The End

Two

"Yes, I'm a nerd. Judge me."

"I won't judge. I can be pretty nerdy too. But anyways, I'm going to sleep, so...goodnight."

"'Night." After about an hour of reading, I went to bed too.

**************************************

The sound of a plastic wrapper being torn into woke me up the next morning. As my mind slowly began to work, I forgot for a split second that I had met someone the day before. My eyes shot open and my hand went to the weapon I had hidden under my mattress. As soon as I sat up and saw Mark, my heart settled down and I pushed my favorite knife back to its hiding spot.

"Sorry, did I wake you up?" he asked, his hair a bit of a mess as if he had just gotten up recently himself. I nodded in response, rubbing my eyes. "All the food we have is pre-packaged and my damn stomach was growling. I thought I could be somewhat quiet."

"It's fine," I yawned, looking at the time. It was a little after 8. I went to sleep at around midnight, so I had gotten plenty of rest. I rummaged though the food we had and found a muffin. I tore into it and ate.

"So, I was thinking we could go on an adventure today," Mark told me.

"You haven't even been my roommate for twenty-four hours and you're already wanting to go out on adventures?" I complained.

"I need all my manly soaps and underwear, remember? Besides, I haven't had a chance to explore the area much. I thought we could try to find something fun to do while we're out. You know this campus pretty well by now, right?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

"Well, we should probably get an early start. It's better to get this type of thing done in the daytime when we can see zom-zoms and not bring attention to ourselves with flashlights." I couldn't help but laugh a little at that.

"Did you just say zom-zoms?"

"Yeah, what about it?"

"Nothing. I'm going to go shower if we must get such an early start," I decided. I threw away the wrapping from my now eaten muffin and grabbed clothes and towels.

Once I was clean and my hair was dry, I returned to the room. Mark was back in his old jeans, but he wore the t-shirt I had given him instead of his tank and tattered short-sleeved button up. I was dressed in a black long-sleeved shirt, my leather jacket, jeans, and combat boots. According to the weather app on my phone, it was supposed to be chilly outside. Even though I had nobody to talk to at this point, having a still-working phone was useful.

"I'd offer to give you a jacket, but I don't have anything else that will fit you," I told him, securing my gun in its holster and my knife in it's place on my belt.

"That's alright, I can handle it until I get one of my own. Ready?"

"Yep." We took the elevator down to the main level, since I had the stairs blocked up (Mark had returned the furniture he had moved to their original places in the homemade barricade). We left the building and I smiled at the falling leaves that were so brilliantly colored. Even though this place was empty except for monsters, it at least was still beautiful. Fall was a pretty time for an apocalypse.

"So, which way to the mall?" Mark wondered.

"That way, but it's too far to walk," I pointed, realizing the dilemma. I didn't have a car on campus, and most people had left in their cars. I had found safety in living on this campus, so I never really tried to steal a car and leave.

"Well, there's a couple cars in the parking lot, still. We could pretty easily break into one. Or, we could ride bikes to the nearest car dealership and get something nice and new." A new car sounded amazing, and it wasn't like we'd have to come up with the money for it. Nobody was working around here anymore. I assumed that there were still some people in the area, but they would have been doing the same thing as me - staying inside their safe place as much as possible and stealing to get the items they needed to survive.