The Townhouse

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It’s been three days since the zombie apocalypse, and I have to say I’m pretty lucky.  It seem pretty likely that the disease is airborne, because all of the sudden it just happened.  I suppose it could also be in the water, but I normally drink tap water, so that seems unlikely.  I’m all locked up in my townhouse, and frankly, I’m feeling pretty secure.  The type of zombies seems to be pretty typical.  They’re mindless, slow, can shuffle, but can’t really run full-stride.  They don’t seem to be breathing, so I think they are not “living” in the traditional sense.  They also can’t climb, or open doors.   On another good note, it seems to have happened worldwide, and overnight in this area, so after three days, the power is still on.  I once watched a documentary on the History Channel about how long things would last if people suddenly vanished.  They said the power grid would stay active about three days if it happened in the middle of the day with everything on, probably triple that if it happened at night.  So I figured I had 4-5 more days of power.  Knowing that wasn’t that helpful, because there wasn’t too much I could do about it being trapped in my house, but I did stock up on water while the power was still working, so there’s that. 

Speaking of trapped, that’s something I’d have to remedy.  I had a sign out on my deck that read, “If you are alive and can read this, show yourself at Noon.  After three days, no one had showed, so the death toll seems pretty high at this point.  I’m in reasonable line of sight (and my sign is huge) of at least 20 other decks.  So out of 20 other places, with an average occupancy of probably two, that’s already less than 5%.  A lot less.  And I’ve seen at least 100 wandering zombies at this point.  But none on decks, though that makes sense, because they don’t seem to be able to open doors. 

Though that leads me to another question, are there zombies and survivors, or are there zombies, survivors, and something else?  Is the something else just dead people, or are there worse than zombies?  So I definitely need to do some recon.  The townhouse is live in is “quad style”, meaning rather than being in a row, it’s a big building divided in halves down the middle, so everyone has a corner, if you will.  That means that if I look around the barrier on my deck, I can see my neighbor’s deck.  If I get on the roof from my deck, I can visit all three decks.  The decks don’t have stairs, so most people don’t even lock them.  That would come in handy if it held true.  So I geared up for a quick snatch and grab of my neighbors.  My handgun in a holster on my belt, a pump pistol grip shotgun in a makeshift holster across my back, a backpack mostly empty except for a small set of tools, some rope, and duct tape, and 36” pry bar.  I went to my deck and scanned the area for movement.  Nothing.  I even used some binoculars I had to make sure no one was trying to be subtle.  By no means did I think I was the last on earth, but the death count was looking high.  I used a painters ladder from my deck to get to the top of the roof, and I was on my way.