Three people slowly walked up the clean stairs. Even though they had yet to meet any kind of trouble here, caution was still in their every move. Leading the pack of healthy humans was a black man in his 30s named Tyrone.
His height was impressive, standing at an intimidating 6ft 4in. Although he was completely bald up above, down below was a magnificent beard that could even make Zeus weep in envy.
As for his build, he had a little bit of fat on him but was mostly muscle. Not too much to blame steroids, but not too little either. In his right hand was a metal baseball bat, which still contained remnants of dried blood. The other held a flashlight that guided their way, and banished the darkness.
To his right trailing slightly behind was an Asian American man named Kevin. Atop his head rested incredibly average short black hair. Unlike the man in front of him, no beard or even a little stubble could be found on Kevin's face.
Shorter than Tyrone by a fair amount sitting at 5ft 8in, his build was sort of thin but had some muscles splashed here and there. His weapon of choice was a crowbar which sat comfortably in his left hand.
The final musketeer was a beautiful blond white woman who went by the name Lily. Her long straight hair was put into a ponytail. She had great body proportions and a face which would look good even without a touch of makeup. Her height was the shortest out of all three of them, standing at 5ft 6in.
Her visible arms showed a surprising amount of muscle, indicating she had worked out before. Unlike the other members of her party, Lily carried two weapons. One of them being a spotless knife tucked away in it's sheath. The other was currently in her hands pointed downwards, a Glock 19.
"What are we going to do about those locked doors?" Lily lightly whispered, trying to make as little noise as possible. Yet her voice still echoed slightly throughout the stairwell.
"For now nothing. All sorts of things can go wrong and it's not like we're strapped for food, not with the crazy old man's stock anyway. All that matters is that we know our floor is cleared, why bother with those doors? Kevin, didn't you mention hearing some loud noise coming from one of the apartments?"
"Last time we were on the third floor I passed by a room and could swear that I heard something. Could be wrong though. When I tried listening again, I didn't hear anything."
"We'll have to check it out later I suppose. For now let's try and deal with the fourth floor." As soon as Tyrone finished speaking, the group was already at the door that led to said floor.
He was the first to open and step inside after putting away his flashlight, followed by the two behind him. As soon as they went in, they came upon a sight they never could have expected. Two large men were exiting one of the doors carrying bags of what seemed to be food.
"Wait, I didn't say I hated it or anything. Just not the biggest fan! I like it and all but some are ju-"
As soon as the one of the men who seemed to be the leader saw the group, he handed his bag to the speaking fat man who shut up once he saw the situation.
"Who... are you?"
He glanced at Lily and backed up slightly, moving towards the door while dragging the fatter of the two with him. As for Lily, her gun was up and aimed at him after noticing the gun in his waist. Tyrone saw this and put his hands up in a non-threatening manner.
"Woah woah! Easy now, don't want nobody to get hurt! Lily put it down."
She glanced at him, only complying when seeing his head nod slightly.
"See? All friends here. Let's start with names, hm? Mine's Tyrone. One with the gun here is Lily, and the lanky guy over there is Kevin. You are?"
"Lanky?" Kevin silently whispered to himself with an odd look.
"H-Hi I'm Zach." The fat one now named Zach stuttered slightly, seemingly nervous as he glanced to Lily occasionally.
"Nice to meet you Zach. And you are...?"
The other man stared dangerously at Zach with his right hand twitching as if about to slap him, making the latter cower slightly. He replied several seconds later.
"Jason."
"Alright then good. So, is it just you two? Or maybe do you have a larger group?"
"Larger group. We were sent down to clean up this floor and scavenge for supplies."
Kevin looked at the both of them before speaking.
"Just you two?"
"What can I say? We're pretty strong. This one here looks all shy and scared, but sure is real scary in a fight."
Jason slapped Zach's belly, scaring him slightly.
"Right. Well, I'll just get right to it. I'd like to invite both you and your group to join up with us. There's strength in numbers after all." Tyrone held out his hand and had a light smile on his face.
Immediately Lily elbowed him in the ribs, making his face frown in pain, and whispered into his ear.
"What the fuck are you doing?! Why invite them when we don't even know them?! Who knows how fucked up they really are? No way am I bringing them to where Alice sleeps!"
"Take a breath and relax. Look at them. They sure don't look like foaming at the mouth psychopaths. Just see it as intuition. A gut feeling. Besides, we could use the help with the first floor."
"Intuition? Have you forgotten about Tom?"
"No... No I have not. Not even for a second." Tyron suddenly looked down, a melancholy expression appeared on his face. Before they could continue further, Jason replied to them with a light smile on his face.
"No thanks, we're good."
Tyrone was surprised and took a few seconds to respond.
"A-Are you sure? You've seen what those monsters can do. It'll be safer together."
"Like I said. We're good. I'll discuss it with the rest of the group, but I'm sure they'll share my sentiment."
His hand gripping the hammer started to tighten. There was clearly no use in arguing, so Tyrone didn't bother any further.
"I see. If you change your minds, we'll be on the second floor. We'll get out of your hair now. Let's go."
With that, Tyrone and his group turned and walked towards the door they entered. Only when they were gone, and the door was shut behind them did Zach finally speak to Jason.
"What was that? Why did you lie to them like that? Why aren't we joining them either?"
"Because we can't trust them. Who knows if they told the truth about how many people were in their group. Hell, maybe they would have just shot us if they didn't see the gun I had."
"They didn't seem like bad people. I mean, Lily could have shot you there..."
"Humans were evil pricks before the apocalypse, I highly doubt they would suddenly become loving angels who bathe in unicorn shit. I'm sure you know how much of an asshole people can be."
With that he went back into the apartment and grabbed the body, lugging it on his shoulder as he made his way to the stairwell. As for Zach, he was in his own little world as he stood unmoving. Repressed memories that he tried so hard to bury came gushing forth, wiggling around inside his mind like a worm.
He wanted to forget, so desperately to forget the pain. Thus he went back to the 5th floor, dropping the bags in front of Jason's room, before slinking off to his place to drown himself in manga. To make himself forget.
As for Tyrone and friends, they spoke quietly as they returned from whence they came. Kevin was the first to speak up.
"I think he was lying about having a larger group. He seems to be too cautious around others."
"I agree, but it could be he's not lyin."
Lily suddenly interjected.
"Enough about all that. Did you see the rooms? Not a single one of the doors were locked. They didn't look like they were broken either. It may be just a coincidence, but it could also be possible that they have the means to open these locked doors without breaking them down."
"Hm, definitely something to think about. Let's just hope they're good people..."
Nothing more was said as they made their way down the eerily silent stairs. Even though the place was safe, they still felt a sort of lingering fear whenever they came here. Finally arriving at the door to the second floor the group entered inside quickly, unconsciously eager to leave the stairs. Thus they were silent once more... for now.
As soon as they arrived on the second floor, they saw a young girl standing there nervously looking towards their direction. She was similar to Lily in many ways. White skin with long blond hair that reached to the middle of her back.
Body proportions were lacking in comparison, but the face was slightly similar to Lily's. The height of this young girl was at a low 5ft 4in. Unlike her superior counterpart, she had zero muscle whatsoever and lacked any sort of weapon.
"Alice! What are you doing out here?" Lily ran towards her obvious sister and hugged her.
"I was just, you know, a little worried about you."
"Aw that's sweet!" Lily suddenly intensified her hug and began kissing her cheeks.
"Ugh! Get off me you She-Hulk! I was wrong to worry about you! You probably scare off all those zombies by flexing. Just like your last boyfriend."
"Hey! Not my fault he couldn't handle my awesomeness. His lost."
"So, anything happen?"
"Yeah, let me tell you all about it." With that Lily finally relented, while Tyrone finished watching with some chuckles and headed to the main apartment. As for Kevin, he disappeared to his personal apartment.
Inside off to the left in the kitchen was a mini mountain of canned food and MREs. The entire place from the walls to the ceiling was decorated in camo. On the shelves were pictures that told the tale of a soldier. From a wet behind the ears youth, to a war hardened warrior, and finally to a graying old man with a constant frown glued to his face.
Said old man was sitting in front a desk with an old radio, tinkering with it. On his left was a fully loaded and clean, but worn M16. His white hair was unkempt and long enough to reach his shoulders.
He has a modest beard attached to his chin, nothing too great but nothing bad either. With a 6ft 1in height and plenty of muscles visible to see even beneath his clothes, it was hard to guess this old man's age was in his 70s.
Tyrone pulled a nearby chair over and sat down casually, as if this were his home.
"Hey old man."
"Just take a seat why don't ya? Want me to make you some coffee too? How about a foot rub?"
"If you're offering I certainly wouldn't mind."
"Hmph, enough with the bullshit. What'd you want?"
"I'll get right to it then. We finally found some more survivors. It was two of them, both men. They said they were part of a larger group but we're not too sure, probably a lie."
"And? Why the hell are you coming to me with this?"
"Because I want to take them in. Call it a gut feeling, but they don't look bad. If it really was the two of them all alone, they might be good fighters seeing as they survived for so long. Thought I'd come to you to ask for some sagely advice. Old people are suppose to wise, ain't that right old man?"
Tyrone finished off that sentence with a teasing smile on his face, which Bill did not take lightly. He stopped his tinkering and glared at him with the fury of a thousand sun's.
"Old?! Tell you this you little shit. While you were in diapers shittin yourself I was killing those commie bastards with nothing but my bare hands! Let me tell you something else! If I was 10, no 5 years younger I'd whoop yo' ass boy! Old? Pfft."
With that rant out of his system he went back to his tinkering, mumbling to himself while Tyrone started chuckling.
"Yeah laugh it up. So you want to know what I think? Leave em to rot. Not our problem I say. Don't need more mouths to feed, even if we have the food. And who knows what kinda crazies they are."
"Hm. We'll vote on it later at dinner."
"Done? Good, now fuck off."
"Hehe alright 'old' man."
"You little son of a bitch!"
Tyrone ran away laughing while Bill gave chase, determined to knock some sense into him. Though they were still careful enough to not make too much noise, given the state of the first floor.
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When I dropped the body into the usual spot, the lack of some corpses drew my attention. Usain Bolter was back? What grand news! To celebrate I grabbed 2 cans of Chef Boyardee and the bag of M&Ms. Of course it was going to be cold Chef Boyardee. Want to refrain making a fire in this place, lest I burn the place down by accident.
Went to Zach's to share the great news, and almost tripped from the bags he left in front of my door. Dumbass. After those were placed away, I opened his door and let myself in. Found him sitting there on his couch reading his manga.
"Hey Zach, wanna hear some fantastic news? You know, after your fuck up I thought Usain Bolter was lost to us. Scared away. But tonight, I found traces that he has returned! So let's eat these goodies as celebration!"
"That's uh... great."
What's he so bummed out about?
"What's wrong?"
He sat there for a few seconds before responding.
"Oh it's nothing really. Just some old memories popped up from what you said."
Huh. Traumatic past? Character development incoming? I took a seat next to him and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Want to talk about it?"
"Heh, it's really not too complicated. When I was younger, I was bullied a lot for the things I liked. Anime, manga, and whatnot. Shamed at home for it too. Made me not want to talk about my hobbies with other people. I mean I connected with people online and with cosplayers and such, that was nice. But, I'm still scared of being judged sometimes."
Gave his shoulder a nice firm squeeze that made his face scrunch up in pain.
"Hey. It's alright to like these things, hell I like them too. And if people don't like it and judge you for it? Then show them the middle finger and say 'Go fuck yourself!'. Their opinion means jack shit! So don't let it keep you down. If anything, they're probably jealous that you have a hobby to be passionate about. Now, let's eat this these things."
With that out of the way, we dug into cold food and delicious candy while making more small talk. When we finished and it was getting dark, we headed to sleep.
*RAAAAHHHHH*
Holy hell that was close! Might have to sleep with one eye open tonight.