The next morning Levi awoke with a sense of surrealness. As if everything that happened the day before was a dream.

He reached across and felt Maggie lying beside him, and it almost felt like everything was normal. That they'd wake up, and he'd forget everything like a bad dream.

But Levi knew it was no dream. Everything that happened felt too real. Too vivid to be a dream.

Shaking his head, Levi slipped his arm from beneath Maggie, but her eyes fluttered open, and she grasped his arm. There was a pleading in her emerald eyes as she saw him trying to leave the bed.

The look in her eyes made his heart ache as he rubbed her hand. And he lowered his head, kissing her forehead. "I'm not going to disappear. Go back to sleep." He said.

"It's hard to go back to sleep after you forced me up this early for so long." She smiled back at him, her grasp loosening at his words.

"I never forced you." Levi said, smiling, "It's not my fault your such a light sleeper." Getting a roll of the eyes from her, as she let go of Levi's wrist and began to get up from the bed.

Levi moved towards the closed blinds and fingered a gap for him to peer out into the city. It had a stillness that felt unusual in an urban area like Boston. Though technically, it was Cambridge. If the quiet didn't confirm the events of yesterday, the plumes of smoke and infected ambling through the streets did.

There was more on the streets than yesterday. They moved aimless, sometimes moving towards the sound of helicopters flying overhead or the occasional car that slinked through the wreckage, trying to take advantage of the morning quiet. More than a few had the same idea as Levi saw many cars suitcases tied to roofs speed past, stirring the infected.

Maggie came across and looked through the window. Her voice hitched as she asked, "Are those the infected?" Levi nodded as he closed the blinds after meeting eyes with one.

"What happens now?" Asked Maggie as she wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing her head against Levi's back.

"We hole up and see how the situation develops," he said. Before Maggie unlatched herself from him and they made their way out of the bedroom.

As they entered the lounge, they saw Eddie, who gave them a curt nod. Him caressing a pistol as he watched the door with hawkish intensity. Marcus was also up, sitting alone at the table reading one of Maggie's books. He raised his cup in greeting when he saw them. Old-timers always seemed to be early birds.

The rest were dead asleep. Eric and Ricky slept on the coaches while Sergio and Garett lay on the carpet in whatever blankets Maggie cobbled together the day before. It didn't look comfortable, but they were too exhausted to care.

Elise wasn't present as she took the guest room. An implicit agreement of sorts reached the night before that she, as the only female amongst them, took the room.

Levi flicked the switch to the coffee machine, grunting when he heard Marcus say, "The power went down for good last night. I doubt it'll be back on."

Instead, he settled for trying the water, which still ran and filled a glass. Thinking they had to start bottling water as soon as possible while the water still ran. He sat down at the table next to Marcus after grabbing a morning bar he kept in one of the cupboards.

Maggie gave him a weird look seeing him eating one of those, 'abhorrent', breakfast bars as she liked to call them. As she sat beside him with a bowl of chocolate flavoured cereal, munching aloud as she did habitually, prompting Levi to nudge her. Maggie gave him a confused look before he mimed her chewing, and she turned a shade of pink as she looked towards Marcus, who looked away with tact. However, his raised lips didn't escape Levi's vision.

Food began to wake the others as it often did, and soon Garett and Eric were both up and helping themselves. By this point, Levi finished and moved towards the mound of items that Garett and Eddie had hauled up during the night.

The building had eight apartments, two on each floor, with four floors. And three of which had contained infected. They had managed to scrounge up a decent array of things, including a decent amount of non-perishable food, cans and such. There was also a torch or two, some tools and even a baseball bat.

On the whole, there wasn't a lot, but it was something. He was sure the others would find stuff they could find a use for. But the first thing they had to do was secure the building. This would be their home for the time being.

Others might complain about their families, but besides Ricky and Garett, nobody else had any family in the city. And they were the reasonable sort. They'd see the necessity of having somewhere safe to stay before they began running around on rescue missions.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

And almost as if on cue, Garett hovered over to him. Taking a look at what he'd collected overnight and saying, "Almost broke my back, ferrying this shit up and down the stairs." before he continued, "Also saw one of your neighbours. Some woman peered her head out from apartment 202, scared the shit out of me. Almost threw a can of beans right at her forehead."

Getting a smile from Levi, who said, "That's Meg If I had to bet. She's a recluse. She's barely left that apartment after her husband and child died a few years back." Making Garett's eyes widen.

"Guess it's true that every face has a story." Garett intoned before he paused and asked, "You intend on securing this place?" Making Levi stop and turn before nodding at his words.

"Roxbury is miles away. Depending on how bad the city is, it could take me all day to get there and back. It wouldn't sit right with me if I left everyone while I went searching for people who might not even be alive." Levi said, not missing Garett's eyebrow furrowing when he alluded his mother could be dead.

"What's your timeline?" Garett asked.

"Get all the apartments open and secure today, scraping together what we can find. Also, see if we can block or destroy the stairwell. I don't see the infected being able to climb. After that, loot what else we need to keep us supplied for a week. Then tomorrow, I move for yours and Ricky's people." Levi said, after contemplating for a moment.

"Sounds like a plan," Garett said with a touch of reluctance.

—

The fortifying of the apartment only took a few hours when everybody chipped in. They had to be a bit creative and ended up plying the floorboards from the flats on the bottom floor and using them to board the windows.

They also opened up the apartments that Levi didn't check the night before. Only one of the apartments held infected. It didn't respond because the infected was hanging in the bathroom from a noose. Making Maggie and Ricky with him pale, Maggie emptying her stomach in the hallway away from the thrashing infected.

Levi grabbed his knife and stabbed the infected, setting its body down on the floor. He looked over its body, but he couldn't find any bites, making him think that there could be more to the virus than he knew.

That maybe bites weren't the reason for turning. Maybe death was the cause. It wouldn't surprise him, knowing the abominations that the infected were. But guessing and knowing were two different things. He didn't need to be making rash assumptions.

Of the other three remaining apartments, all contained living, breathing people. Maggie calmed the residents when they entered their apartments. This was why he brought her after all, most of the people knew Maggie, or more accurately, she knew them.

And her presence disarmed them, even though one man still attacked him and Levi put him on his ass.

None of the families had seen much, only what they had heard on the television and radios before the power went out. Though one still had a functional radio and was still getting updates over the airwaves. They'd been considering going to the refugee camps broadcasted all over the radio.

They had begun to plaster all the airwaves with broadcasts telling people to move towards the cities. They were talking about making it easier to protect people if they were all together.

This didn't bode well with Levi. If people flooded into Boston, It would only make the infection spread faster.

After Maggie gave them the rundown of what they were doing, they were happy knowing they would be safer. But they gave conflicted looks when they heard about how many people had turned in the building.

After confirming that there was no more infected in the building, Levi gave all the families a request. That they felt they couldn't refuse. Everyone had to check in with the person on guard every morning. Levi wanted everyone accounted for at all times, more so after what he saw earlier.

With the apartments somewhat secure, Levi spoke to Garett and Marcus about the feasibility of destroying the bottom flight of stairs. They weren't sure whether it was safe and instead decided they should block the bottom flight making it impassable. Having the only exit points being the fire escape that ran behind the building and the elevator, which was out of operation.

It might make moving supplies into the apartment harder, but staying here was temporary. Staying here wasn't a permanent solution. They decided that after they collected enough supplies to hold out for around a week, they'd block off the stairwell and begin waiting it out.

And with two guards always on watch, everyone should be safe. And at least get alarmed if they got overwhelmed.

—

"Do you need to go out there?" Maggie asked, watching Levi check his pistol and strap it to his waist. Levi turned and sighed as he grasped her hand and pulled her into a hug.

"We need enough supplies to last us a week. There isn't enough from what we scrounged in the apartments." Levi said, before smiling, "We won't be going far. We'll be back before you know it." Maggie smiled, nodding as she watched Levi grab his sword and walk out the room.

Levi greeted Garett at the entrance. They'd had a chance to survey the street from the upper floors, and things looked okay. But the city seemed to be heating up once more. Though the military vehicles they saw steaming past now and then seemed to have brought the temperature down from last night.

As they opened the door, Levi saw an infected lunge towards him from behind the door. It moved as soon as it saw Levi attempting to bite him, but Levi thrust it into the wall and plunged his knife into its temple.

Watching it slump to the floor, Levi's eyes frowned when he recognised infected as the one he met eyes with earlier. 'Did it set an ambush?' Levi wondered

"Fucking hell, man, that was close," Garett said, kicking the corpse that ambushed them. "We'll have to be even more cautious. I didn't know these things were so stealthy."

"They aren't, but this one looked like it was waiting for us…." Levi said, his thoughts swirling as he looked down at its now still body. His words silenced Garett, who looked to see if he was joking, falling into contemplation when he realised he was serious.

"Anyway, let's move. The grocery store is two blocks away." Levi said, getting a reserved nod from Garett, who kept turning back at the infected that attacked them.