"Eat this, zombie scum!" The young man shouted as he slammed a metal pipe on to the slobbering zombie in front of him.
BAM
"Ouaargh!" The zombie screeched as it lunged forward, unaffected by the pain.
"It's coming!" The young man called out as his friends readied their weapons in anticipation.
"Now!"
As soon as he entered the building, a person closed the door and several others came out swinging hard.
"Rarargh!"
The group clobbered the zombie with their bats and pans until it stopped moving. After that, a few more people came to start the cleanup.
"That's another one down, nice job Nick!" A young woman named Sally said with a sweet smile to the young man.
"There's a lot more where that came from, but it's a start." Nick wearily replied as he wiped the sweat from his forehead.
"Nick, we gotta block off both ends of the street or else they'll keep wandering near the apartment." Nick's friend, Ben, said as he cleaned the bits off his bat.
"That seems about as feasible as the courtyard." Nick frowned as he looked out at all the zombies still stomping around outside.
"We gotta start somewhere right?." Ben laughed as he slapped Nick's back.
"Can't believe I lived to see a zombie apocalypse happen."
"It's kinda bull, how is it that they trapped us here and still send no help!? You'd think fifteen blocks would have the National Guard come storming in!" Nick spitefully looked into the distant skyline where many skyscrapers were still brightly lit.
With their little bit of complaining over, they got back to work and helped take the bits of zombie over to the roof to dump.
"By the way Nick, the apartment heads were about clearing the courtyard. You should volunteer to lead a squad, I'll have your back no problem!"
There were four apartments with a circular courtyard in the middle, Nick and the others happened to live in one of the buildings.
"It's not gonna be the same as baiting zombies one at a time and bashing them." Sally frowned as the next crew walked down to replace them. They were taking turns to "Bait N Bash", they were trying their best to safely trim down zombie numbers.
"You'll be running at them head on!"
"Sally, Me and Nick are untouchable in BBall. These zombies have got nothing on us!"
As Sally and Ben went back and forth over the dangers of the upcoming operation, Nick heard his name being called.
"Nick!"
He turned around and saw his neighbor, Carlos, come running up to him in a panic. Nick, Ben, and Sally all looked at each other, knowing full well something was wrong.
"Is it your grandma?" Nick started to walk faster up the stairs in order to drop off the zombie gunk and help Carlos.
"Yea, her fever is getting worse. I think it's the stress! She's been going on and on about how the devil has opened the gates of hell on us!"
"How can we help?"
"I need to get her something to reduce the fever, remember the 117 store three blocks away?"
When he could form syllables again, Thomas had decided to name his new ally, "Ed", it was simple and seemed to fit him nicely.
Although, it did take some effort in order to teach Ed his name. But, through many repeated attempts of growling at him, Thomas was able to make Ed react to it.
Thomas had decided that the ratio of spoils should be 3:1, mirroring how they divided the group of four from before. At present it didn't seem that Ed had any problems with that, Thomas couldn't have Ed over power him after all.
Over the past couple of days, they had many scavengers try to loot the 117 store. With their team work, not one had made it past the alley.
But all good things must come to an end…
"Rargh!?" Ed looked at Thomas, with a slightly different confused look than the usual one he had on.
The alley did not have any visitors for a few days now, at this point even Ed had noticed.
Thomas frowned and looked over their territory once more.
The front of the 117 store had a four lane highway, which meant there was a relentless horde of fellow undead wandering around. Unless they could push through them all at once, no flesh bag was going to make it through the front.
The better armed and more bold groups tried to rush the alley during the day, but the alley was narrow and they seldom looked up.
Thomas's motor control was improving with the more brains he ate, which fed into him getting more kills.
The more cautious groups thought that sneaking through during the night was a good plan, this was a mistake. The undead were equal to or worse than the flesh bags at seeing at night, and with reduced motor control Thomas went with an up close approach.
He ambushed them from the shadows and let their fear and apprehension become amplified. Then he would aggravate his own kin to swarm them. Thomas just had to make sure to take their heads at the right time.
Ed was mostly bait in all this but had the occasional good kill. Perhaps the survivors had finally caught on to the store being a bad place to go.
Thomas made a decision and looked back at Ed.
"Sarrttarg!"
He was trying his best to communicate to Ed to guard the alley. Thomas had decided that he wanted to go find the flesh bags if they weren't going to come to them.
Every time Thomas turned to leave, he found Ed trying to follow him. After what was probably hours, Ed finally had some notion of what Thomas was doing.
Patience was a useful thing for undead to develop, even if unwittingly.
At last, Thomas took the first step out of their territory and into the new world that had been developing around them.