now.

Instead of the dark well he saw coming in, the teen saw a large horde of suited zombies stumbling out of the subway, in his direction. These undead were most likely the many corpses of those commuters who took the subway to work that morning. Having ridden the train into town, the average office workers were trapped inside a steel tub early in the morning. Seeing the bloody white shirts of these once properly dressed office workers, hinted at the awful truth of the subway. Without hesitating, Rein immediately picked up the pace, barely avoiding getting caught in the flow of the new, train sized, horde of undead. The gunshots fired off by the two goons must have lured the zombies out of hiding.

“Oh Shit! Run!”

“What the hell is that!”

Speaking of the two idiots, Both were now running for their lives, a few feet behind Rein. Cursing as they went, the two fired into the dead bodies of the zombies chasing them. Unfortunately they weren’t doing a good job. Both men were already out of breath from chasing the teen earlier, making their pace slow. Though the undead weren’t exactly running, their pace was nearing a jog, that could still keep up with the two. Suddenly the Baldy’s foot struck out and tripped his friend. The skinny guy didn’t even have time to scream before he was overtaken by the undead. Three bodies fell on top of him at once, three sets of teeth and claws tearing into his legs and lower body. In a last ditch effort to save himself, a few more gunshots rang out, but did nothing but lure more zombies over. Looking down, the doomed man watched as a zombie tore into his stomach. A splash of blood hit the man’s face as the zombies started showing him what was inside. Unable to comprehend the horror of what he was seeing, he turned away in tears, instead seeing his heartless companion run away, after feeding him to the zombies. Feeling wronged, the dying man pointed his gun and fired, hitting the muscle head in the leg. Finally managed to hit what he was aiming at, the man finally died.

“FUCK!”

With the new smell of blood in the air, the monsters became more animated as they chased the remaining two people, and slowly closed in on the wounded man. Enraged by the sudden turn of events, the balding hooligan searched desperately for the teen that started all of this, only to see the boy duck into the structure of an enclosed parking lot. Helpless, the man gave one last push as he tried his best to outrun the hoard, but before he knew it, the undead had caught up. Emptying the remaining bullets into approaching horde, the man soon disappeared into the mass of limbs and blood. Another agonizing scream broke through the air as the zombie horde took it’s second sacrifice.

Little was know how it was done, but a bloody, hairless, dome rolled it’s way out between the legs of the group of zombies. Seeing the little bit of flesh bounce across the street, a few zombies broke from the current frenzies, fallowing the body part into the parking lot before them. Having gotten wind of a bit of blood, the zombies continued to enter the cement structure, blocking the exit.

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