How Zombies Survive in the Apocalypse

“…There’s not much here after all.”

Susan spoke those words as they searched through the private rooms lining the corridor of the nursing home.

As she said, they had already checked over 10 rooms, but there were no significant gains.

“It couldn’t be helped. We shouldn’t have expected much from a place like this.”

In response, Aiden said that.

Susan had assumed this was a base occupied by a survivor group.

And until entering the interior, even Aiden hadn’t doubted Susan’s assumption.

It had seemed like a plausible enough location.

However, this nursing home wasn’t an abandoned base from long ago.

The zombies that had remained here weren’t survivors who had settled in, but rather elderly residents unable to leave, along with the nurses who hadn’t managed to abandon them.

“…”

In those private nursing home rooms, there was only a single bed, a clothes hanger, and a small drawer.

Most of the beds were empty.

Likely because those still capable of forced movement had left their beds after becoming zombies.

Aiden briefly examined the IV stands beside the beds.

On the desiccated IV bags were dates faintly inscribed from about 3 years ago.

He then opened the knee-high small drawers.

First, he saw someone’s photograph.

The faded photo showed an elderly man smiling with what appeared to be his family.

Next to it were a national medal and a small ring.

Truly just items for the elderly to reminisce about the past.

However, none of it qualified as useful supplies for survivors.

So Aiden simply closed the drawer again.

“I’m sorry. It seems I made you go through unnecessary trouble due to my misjudgment.”

After checking most of those rooms, Susan apologized.

The end of the rectangular corridor encircling the indoor garden was already in sight.

Aiden shook his head.

“We haven’t checked everything yet, so there’s no need to jump to conclusions.”

He pointed towards a door at that end.

Twin deep blue doors that seemed quite different from those leading to the private rooms.

However, those doors were covered in suspicious marks.

Perhaps from fingernails?

It seemed the zombies had once tried to force their way through.

Click-

But the doors were locked.

Aiden rummaged through the key ring he had found and located the matching key.

The door soon opened.

Inside wasn’t a small patient room, but a much larger space.

It was… a dining hall.

“This is…”

Susan looked around the dining hall.

The interior was quiet.

Several tables and chairs were scattered haphazardly on the floor, but atop the layer of dust, there were no other marks.

It meant no one had entered here for a long time.

“…”

Seeing this, a glimmer of hope finally appeared in Susan’s eyes.

If it was the dining hall, or more specifically the kitchen, there was a high probability of finding supplies.

So Aiden and Susan immediately crossed the dining hall and entered the kitchen.

It was a fairly large kitchen.

Incomparable to a regular household, it was as spacious as a decent restaurant’s kitchen.

Lining the kitchen walls were numerous cooking utensils and equipment.

However, any edible provisions were… almost non-existent.

While some remnants of long-rotted ingredients could be seen, there were no preserved foods like canned goods. At best, only some salt and pepper seasonings were present. But that alone couldn’t be considered proper supplies.

Since they couldn’t even obtain food and water for today, it was practically a complete loss.

“Look at this.”

It was then that Susan called out to Aiden.

What she had found was a small door in a corner of the kitchen.

Upon closer inspection, it seemed to be a walk-in freezer that had been converted into a large storage room.

“The door is locked. There should be something inside…”

Susan spoke with concern.

She seemed to have pinned her final hopes on that freezer storage.

However, instead of keys, Aiden first drew his axe.

“Be careful.”

There had clearly been traces of zombies trying to force their way into the dining hall door.

That meant people had been present, but there were no zombies or corpses in the dining hall and kitchen.

Moreover, there didn’t seem to be any other space where people could have escaped.

So it was highly likely that whoever had been trapped here was inside that freezer storage.

“…Understood.”

Realizing this, Susan also gripped her weapon.

Aiden used one hand to unlock the padlock and carefully opened the door.

“…”

The interior of the pitch-black freezer, devoid of any windows, was revealed.

Along the freezer walls were tall shelves, and on them could be seen some water and food supplies.

They had finally discovered scavengeable resources.

However, neither Susan nor even Aiden immediately approached those supplies.

In front of those shelves lay a fallen corpse that couldn’t be mistaken for a zombie due to its complete skeletonization.

Aiden slowly lowered his weapon.

He then carefully observed those remains.

The long-deceased corpse consisted of two individuals.

Judging by their remaining clothes and hair… perhaps a man and a woman each.

Additionally, the matching wedding rings on their bony fingers were clearly of the same design.

And amid their intertwined skeletal hands lay a single pistol.

It seemed this couple had ultimately committed suicide together in their final moments.

“Haah…”

Whether it was a sigh of relief at the absence of zombies or a lament for the tragic fate of this unnamed couple, a deep breath escaped Susan’s lips.

As Susan hesitated to enter through the doorway, Aiden walked steadily into the freezer.

First, he carefully removed the pistol that had been between the couple.

Perhaps to retrieve any remaining ammunition, but after doing so, it appeared as if the two skeletons were now holding hands.

There were a total of six rounds in the pistol.

Moreover, on the shelves were also unused rifle cartridges.

It seemed this place had served as both a food storage and one of the few weapon caches.

“Take only what we need and let’s move on. There’s no point lingering here any longer.”

After surveying the scene, Aiden calmly spoke those words.

Prompted by his urging, Susan dispelled her hesitation and entered the freezer.

And so, they gathered enough food and water supplies for 2 or 3 days before returning to their temporary shelter.

* * *

The next day.

After completing their search in Fairfield, Aiden’s group set out for their next destination, Houston.

The scenery along Interstate Highway 45 they were traveling remained serene yet desolate, but Aiden’s vehicle had guests today.

Susan and Theo.

The originally 6-seater vehicle had ample space even with the two new passengers.

It was because many of their supplies had been expended after the recent series of events.

“Thank you for giving us a ride.”

Susan, seated in the back, spoke those words.

The distance from Fairfield to Houston exceeded 200 kilometers.

A single day’s journey by vehicle, but if traveling on foot, even an adult would need a full 5 days of walking.

So for Susan, Aiden’s assistance wasn’t a trivial matter, saving her not only time but also the consumption of supplies and potential dangers on the journey.

Aiden nodded in response.

Giving these wanderers a ride wasn’t purely a one-sided kindness from Aiden’s group.

Now, Aiden’s group needed to make contact with the survivor group in Houston.

Yet Susan already knew the specific location of that group.

If there truly was a base there, and Susan’s uncle was part of that group…

From Aiden’s perspective, it would bypass many necessary processes to establish at least a minimum level of trust.

Since they were headed to Houston anyway, it was no loss for them.

However, there was one point that concerned Aiden.

It was the possibility Asher from Dallas had mentioned – that something might have happened to the Houston survivor group, causing their trade to abruptly cease.

Aiden hadn’t shared that with Susan.

It wasn’t a certainty, merely the ambiguous clue that their continuous trade had suddenly been cut off.

However, that afternoon…

“How could this… happen…”

Upon arriving at the supposed base of the Houston survivor group, Susan trailed off.

There, Aiden could confirm with his own eyes that it wasn’t just an ominous premonition.

“…Was there a battle here?”

Aiden muttered while observing the shattered remnants of a barricade.

One side of the roughly 4-meter-tall barrier, woven from wooden posts and steel plates, was completely demolished.

At this, Aiden frowned deeply.

The group that had been here was supposed to number around 2,000 people.

Although small compared to places like Shreveport or Fort Wayne, it wasn’t a size that should have been easily overwhelmed by a mutant or two.

So then… had there been a conflict with another group?

The collapsed barricade alone didn’t provide enough clues.

“…”

Aiden briefly contemplated their next course of action.

The situation hadn’t unfolded as expected, but they couldn’t simply move on to another city.

They had no leads regarding cities beyond Houston, and their supplies for travel were also lacking.

Moreover, it was still unknown whether the group that had been here was completely wiped out or not. If even a portion of them had survived and Aiden’s group could encounter them, it would be worthwhile to make contact.

Even if they couldn’t obtain supplies, they could at least secure their blood.

“Let’s check the interior first. What do you think?”

So Aiden made that suggestion, and his companions agreed.

They parked their vehicle near the collapsed barricade.

Aiden decided to move together as a group without splitting up.

While Susan seemed to think it would be better to leave the children in the vehicle, Aiden didn’t change his mind.

If they left the children behind, it would inevitably mean leaving Arian in the vehicle as well. But to assess the situation of this destroyed base, her abilities were essential.

And so, they crossed over the collapsed barricade.

Inside were makeshift buildings constructed from tents and the like.

And scattered around were the corpses of both zombies and humans.

“…”

Seeing this, Susan’s face stiffened.

She must have been apprehensive about potentially discovering her uncle among those corpses.

Arian’s expression also stiffened.

This scene of human bodies decomposing en masse was certainly not something she wanted a child to witness.

“Both of you, just look at your sister, understood?”

So Arian said that as she tried to block Sadie and Theo’s line of sight.

While Sadie obediently nodded, Theo seemed frustrated and tried to evade Arian’s interference, looking around restlessly.

“Theo! Stay still!”

Only after his mother’s stern rebuke did the child’s tantrum subside.

In the meantime…

“There seems to be more than one cause of death here.”

Aiden was the only one carefully observing the numerous corpses.

On the already significantly decayed bodies, maggots were swarming in droves.

However, Aiden paid it no heed and calmly surveyed the scene.

Arian, after entrusting the children to Susan for a moment, approached Aiden.

“Any clues?”

“To some extent. For example, this person didn’t die from a zombie bite. They were shot in the head and killed.”

Aiden pointed to a particularly gruesome corpse as he spoke.

Arian briefly looked at that body but, unlike Aiden, couldn’t discern the cause of death.

So she immediately demanded the conclusion.

“Are you saying there was ultimately fighting between people?”

“No… there also seem to be some who fell victim to zombies. It’s hard to tell which came first.”

Aiden let out a sigh as he said that.

Battles between humans drawing in zombies was a common occurrence.

However, even Aiden couldn’t be certain whether the people here had fought and inadvertently lured in zombies, or if zombies had attacked first, leading to infighting among the survivors.

“We should look around more. You said there was a school here?”

Observing the corpses, Aiden turned to Susan and asked.

According to her, this base had been established centered around two schools in the northern part of the city.

“That’s right.”

“Then that must be the school building over there.”

Aiden spoke while looking at a distant structure.

As he said, amid the chaotic ruins, a building stood prominently on the flat ground.

With a road running between them, schools flanked on either side.

At this, Aiden gestured towards Arian.

She would be able to sense if anyone remained inside.

However, Arian shook her head.

Then, in a voice low enough for only Aiden to hear, she muttered:

“It’s strange. There are no people or zombies in either of them.”

“Hmm…”

Aiden let out a quiet sigh.

An empty base, it seemed.

In the end, they wouldn’t encounter any survivors, but it wasn’t an entirely negative fact.

If it had simply been a battle between zombies and humans, leading to the group’s annihilation, there should have been at least some zombies left inside the base.

But with not a single zombie remaining within, it meant someone had intentionally cleared out this place afterwards.

In other words, even if this base was vacant, there were still survivors in the city who had handled the cleanup.

“Let’s move further inside.”

Aiden’s group entered those school buildings and quickly swept through the interiors.

The result was as Aiden had expected.

In the base where over 2,000 people had lived, hardly any supplies remained.

Additionally, the number of corpses didn’t seem to match that population either.

At most, only about half that number had died here.

The rest appeared to have survived and escaped from this base.

Aiden shared this conjecture with his companions.

There were no objections, and instead, Susan let out a sigh of relief at the prospect of survivors.

“Then next… we need to search for those survivors in the city.”

Naturally, their next task was decided.

Just as Aiden was about to declare their withdrawal, it happened.

“…Wait a moment.”

Arian, who had been surveying the surroundings, called out to Aiden.

“What is it?”

“There’s a person.”

“How many?”

“One. But I can’t tell if there are more further back due to the distance.”

It was unexpected information.

Aiden had thought everyone had already departed, but there was a survivor remaining at the base.

However, Arian’s next words negated Aiden’s conjecture.

“The location is outside the barricade. Do you see over there?”

Arian pointed beyond the school buildings.

In the opposite direction from where Aiden’s group had entered, towards the residential area.

The barricade on that side was also heavily breached, and Arian said there was a person in one of the houses beyond that collapsed barricade.

It was a rather strange location, with the residential area outside the barricade being dangerous yet unlikely to harbor anything of value.

“What should we do?”

Arian asked.

But for Aiden, who had decided to search for survivors, the answer was already set.

“We should meet them once.”