The key to surviving an apocalypse revolves around one simple rule: keep your expectations low. Don’t go into gun store hoping to find ammo; they got picked clean decades ago. Instead, go in hoping for a butterknife, and be happy if you find some rusted steel with a bit of an edge. Not everyone can grasp this concept; a quarter of humanity died in the first few days. But it’s easy when you’ve only known chaos and violence.
The hallway is mismatched from the hotel’s lobby. Downstairs it’d be easy to forget the past three World Wars haven’t happened. Upstairs is just like the rest of the world. The carpet is torn and shredded, with splashes of brown, dried blood coating the walls like a bad paint job. Most of the doors have been ripped off the hinges. Peering into one of them reveals nothing but dust and bones.
Fucking looters.
Sighing, I head toward the window at the end of the hallway. Old buildings like this used to require fire escapes on the upper floors. Hopefully, it’s in better condition than the staircase. As I step toward the shattered glass, something reflects off the dust and blood on the wall. What the hell? I run a gloved finger through the layers of grime and gore, and after several seconds of intense rubbing, find the small glass hole.
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“Holy shit.”
I jump at the sound, tense, and take sights down the hall, but I’m behind myself. I wait for the raider or assassin to reveal himself, slowly ticking down the seconds in my mind as I sight down my gun. After thirty seconds my body starts to relax and I realize what happened.
Just behind low expectations, stealth is also the key to outlasting everyone else. It’s far easier to sneak past roving packs of rampaging zombie buffalo (yeah, another one of those several dozen horrors) than to fight them. I’d much rather flee than fight when the opportunity presents itself. So, I learned how to keep quiet, and that aspect of survival has creeped into my being. So much so, I didn’t recognize the sound of my voice.
It’s been years since I’ve heard my voice, and it’s distorted by the mask, it sounded like…well, I don’t know what it sounds like. But it didn’t sound like me. And maybe that’s the worst part about the apocalypse. The only way to win is to lose yourself.
I try the knob, but it doesn’t turn. Fortunately, I always carry a hammer with me. Consider hammers to be rule number three. Hammers are incredibly versatile tools. They can pry open old, rusted cans of food, cobbled together quick patches in your shelter, and, in a pinch, you can bash the brains out of a skull that means you harm. Or, in this case, doorknobs.
The rusted brass falls with one whack, the echoing sound of force blocking out the metal clinking to the floor. Pushing the door open, my eyes widen and my mouth salivates as I step inside, looking at my kingdom.