"Greetings and salutations survivors! I hope you're doing well. Thank you for tuning in. I'm Z-Man and you're listening to 'Radio Survivor'!"
With that Mattias jumped to his feet, his eyes were wide in shock and his mouth was gaping. He made sounds as if he wanted to say something but no words formed. He walked around the room in loss of what to do but the broadcast continued.
"I hope there are new listeners out there, who are in need of hope. Well let me tell you; I can't give you that. I'm just a simple man with an interest of radio broadcasts! Z-Man doesn't operate like that. What I can give you is a pleasant talk while you listen to me for the next couple of hours. Let's see… The weather's getting worse. That's a thing. The winds have picked up speed again and it doesn't look like it will calm down anytime soon. The rain has slowed down thankfully."
'Z-Man' as he called himself has proceeded to talk about random stuff. Mainly about the weather and the zombie movements around him, which he never clearly mentioned. He only said streets like 'the 5th street' or 'by the bridge'. You could never pinpoint his whereabouts, but from the things he described, and the obvious fact that he was broadcasting, he was somewhere central.
'After almost two weeks, a broadcast?! What the hell?'
After this find there was no way Mattias could go to sleep. He listened to the broadcast until it was over, which is almost 3 hours.
"The zombie count is steadily increasing…"
"Look I don't know what you think but I think the most effective way is…"
"All I'm saying is the government has done shit. Do you see any JSDF out there? No! Why? Because they were all weak to begin with!"
'Holy crap he can talk! How can someone talk this much without running out of topics?'
"Anyway dear survivors this is all for todays broadcast. Thank you all for joining me and listening to me while I rant and vent. I hope you can join me again. Good luck."
*kshhshshhsh*
Mattias' eyes were red from not sleepiness but didn't feel tired at all. On the contrary he never felt more energetic. Someone in a random part of the country was alive and was broadcasting. Even if he said that he didn't give hope, that's what he exactly did! He was trying to get people's minds off of the current situation a bit and make them relax and smile. Just like how Mattias was smiling right now. This 'Z-Man' was making people smile involuntarily with his over the top way of talking and topics.
"Looks like I have one more thing to pass my time."
Mattias took his headphone off and went to sleep. The wind was slower than yesterday and the rain stopped at night. The streets were akin to small creeks and it was shining with the morning sun. Mattias, even though he slept later than usual, still woke up at the same hour. But because of his lack of sleep his eyes were black and were aching. When Tsuyoshi saw this he laughed because over the white skin of Mattias, the dark circles under his eye were very much obvious and made him look like a panda. And because his eyes were aching, he couldn't open them fully too. This, added by the morning chill made him look like a NEET going outside for the first time.
"Hahahaha! Bro what the hell?! You look awesome!"
"Shut up Tsuyoshi. I was up till late."
"I can see that! Hahahaha!"
"So? What are we doing for training today?"
"Well you are proficient enough with katana but you mainly rely on observing the opponent and dodging their attacks and counter attack with swift attacks. This doesn't really match that good with katana to be honest because of its length. So I was thinking about-"
"Starting to train me with kodachis. Am I right?"
"Precisely. But you don't look so good to be frank we need to wake you up somehow."
"Some cold water to my face and I'm good to go."
"If you say so. By the way why did you stay up late?"
"Oh yeah! I found a radio broadcast!"
"You were still listening to it?!"
"Every night for 11 days and finally bore fruit!"
"So? What was it about? And who?"
"It was a random guy somewhere central. He calls himself Z-Man and doesn't giveaway any information about where he is and who he is. I only know he lives somewhere central thanks to his descriptions of his surroundings. He talked about random stuff for hours."
"That's neat!"
"I'll check again tonight. He said something about joining him again so I'm guessing he'll broadcast regularly."
"I'll listen to it tonight as well then."
"Sure."
Mattias washed his face with cold water and like he said, he was ready to train after that. Tsuyoshi was about to start the training but because they didn't have any wooden versions of kodachis he went out to the garden and picked 4 stick that were comparable in weight. They started slow with the basic stances again and basic swings for dual wield. It was not a popular technique but it was still practiced to some degree. They decided to stop when they saw the clock was nearing noon and had lunch.
Their plan for today was to start getting in the nearby houses and clean them of their supplies. If there were survivors, they would leave without entering and go to their next target.
"What if they want to fight though bro?"
"Then we will defend ourselves. Although I want to avoid killing any humans, I won't back away from hurting them at least."
"You sure are ruthless."
"I learned one thing from our one week of street sweeping: If I want to live then I have to be ruthless. But that doesn't mean I'll kill whoever. I don't even know what will I do when I have to fight humans who are trying to kill me."
"You'll be fine. I guarantee you'll be able to run away at least."
Tsuyoshi gave him a confident smile and Mattias returned it. They finished their lunch and went out to the now clean street. Over the past week they entered some of the houses in their immediate area to replenish some of their stocks and to check if there were any dangerous fellows.
"I suggest after a general check we enter the houses we didn't."
"Why the check?"
"To see if there are any uninvited guests that can be a threat to us."
"Makes sense."
After their small talk of their plans they started moving. Slowly but surely, they went to the houses, looked through the windows if there were any movement inside and if there were, they would look if it was a steady and balanced movement of humans or wobbly and imbalanced movement of zombies.
So far, they didn't come across any survivors. The houses were either empty all together or there were one or two zombies inside, which they killed to avoid further trouble. They were also taking the car along to carry their load.
They would do this until it was evening in one direction. It was meaningless to go out too much so they decided to clear a perimeter of 300 meters in each direction. They were planning to do this for a week initially but because almost all of the houses were empty and they were being efficient in killing and looting as well, they finished in almost 4 days save for one street. For these 4 days, Mattias and Tsuyoshi also opened the radio at nights to catch if there was the broadcast of 'Z-Man'. He was not consistent with his schedule and they were able to listen him on the third day only.
He was still talking about random stuff and was not worth listening on a usual day. But in these days, his random topics were a break from the grimness of the latest situation.
On their last house check the duo was pretty confident. They were hoping that no trouble arose and an idiot would attack them. Frankly Mattias hoped there wouldn't be any survivors for convenience but his thoughts were changed on their fifth house.
"Hey bro. There are people inside."
"People people or 'huuuuur' people."
"You should work on that zombie impression. What I'm saying is there are survivors."
"Really?"
"Yeah!"
Mattias' gaze turned serious as he walked towards the door. He looked inside from one of the windows in the side and surely there were silhouettes of four people huddling close. He slowly knocked on the door and spoke in a loud tone to inform their arrival.
"Good after noon! I know you're in there. I just want to talk so can someone please approach the other side of the door? I'll back away from it so rest assured."
After his talk he could hear hurried footsteps from inside the house some whimpering. He also heard the cry of a little girl. He backed away from the door like he said and waited. After waiting for a few second the door opened a bit and he could hear the voice of a middle-aged man coming from within.
"Pl-p-please. We just want to live. Do-don't t-t-t-take our s-s-stuff!"
"We won't so relax. We just wanted to inform you that we don't want to hurt you and get in your way but the opposite is also valid. Me and my friend here want to survive as much as you do and therefore cleared the area. We will keep entering houses and ridding it from any zombies we encounter."
"Just w-w-with the two of you?!"
"It's not something we haven't done. My bro and I are confident in our skills!"
"Like he said. What I want from you is simple. Don't cause any trouble for us and you can live here. You can leave this neighborhood if you want to as well. And don't think about anything funny or else we will be forced to defend ourselves. Do you understand sir?"
"A-a-are- are you th-th-th-threatening me?"
"Think whatever you want."
"O-o-kay. We will comply."
"Have a nice day then. Let's go"
"Good day!"
And after that the duo drove to the next house in line. The man they talked to returned to his family and told of their conversation while they watched Mattias and Tsuyoshi cut two zombies in half from their window.