The bow man stumbled across the ground, his eyes were fixed on a single distant target, and his hands were clenching and unclenching. Behind him was a horde, covered in blood just as he was, with their clothes pinned to their body, and the coppery tang of blood filling the air.
He looked behind him, and then started to hurry up, his left leg still unbending, refusing to cooperate. He growled and started to move faster. The rifle at his hip was long out of ammo, and all three of his quivers were out too.
He had a sheath for his knife strapped to his thigh, but the knife in question was embedded in the throat of one of the bleeders behind him. He could hear the horde approaching, he could feel their gazes on his back, he knew he was done for, they were going to kill him. He’d have broken his promise.
And then a shot ripped through the air. A series of shots followed it, and Robin turned to see the horde of hundreds slowly falling, unable to come forward, blocked by the still bleeding bodies of their brethren.
He looked ahead of him, and saw a man. The man seemed to be covered in light, the kind of man that the archer would follow to the ends of the earth without saying a word. He had a rifle in his hand, and a Sheriff's hat sat on his head.
The archer was so transfixed by the man, that he didn’t look at the ground beneath him, and he tripped falling to his knees, and then flat on his stomach. He barely saw or heard anything, until the man with the sheriffs hat tapped his shoulder and said, “ Come on my friend. We have to go. There’s a horde coming.”
The archer looked up at the man and said, “Who are you.”
“Call me Sheriff.”
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I left my home sometime in the early hours of dawn, armed to the teeth, intending to head out to the fields to go hunt some deer, or scavenge for some crops. The intruding swamp and forest that bordered the city were slowly getting closer and closer and every month or so it was a half a block less that I had to walk to get to the forest every week or so.
My target at the moment was a dingy supermarket half hidden beneath the rubble of a collapsed building, and several burnt trees. It was the only supermarket that had things like canned foods that hadn’t been looted in the first few days of the apocalypse.
When the dead start walking, I guess it makes you do some crazy stuff. And when the dead start attacking you, it makes you do things like burn down an entire building filled with people.
Behind me, I heard a shuffling sound, and then the beginning of a howl. In an instant I whirled, catching a glimpse of a tall man, gray skinned now, but before he died he looked like he was a fairly good looking guy.
Strong jaw, well toned muscles, blue eyes, blond-ish hair, he looked Scandinavian. All of this was running in the background of my thoughts, the only thing in the foreground was the arrow in my right hand, the black metal bow in my left, and his throat. My first target.
The first thing I needed to do was stop the sound he was making, and if I killed him, the sound would keep going for at least another five seconds. I had to deal with enough Bleeders as it was. I didn’t need Pavaroti over here calling another dozen onto me.
I could handle them easily, but I didn’t need the extra effort, and I definitely didn’t need to be wasting arrows willy nilly.
A split second after I fired my first arrow, his screech cut off with a sudden gurgling noise, and then he fell to the floor, a second arrow in his right eye. I walked over to him, and planted my foot on his forehead, then pulled the first arrow out. I was pleased to see that it hadn’t chipped or broken, so with a quick movement I wiped it clean on the Bleeder’s shirt, then grabbed my second arrow, and cursed.
The tip had completely broken off, leaving just a sudden, and dull end instead of the tapered look that the rest of my arrows had. Grabbing the arrow I snapped it over my knee twice then put the now significantly smaller pieces into a bag on my waist.
If I got lucky I might be able to melt them down tonight and make another arrow out of them. I very rarely got lucky of course, but it happens sometimes.
Most times I had to stay as silent as possible just watching the windows, hoping, praying that I wouldn’t see a Bleeder, and a Bleeder wouldn’t see me. Those were mostly on the nights when I encountered Bleeders while heading home.
In fact the only time I had to make arrows was during the sunrise and sunset hours. When the light hitting my building masked or completely drowned out the light of the fire I lit.
Some might call me paranoid, I preferred to call myself careful. I didn’t want or need a conflict with other survivor groups. I didn’t want to have to kill a group of people. People surviving just like I was.
I’ve encountered survivors several times, but most times I’ve managed to escape without them seeing me or without having to kill anyone. There was one time that a group of biker guys thought that it would be fun to try and fight me. The gas in their motorcycles kept my stove burning for a while.
And the remaining biker dudes thought it best not to bother me any more. They left town and I didn’t have to kill anymore of them. Win win in my book.
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Walking the streets though was always terrifying to me. I expected Bleeders to come jumping out of shadows at any second clawing my eyes out, sinking their teeth into my arm. Turning me into one of them.
That’s one of the major reasons I chose the bow as my main weapon. It was long distance, silent and I could make my own ammunition for it. The main thing though, was the long distance aspect. If I kill Bleeders before they catch up to me, that’s a massive boon to my survivability.
Fortunately today while walking the streets I didn’t encounter any other Bleeders, and made my way to the supermarket. I’d already pretty much cleared this place out for everything that it had, but there were still a few things like beans, meat, vegetables and fruits, all canned of course, and water that I hadn’t had an opportunity to take.
I packed both my backpack and the small bag at my hip with everything I could find, including scattered pieces of metal and even a large piece of shelving that had fallen off at some point or another.
By the end of this my pack was heavy enough that I was struggling to carry it up onto my shoulders, before eventually I just decided to hold it in my hand. Somehow I managed to make it half way back home without incident.
And then I saw a horde of Bleeders screaming and clawing at a burning building. A couple of the Bleeders were already on fire, and it was spreading, but nowhere near fast enough to kill the entire horde. And a good rain would probably be able to put out the fire, and since it’s Miami, in the spring, it rains pretty much every day at about five.
A thousand thoughts ran through my addled brain but at the foremost was a single question. Why? Why was there a horde of hundreds, maybe even a thousand, attacking a single building standing in the middle of the road. And why was the building on fire?
Unconsciously, my hand strayed to the knife strapped to my thigh, and I pulled it out wincing at the echoing sound of leather against steel. Fortunately the Bleeders were far too loud and distracted to hear me.
The blade in my hand was more comforting than actually effective, if I wanted to thin out that horde I’d probably use the revolver at my hip or the bow in my right hand, but there’s something primal about a knife. Something wonderful about knowing that whatever you want dead is in your hands, their life is in your hands.
For now though, I decided to walk away from the horde, there was no purpose to me killing them and it would likely only end in my death. And that was something that I intended on preventing for as long as I could.
So I just turned away from it and continued walking home. It’s a testament to my addled brain, that I managed to make it all the way home without once realizing that where there’s a horde of Bleeders, there’s humans.
Actually, it wasn’t until early the next morning that the thought occurred to me. I was sleeping at the time and then I just sat up. From one moment to the next, it wasn’t like I woke up, no one moment I was sleeping the next I was sitting up, staring at my quiver and the bow on my wall.
In half a minute I was ready to go out the door, I was still half dressed compared to what I normally use, my jacket, the singular grenade I’d scavenged up somewhere, and of course my knife, but with my bow, all three of my quivers, and my revolver I should be fine.
Running out of my door I ran down two different apartments and grabbed a bag filled with the ammo for my revolver, then ran back out, and began running down the stairs, eventually just vaulting over the railing.
I was rushing a little bit, and admittedly I could have died while doing this, but I was in a little bit of a rush. A minute later I was standing at the bottom of the staircase, and I ran out, kicking open the hollow metal door that shielded the outside of the base.
Instantly I felt a crunch as it hit something, and I growled. The door rapidly closed again, and this time I was able to hear the growls and howling of the Bleeders behind the door. I lifted my leg up again, and kicked the door open, much harder this time.
Instead of a crunch this time I heard a tearing sound, and a splash of blood went through the small gap in the door. I cursed as the door refused to open, then grabbed my revolver, and emptied all eight bullets into a single spot. About head height for most humans, then kicked the door open.
Two dead Bleeders fell backwards onto their still walking brethren, and I growled when I saw the amount of them behind the door. Reaching behind the door I grabbed a piece of rebar pipe, held it in both hands and swung it down onto the skull of the nearest Bleeder, and tried to pull it out.
It refused to come out, so I grabbed the throat of the Bleeder and pushed forward. The rebar pipe made a disgusting sucking sound as it ripped through the brain matter of the dead human in front of me, and went directly into the eye of another one.
I gave up on trying to pull out the piece of rebar, and instead grabbed the Bleeder in front of me with my other hand and threw it over the handlebar railing on my left. Reaching over my shoulder I grabbed an arrow, flipped it in my hand so the point was facing away from my thumb, then swung it downward into another Bleeder’s skull.
Another one shambled towards me while I was killing that one, and I didn’t have any options, so I reached my leg up, made it into a hook shape, and pulled the skull of the Bleeder down, onto the bar.
Another squelching noise came, and with it yet another Bleeder. Grabbing the neck, and the leg of the Bleeder with an arrow in her skull, I picked her up over my shoulder and threw her into the line of approaching Bleeders then ran forward.
I planted my foot onto the shoulder of the Bleeder with a pole halfway into his skull, and pushed upward, both tearing the other half of the Bleeder’s skull off, and pushing myself upward. I put my other foot onto the top of the lead Bleeder's head, and pushed off again.
Behind him was a line of about thirty Bleeders, and I laughed, then started running across the top of their heads. A few of them tried to bite me, but the tough leather I’d covered my shoes in stopped their saliva from being able to enter my bloodstream.
In less than thirty seconds I was across the line of Bleeders, and as I leapt off the last one's head, I swung my bow off of my shoulder, grabbed an arrow, turned and shot the Bleeder I’d just jumped off of directly in the head.
It’s moaning cut off suddenly, and he fell forward, directly onto the other bleeders, stopping them from being able to turn around. I smiled in satisfaction, and started walking away, whistling a cheerful tune. A few more Bleeders who were a bit slow on the uptake came walking up to me, but I quickly dispatched them with a few arrows.
And then I remembered what I was doing outside, and I started running again, chasing the plume of smoke in the sky. I encountered a few more Bleeders on my way, but I didn’t bother taking them down and wasting very valuable arrows.
As I ran I loaded up my revolver, and put some arrows into the small quiver I had on the frame of my bow. So I had ten easy to grab shots, and over sixty shots on my back. And in my revolver eight shots.
Yeah. This is gonna be fun.