It turned out the rat really knew its way around the city. Not only that, but zombies mostly ignored it unless it went out of its way to bother them. This was an ideal situation for scouting out a path that would leave Clay unmolested.

There'd been a few places where he'd have liked to stop and look through the remains, but his new rat friend would silently speed up whenever he tried and make it clear the onus was on him to keep up and not get distracted.

After a while of walking, he'd been brought to a clothing outlet. Clay spent the entire walk expecting to see a clinic or something like by the end, though he already knew ways that he could make do that the rat probably also had in mind when it led him there.

During a time when it was in business, it had probably been called 'Cool Place', but something had broken off parts of the sign until it read 'ool Plac'.

It had two enormous openings next to both sides of the door where its display windows used to be, through which he could see that it had been thoroughly trashed but not entirely looted. It looked more like it had been turned over by a gang of unruly children; plenty of clothes were left intact on the floor after their hanging displays were knocked over, shelves packed with novelty shirts and jeans dashed to the ground with equal fervor. Tellingly, only the stuff that kept one from making a direct path from the front of the store to the back was pushed down, while the stuff that was displayed close to or on a far wall had been left untouched.

Squeak!

"I get it. I get it." Clay responded to its restless rushing by stepping through one of the broken display windows, then froze up mid-step after hearing his stolen boot crunch on broken glass. His bare foot kicked around in the air to try and maintain his balance while he hopped forward to keep from hurting himself. He did manage to stop his vulnerable foot from hitting the glass, though only because he jumped and fell forward onto his stomach away from the pile in graceless fashion.

Clay turned his head, meeting the rat eye-to-eye after it scampered up next to him. There wasn’t a way to read its expression, but he could swear it was mocking him.

"Maybe don't rush me so much next time!" Clay hissed.

He should have just used the door.

After collecting what was left of his dignity and making sure he hadn't cut himself on any glass, Clay got to work patching himself up.

First, he needed to abandon what remained of his bathrobe. It was bittersweet. This one had been with him for so long now that it was like having to toss out old childhood toys all over again. It didn't deserve this, to be discarded so casually.

But it needed to be done. Clay threw it to the side.

Goodbye, old friend.

Next was finding proper cloth for wrapping his wounds. Luckily for him, there were plenty of 100% cotton t-shirts and a utility knife in his toolbelt.

As he was cutting up shirts, Clay mused on the usefulness of the utility knife. It's a shame that it only amounted to a souped-up box cutter; the blade was super sharp and would have been nice to have as a weapon, but was also too small to do anything except swipe at a zombie's skin.

He caught the rat staring at him.

"Would you believe me if I told you I only want some alcohol for the sake of disinfecting my wounds?" Clay asked the rat without looking at it, doing his best to make sure he was tying his makeshift bandages off correctly. He probably wasn't. They were tight around where he made the actual knot, but loose at his wounds.

Clay was confident they wouldn't fall off on their own, at least. He also didn't want to unwrap the cloth and try over and over again with the rat's judgmental gaze on him.

Slightly demoralizing, but he felt a whole lot better when he was able to use a couple of the extra scraps to wipe himself down and clear away some of the dried sweat and whatever the hell else some of these sticky liquids from the dumpster were. Having a second to get rid of loose gravel and the small amount of blood caused by tiny cuts on his feet wasn't so bad, either.

Clay was a long way from feeling clean, but this was definitely better.

In the midst of his cleaning, he realized he'd need to change into some fresh clothes. Clay set aside a few articles in his size: a dark red shirt emblazoned with a logo for 'Dr. HurtsYou' soda, a pair of jeans, socks, a corduroy jacket, and a pair of sneakers in his size. He honestly would have preferred a leather jacket that stood a better chance of defending against a zombie's bite, but this was the best he could do. A bunch of smaller shirts wrapped around his arms underneath the jacket should add a little more protection.

He considered going to one of the changing rooms until he caught a whiff of some foul smell radiating from that direction. Now he was just standing to one side of the store with his new outfit laid out on the cashier's counter.

Clay started to remove his shirt but stopped to throw a glance over his shoulder at the rat. It just continued to stare at him. After a few more seconds of staring, he narrowed his eyes at it. Where was the privacy?

It quirked its head.

"Do you mind?"

It quirked its head deeper, then straightened it in realization. After a tiny change in its face, it turned around.

Did you just roll your eyes at me!?

Asshole.

Clay put it out of mind for now and focused on changing. As he undressed, he continued wiping himself down so that his new, clean clothes would actually feel good to wear. What he'd have given for a shower...

He was all dressed up in front of a mirror before long, straightening his jacket and wrapping an entire shirt around his neck like a scarf to cover up the worst of his zombie wounds.

Huh. Didn't he look kinda cool, all gussied up like this? Clay turned his head to examine some of the scratches on his cheek. Its too bad none of them would leave any proper scars; a battle-hardened survivor like him needed scars to prove his badassery. A horde slayer of the highest degree should have distinctive marks of their--

He noticed a maggot wriggling through his hair and immediately lowered his head to swipe at his scalp with both hands, sending a surprising amount wriggling to the ground.

Alright, actually, he'd probably hate if his face ended up with fingernail scars all over it. Those were the kinds of wounds people got when they fought women or crazy homeless guys.

Squeak! Squeak! Squeak!

Clay didn’t need to be a rat whisperer to know that it was laughing at him.

"You need to shut the hell up, man…" He grumbled.

Despite an embarrassing moment, Clay had gotten himself properly dressed and ready to look into the places his douchebag rat pointed him towards. However, he wanted to take a peek at what was causing that awful smell in the changing rooms first. It was morbid, but he was hoping it'd be a corpse. A normal one.

Just in case, though, Clay had his hammer ready.

Squeak! Squeak!

"I'm just looking to see if there's any more stuff laying around. If there's a dead guy in there, they might have a backpack or something I can steal. You think I can just carry everything in my arms?"

The rat was silent.

There was a thick curtain separating the changing rooms from the rest of the store, and a curtain for each small room. The linoleum flooring was replaced with hardwood once he crossed the threshold.

The first thing he noticed was a pool of blood coming from a dressing room with its curtains drawn closed, though it was less a pool and more a large, dried patch that had soaked into the wood a long time ago.

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Clay held his breath when he approached the dressing room, raising his hammer above his head. He didn't expect to find a zombie in there, but he wasn't risking anything after how his last encounter went.

His hand moved slowly at first, then jerked the curtain open all at once. Clay flinched and had to turn away almost immediately, hand clasped over his nose and mouth.

It was definitely a corpse—a normal, rotting, stationary corpse. A dude. He had been dressed in a thick jacket, camo pants, and combat boots. He was also wearing an army helmet that didn't match the rest of his outfit at all. It wasn't a modern-day camouflage one, but a hard green WWII-era helmet. Clay might have thought to take it from him if it didn't irk him out so much.

He'd desperately needed a way to protect his feet before, but the usefulness of the helmet didn't justify the ick-factor in this instance.

He was too squeamish to touch the other man with his hands, so he used the hook of his hammer to lift the helmet up by the front rim and get a better look at the damage. Clay hadn't meant to, but he ended up completely prying the helmet off of the corpse's head, where it plopped upside down into its owner's lap. Its interior was caked in blood and grey matter.

The corpse, the man, had shot himself in the head. Specifically, he shot himself through the roof of his mouth and up into his brain.

That's the way you gotta do it to make sure, Clay thought.

If there was a dead guy here with a bullet wound, then that meant--

Ah-ha!

He'd totally glanced over it and focused all of his attention on the dead guy, but there was a revolver on the ground in front of it. Clay picked up the gun as soon as he saw it.

Hm. It was a little heavier than he expected.

Did this mean it would be worth investing in the [Nice Shooting] Skill once he had the chance?

Wait, before that, he needed to know how much ammo was even still in it. Unfortunately, Clay didn't have a clue how to open a revolver. He could sort of see through the gap enough to know there was definitely something in at least two of the chambers, but not really any means to tell which of these were spent cartridges and which were live rounds.

That was a problem, but he could figure it out later. Clay stuffed the revolver into one of the toolbelt's pouches and started trying to use the hammer's hook to get the corpse to lean forward enough to get a good look at his back.

Squeak! Squeak! Squeak!

"Calm down, I'm almost done. I just need to confirm whether or not this guy has a bag."

But it only continued making little noises at him from just outside the changing room, urgently trying to get his attention.

Clay stopped what he was doing and turned around to glare at it. "What? What's the problem?"

It wasn't looking at him, but back into the store. It was like a dog staring at the front door after it heard something that disturbed it. Clay understood immediately.

He pressed back deeper into the changing room, still making sure not to touch the dead man. Had he made too much noise and attracted some wandering zombies? No, the street had been pretty much clear, and he'd been careful not to speak too loudly or make much noise while gathering clothes. There was also the fact that zombies tended to sprint when they knew for sure there was prey nearby. They would've ran into the store and announced their presence by stepping on broken glass by now.

Well, there was an exception to that. The Spooker.

It didn't pursue the moment it saw him, so maybe special zombies had special behaviors?

It could be that there was even another survivor out there. Shouldn't they have called out to him by now if that were the case? No, bad survivors that would find more advantage in sneaking up on him should also be something to consider.

Clay was too scared to verbally pry for more information from the rat. He was so on edge now; the only thing that would make him feel safe was if he could figure out his gun.

That's right, if he'd had this last night, he could have shot the Spooker without having to get close. Discharging a weapon would have caused all kinds of other problems, but Clay didn't dwell on that.

He slipped the hammer into his tool belt and retrieved the revolver. There was definitely a way to get the thing open, he just had to find it.

Fuck, he needed to calm down, think logically, and examine the gun. Unfortunately, his eyes kept glancing at the rat. It was slowly backing up down the changing room hallway. It'd be out of his sight soon.

Clay's hands were shaking, but his brain had still been thinking behind the scenes. It was possible to intuit the functions of something like this.

He knew from watching cop shows where the safety on a pistol was. It was designed so that you wouldn't have to maneuver your gun in a weird way to toggle it, so it wouldn't be strange to think that it'd be similar for the opening mechanism.

His eyes were frozen on the hallway in front of him, where he could only see into the open changing room across from him and at his own terrified expression. Both hands were on the gun, feeling around from a natural position for any promising notches or bumps. Clay hadn't put his finger on the trigger yet.

There was definitely something. His left thumb brushed against something prominent just above the handle, but pressing it didn't do anything.

Even he felt a presence now, a few shuffling sounds that were quiet enough that he might have missed them if he wasn't so tense.

Maybe it wasn't something he's meant to press. Safeties were more like levers, so following that logic…

The prominent bump slid forward and the chamber popped open to the side to let him see inside. Unfortunately, his eyes were too busy on something entering the hallway.

It didn't stumble or walk in like expected, but crawled. On the ceiling.

There was a small gap between the curtain rod and the ceiling that let Clay see something resembling an arm pulling the vaguest impression of a person into the hallway. There were legs that pushed as well, allowing the monster to crawl above his regular sightline like a gravity-defying cat. It crawled along until it stopped in front of his room.

It was just sitting up there, dead still the moment it no longer needed to move. Why? Did it not know he was here?

That couldn't be. It was specifically staying right above the doorway into his changing room. It knew exactly where he was. So, why?

Then it clicked. If Clay were to look straight forward and ignore what he knew, it was possible for him to walk out of the changing room and not notice anything until it was too late.

This was an ambush.

Clay would have definitely fallen for it without the rat’s warning. It wasn't enough to just be quiet and wary of normal zombies, he couldn't let his guard down for a single second.

It didn't seem to be aware that it'd been found out, though. There was a chance for the underdog human in the situation to turn things around with his shiny new gun.

The only problem was that he had no idea how many active rounds were left. Maybe this guy shot himself with one bullet and left the rest of the chambers unused, but something told Clay that was unlikely. The only way to know was to unload the chambers and have a look.

But he was scared. Just like with the Spooker, Clay couldn't find it in him to look away.

He could try firing the gun at it until a shot popped off, but he might agitate it if he makes any sounds that let it know Clay was aware of its presence. He didn't want to risk anything; he had to make sure he shot it on the first try.

All he could find the resolve to do was tip the gun back and allow its contents to spill into one of his hands. However, unwilling to look down and position his palm properly, three of the rounds tapped at an awkward angle against the side of his hand and fell towards the ground.

His eyes snapped down in time to see them mid-air. Thinking quickly, he used [Sound of Silence] to deafen the impact they'd make with the ground.

[Sound of Silence]'s weakness revealed itself. He could only store up as many sounds as he had sound slots.

Two sound slots. Three rounds.

Klink-klink!

Clay went to one knee, registering two used-up casings and one live round. His fingers wrapped around the odd one out and tilted his head up at the same time.

His limbs seized up under the weight of a new gaze on his kneeling form. The collected bullet fell from between two trembling fingers.

Its eyes were nothing like those of the Spooker. Where the unique zombie from last night had bright, colorful irises that only appeared to overpower the whites of its eyes, this one had completely black orbs that seemed to absorb all light that came near.

It was only after noting its eyes that Clay took in the rest: a head only a little smaller than a volleyball, hairless and riddled with small dents along its dark green skin, dangled down low enough to see what he was doing. It didn't have a mouth, and its head swayed side to side slowly enough that it was barely perceptible.

It was only a second. Probably not even a second. It hadn't felt like a second. Clay was trapped in that second that wasn't a second. His mind was racing but too unsure of what to do to make his body move.

The zombie's eyes twitched towards his revolver. The moment it saw the weapon, the all-consuming black of its eyes shrunk until they were two dots in a void of white.

That sight was all Clay's body needed to make use of something that kept his mind from holding it back. Instinct.

At the same time the zombie tugged itself down and began its lunge into the changing room, Clay dove forward. He didn't bother to look behind and see what missing him would cause it to do, opting instead to quickly get to his feet and get back into the main store as quickly as possible.

In the time it took for Clay to cross the short distance back into the store and turn around, the zombie had recovered and leapt out of the changing room into a crawling position on the wall of the hallway. Out in the open, he had a better sense for its size. It was on the shorter side, to the extent where if it was standing at full height in front of Clay, the top of its head would probably only come up to his chest.

All that remained of its previous human identity was a common display of ripped casual wear that gave way to a lithe, but muscled physique that made its height irrelevant to its current prey. Its head swung side to side rapidly now, a blur at the shoulders while its body crawled along the wall.

Clay predicted another lunge and rushed to the side without thinking, causing him to slam into a table displaying folded shirts and fall on top of it. This had actually been a lucky thing, because the lunging zombie hadn't simply jumped straight down the hallway towards him. It went to the opposite wall first and quickly jumped again in an attempt to intercept him when he tried to move to the side. If Clay had moved like he'd expected to, he would have been caught.

Instead, it sailed over him while Clay and the table both clattered to the ground.

Less lucky was how unprepared he was for the fall, which knocked his hold on the remaining three bullets in his hand loose and caused them to roll away on the ground. The fall also caused the chamber of his gun to slam itself closed, but his body wouldn't let go of the revolver for anything.

No!

Clay picked himself up into a crawling position and tried to locate one of the casings while keeping the zombie in his periphery.

It had been primed for another jump and there was nothing in its path to keep it from reaching him now.