<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess I kinda thought when the world ended it\u2019d be relaxing.\u201d The Santa Anna winds blew the hot smell of rotting flesh, and wildfires across his face. The herd was, maybe a mile out, so they still had some down time.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d Braeden didn\u2019t really care, but he said nothing so the noob would keep talking.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI mean no nine to five, no papers to grade or bills to pay. Secretly I think we all thought it\u2019d be kind of relaxing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYou never thought about having to scavenge for food, or amebic dysentery? I bet you even thought there\u2019d be an endless supply of bullets.\u201d He continued sharpening his steel arrow head knowing the noob was one of those. The people that loved the zombie films, maybe even used to dress in camos and stare at their canned food supply patting themselves on the back because they could survive anything, but now that anything had actually happened, they were a little caught off guard. It was one thing to have post apocalyptic dreams. It was another to be awake while the zombies were biting.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cSo what\u2019d you do before?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cDoes it matter?\u201d Noobs all asked the same questions; where were you from, what did you do, did you lose anyone? It was like a rite of passage when you joined a group.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI think it does. It helps us get to know each other and it passes the time. Besides it can\u2019t hurt anything,\u201d he said wiping the sweat from his face.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cSomeday you\u2019ll turn and I\u2019ll have to bash in your brains, that’s all I need to know.\u201d Anymore than that and it\u2019d be harder to bash in the noob\u2019s brain. Which he knew he\u2019d have to do at some point. Scavenging missions only ever ended one way. The noob got bit and he\u2019d have to keep them from turning. It was better not to know who they were. It was better not to get too attached to the soon to be dead.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Braeden was pretty sure that\u2019s how the zombie apocalypse would happen. Dreaming about a post-apocalyptic world was a hell of a lot easier than studying for his Ap chem midterm. Killing noobs was easy, Avagadro\u2019s number was hard. He wished the apocalypse would happen before second hour.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n END.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cI guess I kinda thought when the world ended it\u2019d be relaxing.\u201d The Santa Anna winds blew the hot smell of rotting flesh, and wildfires across his face. The herd was, maybe a mile out, so they still had some down time. \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d Braeden didn\u2019t really care, but he said…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,2,8],"tags":[54,97,100,101,104],"class_list":["post-142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives","category-astounding-stories","category-zombie-tales","tag-living-dead","tag-zombie","tag-zombie-short-stories-walking-dead","tag-zombie-stories","tag-zombies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}