How Zombies Survive in the Apocalypse

That evening.

Having just finished a modest dinner, Aiden’s group was preparing to spend the night in the animal shelter that served as their temporary lodging.

Small sleeping bags for Sadie and Arian were spread out, and Aiden, as always, stood by the window that was starting to darken, holding his weapon.

A bleak moonlight poured down over the small town covered in darkness.

It was pitch black and nothing could be seen, but only the desert-like soil reflected that moonlight, glowing bluish.

Aiden quietly watched this scene that looked as if mist was flowing.

Nothing was moving.

In this landscape that seemed frozen in time.

Behind him, he could hear Arian and Sadie chatting softly as they lay in their beds.

“Today was fun, wasn’t it?”

Arian started.

Sadie answered in a whisper.

The child’s voice was barely audible even to Aiden, but there was almost no sign of fatigue.

It seems this midnight chat might go on for a while.

“…”

Of course, making noise in the middle of the night wasn’t a very wise thing to do.

After sunset was the time of zombies and mutants, not humans.

But Aiden just listened to their conversation.

He didn’t want to silence the child reminiscing about a special day for such a trivial reason.

If there were any corpses drawn by their voices, he would deal with them himself.

Thinking this, Aiden kept his gaze fixed on the darkness outside the window.

Meanwhile, the two girls were talking about how smart Louie, the Retriever they had met today, was.

Then they exchanged stories about past encounters with dogs, stories related to cats, and then chatted about what animals they would like to keep in the future.

“Tomorrow… can we see him again?”

Suddenly, Sadie asked that.

The child added, as if making an excuse, that there was still some dog food left.

Arian smiled at Sadie’s child-like excuse and opened her mouth.

“Well. What do you think?”

Arian asked Aiden like that, but in fact, she already had an answer in mind.

As far as Arian knew, this timid question was the first whim Sadie had ever expressed.

Even if Aiden’s group went to meet Louie tomorrow, there would be no benefit.

Sadie probably knew that too.

It was just her desire to see the dog flowing out as it was.

But because of that, Arian was happy with Sadie’s words.

It seemed like the child who always seemed to be watching others’ reactions had finally opened her heart.

And Aiden felt the same way.

He inwardly gauged the location of Louie’s house.

Though it would be a bit of a detour, it wouldn’t significantly affect their journey.

“If it’s just to say a final goodbye, I suppose it’s alright.”

Aiden answered, and Sadie smiled softly inside her sleeping bag.

Reassured, the child soon fell asleep.

And so, a quiet night passed.

* * *

The next morning.

Having finished their departure preparations, Aiden’s group left the animal shelter where they had spent two nights.

Originally, they should have moved straight south from here, but having accepted Sadie’s request, the group decided to visit Louie’s house before leaving Grants.

Louie’s house was in a residential area in the northwest of the city.

So Aiden’s group first moved west, delving into the inner part of the city.

But during that time.

“Huh…?”

After walking for about 10 minutes along the road stretching straight west. Just as they were about to enter a small residential area, Arian tilted her head looking ahead.

“What’s wrong?”

“I hear a dog barking from over there.”

Arian pointed in a direction.

It wasn’t the direction where Louie’s house was.

But since the only dog in this city was that Retriever, the next question came from Sadie.

“Is it Louie?”

“Yes.”

Arian confirmed.

She hadn’t forgotten Louie’s voice that had barked at Aiden just yesterday.

“…”

A shadow fell over Sadie’s face.

She too knew all too well what Louie, who liked people so much, would be barking at.

“This way.”

Arian led the group.

Worried, Sadie’s steps were quick as she followed.

Matching this, Arian also increased her speed.

So they traversed the city center.

They passed by a tobacco shop in a long building, and then an abandoned laundromat and government office building next to it.

Then Aiden and Sadie could also hear Louie’s barking.

A cracked cry, as if he had been barking for quite a while.

Sadie’s face darkened even more.

They continued to pass through intersections, and eventually, the place they arrived at was… a cemetery.

A cemetery that occupied barely a block, not even as wide as a small park.

“Look over there.”

Arian pointed beyond the fence surrounding the cemetery.

There was Louie barking loudly and zombies wandering around the graves.

Fortunately, the zombies weren’t showing aggression towards Louie.

It was natural, as ordinary zombies don’t show any special reaction to non-human creatures.

The zombies had just been drawn there by the sound of Louie’s barking.

In the end, the corpses that couldn’t find prey were wandering around the cemetery, alternating between reacting to Louie’s sound and not.

“…”

Aiden silently glared at the dog and zombies.

The zombies’ reaction was understandable.

It was nothing special, just as expected.

What he couldn’t understand was rather Louie’s side.

Louie was a dog trained to run away instead of barking first when he spotted zombies.

Even yesterday, Louie had just backed away when he saw Aiden.

Louie had only shown hostility towards Aiden when he stepped into his territory.

Does that mean… this place is Louie’s territory?

But it didn’t seem likely that this cemetery would have any connection to a dog.

Could there possibly be his owner’s grave here?

However, a dog guarding not its home, but its owner’s grave.

It wasn’t a common dog behavior.

“Let’s deal with the zombies first.”

Arian said.

For Aiden, it was taking more risk than expected, but having come this far, he had no objections.

“Alright. I’ll go from the front.”

Aiden said, pulling out his axe.

Arian nodded.

“Then I’ll go from behind.”

“Right, don’t overdo it.”

Aiden added as if advising.

There were about 20 zombies spread out in the cemetery.

It was too many to handle easily.

So while there was room for Arian to play a role, it was dangerous to consume blood for combat right now. No one could guarantee whether they would meet more people in the future or not.

Arian nodded as if she understood this too.

Then her figure ran along the fence.

Aiden watched Arian’s back for a moment before climbing over the fence.

“Sadie, stay behind me.”

After helping Sadie climb over the fence, Aiden said this.

Sadie nodded, tightly gripping her crossbow.

“Grrrk…!”

Immediately, one of the closest zombies spotted them.

But before Aiden’s axe could move.

Thwack!

An arrow silently flew and lodged in the zombie’s forehead.

Its knees buckled, and it collapsed to the ground like a puppet with cut strings.

“Hmm…”

Seeing this, Aiden readjusted his grip on the axe.

Perhaps worried about Louie, Sadie’s aura was sharper than usual.

If so, Aiden couldn’t just stand still either.

“Kieek!”

“Kaaah!”

Just then, zombies on the opposite side of the cemetery let out horrible screams.

Arian, who had said she would go around to the back, had joined the battlefield.

The zombies’ attention turned towards the clear sounds of combat, not the dog’s barking.

It was a golden opportunity for Aiden.

Swoosh!

He ran.

He swung his axe at the back of the head of the zombie at the forefront.

With a crushing sound, the zombie’s head was shattered. The axe blade deeply penetrated the zombie’s skull.

Splat!

The rotten chunk of flesh fell over onto a gravestone.

Belatedly, the zombies reacted and turned their heads.

But by then, Aiden’s axe was already striking another one’s neck.

“Kiaaah!”

At this clear violence, the surrounding zombies all let out screams.

The corpses rushed towards Aiden.

However, some of them fell midway, hit by arrows flying from behind him.

Some were swept away by a blood-red wave, their upper and lower bodies splitting apart.

As a result, only three reached Aiden.

He dealt with them one by one, with machine-like movements.

In an instant, the moving corpses became non-moving corpses.

Crack!

As the third zombie’s head was smashed, it fell face-first to the ground.

Aiden immediately looked for the next target, but suddenly there were no more zombies standing in this cemetery.

Only Arian was chopping down on the head of a zombie struggling on the ground with her machete a little distance away.

Finally, a silence befitting a graveyard descended.

“Is it over?”

“Yeah, this is the last one.”

Arian answered Aiden’s question, asked just in case.

Aiden nodded and shook off the rotten blood on his axe once.

Then he looked at the dog that had been barking in the middle of the cemetery.

“…Was it guarding this?”

Next to the Retriever, Louie, who was there, were gravestones.

The surnames engraved on three gravestones standing in a row were all the same.

Probably belonging to some family.

And next to such a family grave, there was the body of someone who couldn’t be buried in the grave.

A body already greatly decomposed with bones showing.

It had been dead for… about 3 months?

But the clothes the body was wearing were familiar to Aiden’s eyes.

It was what the old man photographed with Louie was wearing in the picture he saw yesterday.

Aiden finally understood the approximate situation.

The old man who had been Louie’s owner had probably ended his life at the grave of his family members here. And Louie was guarding his owner’s body.

“Fortunately, he’s not injured.”

Arian said, approaching Louie and checking his condition.

A sigh of relief escaped from her.

But Louie greeted Arian leisurely, wagging his tail as if he remembered her.

“…”

Sadie finally smiled watching Louie.

But she couldn’t go to Louie as she was busy retrieving the arrows she had shot.

So Aiden stepped forward.

“I’ll retrieve the arrows.”

“What? But…”

“It’s fine, go ahead. You should say goodbye.”

A suggestion Sadie would normally refuse on her own.

But not this time.

Sadie followed Aiden’s words, looking very apologetic.

“…Louie.”

When Sadie called Louie’s name, the dog greeted her happily.

Sadie patted Louie a few times and even hugged him tightly, then fumbled in her bag to take out canned food and give it to Louie.

Arian and Aiden quietly watched Sadie do this.

“Come to think of it… he’s not barking now?”

Arian said, looking back and forth between Louie and Aiden.

As she said, Louie, who had growled even at Aiden’s approach yesterday, was quiet.

Perhaps he recognized that Aiden was different from other zombies after the recent battle.

However, while he wasn’t hostile, Louie showed no interest in Aiden.

“…”

Aiden looked at Louie for a moment, then shifted his gaze to Sadie.

The expression of Sadie, who was staring intently at Louie eating, was somehow complex.

As if she was carrying a great worry.

But Aiden thought he understood the child’s feelings.

Especially just now, Louie had been surrounded by zombies.

Although he was fortunately safe this time, there was no guarantee that something like this wouldn’t happen again in the future.

So Sadie didn’t want to part with Louie.

If possible, she would want to take Louie along on their journey.

However, that was something even Aiden couldn’t allow.

So how should he explain this?

As Aiden was pondering this, Arian’s voice was heard.

“Sadie.”

She called Sadie’s name.

Sadie’s gaze, which had been fixed on Louie, shifted to Arian.

“Yes?”

“How old do you think Louie is?”

Sadie’s eyes blinked a few times at the unexpected question.

But soon, tilting her head, she voiced her guess.

“Um… about five years old?”

“No, I think Louie is already over 10 years old. In human years, he’d be a grandfather or grandmother dog.”

Sadie’s eyes widened at the suggestion that he might be older than her.

“Really?”

“Yes. You can roughly tell a dog’s age by looking at its eyes, fur, and body shape.”

“Ah…”

“And he probably spent much of that time with his owner.”

At Arian’s words, Sadie looked at Louie again.

Louie, having finished his food, was now sitting next to his owner’s body.

So comfortably that he was even yawning widely.

“He’s a dog that loves his owner that much. That’s why he tried so hard to guard this place.”

It was at this point that Aiden realized why Arian was saying these things.

She too had read Sadie’s mind and was trying to persuade the child.

However, her reason for persuasion was a bit different from what Aiden was thinking.

While Aiden was simply feeling burdened by the addition of a dog to their journey, Arian had discerned that Louie was an old dog who just wanted to stay by his owner’s side for what little time he had left.

“…”

Therefore, Sadie had no choice but to accept Arian’s persuasion.

What decision was best for Louie was all too clear.

Perhaps that’s why.

Sadie looked at Louie for a while without saying anything.

Then finally, Sadie’s lips moved.

But in the end, no voice came out, and she just raised her hand to pat Louie.

Louie then opened his mouth and panted as if laughing.

Only after seeing Louie like this did Sadie finally open her mouth to say goodbye.

“Louie, take care.”

The dog responded to Sadie’s farewell by wagging his tail gently.

Sadie looked at Louie like this for a moment, then suddenly stood up and turned around.

“…We can go now.”

Sadie’s voice trembled slightly as she said this.

Aiden just nodded and took the lead.

Arian quietly held Sadie’s hand.

Soon they left the cemetery.

Louie didn’t follow.

He just quietly watched Aiden’s group leave, as if seeing them off.

For the first and last time, Sadie looked back once.

Seeing Louie sleeping by his owner’s side, the child smiled slightly with tears in her eyes.