There was no point in hiding my power from Lex and company. So, it only took me five blows to finish off the dead men who'd attacked me.

Now I had to think about what to do next and where to go. It was dangerous to go into the buildings because they might be full of zombies, but I didn't want to wait for night.

For that time, I ran to the nearest building and used the grates on the ground floor to climb up to the second floor. It was lucky that the balcony there was not glazed. Then, leaning against the wall, I watched the evacuation. No, I didn't want to get involved in these people's fate. I just wanted to catch my breath.

In fact, I should be getting some sleep. It was only that time that I realized I hadn't slept at all last night. I need to find a safe place to sleep. In principle, the apartment on the balcony where I am is quite suitable. I just need to check it out first.

I pushed open the balcony door and stepped inside. It was summer outside, so most of the windows were open, keeping the noise down. I could tell that something was wrong in the flat by the disgusting smell that lingered inside.

And yes, I found dead people. But they were no longer a threat. On the bed was a woman in her thirties and her son, who was probably in primary school. Judging by their posture, they were asleep. And they were killed in their sleep. Quickly. Two precise shots to the head.

And in the middle of the room was a hanged man, who seemed to be the head of the family. At the sight of me, the dead man began to growl and pull his arms towards me. I wondered why he had chosen to be hanged rather than a shot in the forehead. Maybe he was trying to get supplies and had used up all his other bullets. No one would ever know the answer to that question. The only person who could answer it was trying his best to eat me.

I walked calmly past him and over to the cupboard, where a shelf was filled with pictures of the family. One of them showed a man in a police uniform hugging his wife and child. Judging by the flowers and the school uniform, the picture had been taken on the first of September. It was unusual to see such happy and serene faces.

Strange, because it hadn't been long since the world had gone to hell. And the happy faces only caused confusion, as if it had been a long time ago, in another reality.

Or maybe a brick had fallen on my head in the shopping center, and I was in a coma. And everything I saw was just my imagination, fueled by my love of zombie shows and films?

Yes. That would be great. Because then Alice was alive, and she and my daughter were sitting next to me. Dima, the student who was killed in a shopping center, was walking with a young girl whose mobile phone just asked. And Mary was probably at the planning meeting, discreetly exchanging glances with the head of the investigation department, Joe, with whom she had a budding romance.

Just to be sure, I pinched my arm. No, it was real. Placing the chair next to the dead man, I decided to experiment a little. I slowly moved my hand to the dead man's mouth and watched curiously as he clung to my palm.

I wanted to do it last night, but I was too scared. It was one thing to ignore the bites during a fight, and quite another to willingly stick your hand into a zombie's mouth.

The dead man seemed to realize that something was wrong, but he continued to slurp with a zeal that could have been put to better use.

I couldn't tell the difference between the dead man's bites and June's. Except that my telekinetic friend made them a little sexier. As it was, I was only 1% off my charge. The other thing was that zombie kept gnawing at me, and it had developed into some sort of intermittent damage. At 90%, I decided to stop experimenting and put the dead guy to rest with a swift kick.

Then I took him off, put him next to his family and covered them all with a big blanket. I didn't know why I did it, but it just felt right.

I decided to look around the flat for anything useful before I left. I found a whole jar of chocolate paste in the cupboard, which I immediately put in my backpack. I also took the batteries, both the new ones and the ones from the remote control. They wouldn't be needed. And my last find was a half-liter bottle of Jack Daniel's whisky, which I was going to drink at least half of before going to bed. I also found the gun. And yes, there were no bullets left in it.

Unfortunately, I couldn't pick out anything to wear because the policeman who lived there was much bigger than me in the shoulders. But at the entrance I found some nice autumn boots. They would be hot, of course, but better than the blood-red sneakers I was wearing now. And that was the color they became tonight.

To see if there were any zombies in the corridor, I tapped the inside of the door a few times. And in ten seconds, a girl who could once had been described as very beautiful started making creepy faces at me through the peephole. Now she wasn't my type. There didn't seem to be any other zombies in sight.

I pushed the door open with all my strength and hit the girl with it, punched her in the head with my fist and looked around for another open flat. Oh, why wasn't I a burglar in my previous life? That time you could break into any flat you liked.

OK, I thought, I would have a look around. I found an open flat on another block. I stepped inside and swore. There was a slight, disgusting smell inside. Almost imperceptible. There was a distinctive growling sound coming from one room.

When I opened the door to the living room, I saw that there were two armchairs in the corner, half facing each other, and a coffee table in front of them. On one of the chairs a man of my age was tied up. And whoever had done it had obviously done it very responsibly. Even his head was securely fastened.

From what I saw in the apartment, the people who lived there had evacuated in a hurry. And they did it on the first or second day of the apocalypse. On any other day, no one would have even started packing. But here, they had cleared everything out. The only question is why they tied the poor guy up instead of killing him.

- Well, mate, no luck for you? - I turned to the zombie.

It growled and glared, clearly wanting to bite me. I went to the kitchen to find some glasses, then sat down in a nearby chair and poured the distilled whisky into glasses.

- Do you want anything? I know, I know, I know, all humans are creatures. But what can we do? Maybe it's a good thing our whole world is fucked up.

And the growl back again.

- Don't you like people cursing at you? - I took a sip and wrinkled my nose. - Alice never liked it either. All the time I heard: "Matt, but you're a decent man", "Matt, there are many other appropriate words in the English language". But I'm too cool for that, I'm not going to let a girl tell me what to say and how to say it. That time I was ready to give her everything she had scolded me for. But I couldn't, because she was out there looking for prey. Maybe she was already eating someone.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

The zombie started to pound harder in his chair. Probably sympathizing with my grief.

- Want to know a secret? I cheated on her. I never told anyone, not even my best friend. I even liked to tell myself that I'd never stoop to cheating. But I did. And do you know the first time it happened? The day she told me she was pregnant. Yeah, yeah, just like that. I was so pissed off I got drunk and picked up a medical student. It's always been easier with them. They study a lot, they're tired a lot, they need the stress relief.

The dead guy must have realized the futility of his attempts and slowed down a bit. I clinked my glass with his and downed the rest of the whisky in one gulp. Then I refilled it.

- If you had met me a month ago, I could have introduced you to a girl like that. To be honest, you would have shown me any girl. She'd have been yours. Hey, wasn't that blonde girl I met in the corridor your girlfriend? If so, you did well without me.

A few sips and another glass.

- Why don't you drink, Oscar? Can I call you that? I had a pupil of that name. A good boy, talented, would have gone far. But he was more sociable than you.

The zombie's face took on a meaningful expression and he said:

- Matt, stop drinking and go to sleep, you're talking to a zombie.

- What the...? - I replied.

Then my head fell on my chest, and I fell into a deep sleep.

Waking up was very unpleasant. Well, who liked having water splashed in the face.

- Come on, come on, wake up.

When I opened my eyes, I saw that there were ten people in the flat next to me. There was a biker standing in front of me. Well, he looked like a biker, he even had a bandana with a skull on his head.

The zombie sitting across from me was thrashing frantically in his chair, trying to reach for someone. I could no longer see any meaningful features on his face. So, it was a glitch after all. It was time to stop drinking.

- Dude, what are you doing here? - the biker kept talking to me.

- Drank.

- And the one tied up was with you? - he said, nodding to the other glass.

- Stop it. Am I crazy? I hadn't slept for two days, found an empty flat, decided to have a drink and relieve the stress. And accidentally fell asleep.

- Are you coming with us? - asked the biker calmly.

- I don't know. Do I have a choice?

- You always have a choice. We won't force you. We could have just passed by or killed you on the spot. But we didn't even touch your things. By the way, you should learn to sleep with your eyes open. We couldn't wake you up with a gun.

- That's what the alcohol does to me, - I justified myself. - Tell me before I answer. Were you throwing people out of windows yesterday?

Who pulled my tongue? If they say yes, what should I do? Use your head, Matt, use your head.

The biker's face showed not a single muscle.

- These four men joined our group, ate our food, drank our water. Then, two days later, they stabbed my brother to death. Yes, the boys got a bit carried away when they punished them, but I'm not inclined to blame them.

- I see, - I nodded, 'I'll come with you, then.

But we didn't go anywhere because it turned out that I slept through the evening. They slept in other flats, but I slept in this one. And in the morning, when everyone was gathering and starting to leave, I went back into the room with a zombie and said.

- Oscar.... or whatever your real name is. You, if you can still hear me, tell mine that I love them and will never forget them, okay? Make sure you tell them.....

And after that, I ended this semblance of life.

The group I joined was, of course, not bikers. Like Vikki and Paul, who pulled me out of the police station, they quickly realized that this season's trend would be all leather and machine guns. So, they dressed in what they could, even if it was a bit uncomfortable. It was summer, it was hot. But it was better to be drenched in sweat than torn to pieces. Even I didn't mind the extra defense, although I did have an extra in the form of an energy field, which I began to call a sort of exoskeleton. Well, did it protect? It protected. Strengthened? Definitely.

I didn't fight with my hands anymore, just for aesthetic reasons. I got tired of walking around with blood on my fists. So, I used either a Tyre iron or a knife. But there was also a practical interest in my choice. With a knife, you could only use half a percent energy to deal with zombies. With a tyre iron it was the same.

I didn't hide my psionic abilities. They would have found out sooner or later, and then would have wondered why I had chosen to lie to everyone. Especially since the company already had a handler named Amir.

Amir was a very religious man and the whole group respected that. He performed prayer whenever possible, did not eat pork, did not drink alcohol, and described the strength he received as a "gift from Allah". He was also a very well-read man and we had most of our conversations during our overnight stays with him.

We had been on the road for a week. The boys often discussed the possibility of settling down somewhere in the region, but our tacit commander, Arthur, took a rather cold view of the idea. He preferred to live in his own group, not under anyone else. What about me? I didn't care.

Nothing else seemed to affect me. A child in our group was eaten. Never mind. Someone found some female students hiding in the flat and clique them up. That was their business. As long as they didn't kill the girls and gave them food for a while, they could be happy about it. The first time it happened, I wanted to talk to Arthur about what had happened, but then I saw one of the girls flirting with our guy in the morning, trying to persuade him to take them with us. But we didn't. None of us were saints. Except Amir, who had never been seen doing anything improper.

Yeah, I realized I wasn't going to be with this group for long. I just had to figure out where I was going to go next. And what I wanted out of this new world.

In principle, I could say we were doing a useful job, slowly clearing out the neighborhood we were in. Methodically, house by house. The boys cleaned the house, then drank and have fun, and in the morning, we'd move on.

And then one day we run into. It would be very difficult to describe what happened in another word. But I tried to tell you in order.

One day we decided to clean up the "Walmart", which was not far from where we were. We needed to resupply. But when we got inside, we realized that someone else had done it before us. And inside, in the back rooms, we met a couple. They were both in their mid-30s. The guy was all smarmy and feminine and didn't seem to have any sympathy. The girl wasn't much either, she had size B tits, a bit full, and her face was so-so. In another life I wouldn't have even looked at her.

We'd have got on with our lives anyway. Nobody ever killed for fun. But this idiot started swearing at us, saying that this was their group's territory and that we should follow the route everyone knew. He shouldn't had said that.

Artur didn't care and shot him several times in the next second. The girl stood and clapped her eyes in silence, obviously not expecting such a turn of events. As a result, we gathered up a lot of food and went to the next house, where we had cleared out the first two floors the day before. We took the girl, whose name was Ruth, with us.

We didn't need to persuade her. She had decided that we were going to kill her, so she willingly gave pleasure to anyone who approached her, just to make our group more sympathetic to her. At the same time, she was not afraid to tell us how hard it was for her with that "faggot". After all she'd finally met real men. So, they fucked her to the hilt, using all kinds of orifices. As guys coming out of a separate room later said: "The woman is as woman, of course, but she fucked like a goddess. I didn't join in it. I just didn't want to. I thought.

And in the morning, after we had left her in the flat and throw her the supplies, we started to move out. I'd already buried her in my head and tried to put her out of my mind.

And as soon as our group came out of the entrance, all the boys were immediately torn apart with lead bullets. Without talking, without warning. Only Amir and I managed to escape. And that was only because we were the last ones to go out of there. And I took the bullet, which was probably meant for my friend, on my energy shield.

And then I heard a voice from the street:

- Those who survived should put down their weapons and come out. Only then you will have a chance of survival!

And I knew for sure that this voice was very familiar to me.....