5 Is Insurance Still a Thing?

"I counted, we each have about 50 bullets left, and so far we don't know when we will come across more ammunition. Let's use the bow for now, it also attracts less attention," Elon suggested.

The group decided to put Elon on watch at the balcony, who would shoot his rifle with an 8x scope when necessary.

Then, the other three would flip over the fence, with Jay and Alex guarding as Christian either throwing things over or shoving things through the metal fence.

It was about 6:30, there was no internet so it felt like time passed really slowly. It had been only about two hours since that creepy announcement, yet the streets in their part of the neighborhood already quieted down.

People were either killed and went into hiding, with just a few zombies roaming on the streets, making the transportation mission easier than anticipated.

Wait, never mind. It was a crap ton of food to either throw or squeeze through the fence.

Although nothing was really happening but labor work, the group still felt blood-boiled and their bodies filled with adrenaline. They felt like brave warriors surviving the zombie apocalypse.

"Yo careful on the eggs, don't just throw it..." Alex whispered.

After they got the stuff through the gate, they climbed back over and began making trips back and forth to transport the food back to the house.

After they packed everything in, the boys sat around the table and ate the hot food they got from the store. Unlike the other days, there was no internet, no videos or music playing in the background as they ate. It was just a simple meal with the closest people.

"I kind of miss this," Elon softy said.

"Yeah, it's been a while since we sat around a table and ate together without any distraction," Alex replied.

"Ayy, it's quite romantic too, with the dimmed lights," Christian added.

"I wonder what Mama is doing right now, is the cell service still down?" Jay sounded a little worried.

"She should be fine. We survived with hunting rifles, and she runs a shop selling rifles and machine guns, what do you think?" Although worried as well, Christian tried to lighten the mood.

Knowing that there was nothing they could improve by being down and worried, the group quickly finished the food and began discussing the survival strategies they had gathered from all those years of watching zombie movies and playing survival games.

Food and ammunition were not an urgent problem as of right now, but it was a bit creepy living in such a big beach house. Lucky to be starting the apocalypse with abundant supply and their luxurious shelter, the group just had to worry about security for now.

With their property being this big and the backup generator not strong enough to run the cameras, it did feel a bit creepy. Thankfully, the security sensors could still work since most were battery-operated, so the boys could at least hear the classic "beep beep beep beep" when a door or window opens.

"The zombies don't look that fast and threatening, but I do remember that we also have to worry about other survivors in the case of an apocalypse since all laws are basically out of the window now," Elon said as he remembered what happened in The Walking Dead.

Sure, zombies are scary, but humans are still the more intelligent ones that are also armed with all kinds of weapons. Who knew what someone else would be capable of doing when everyone's fighting over for limited supplies to survive? There's not even cellular service to call 911...

Alex: "Should we turn on the alarm system in our house?"

Elon: "Probably not, since one intruder will trigger the alarm and probably alert every zombie in our neighborhood."

Christian: "Oh shoot, we didn't get the chance to roll down the glass wall in our living room so that thing's still open."

In the group's luxurious beach house, there's a big glass wall in their living room that directly faces the backyard, the pool, then the sidewalk over the fence, and then the ocean. The wall works like a glass garage door, and it was able to roll up to open and down to close with a remote.

However, knowing how much noise it would make, the group decided to not touch it for now.

Alex: "Crap, now we won't even know if someone got into our house or not, since the motion detectors wouldn't trigger the beep sound."

Jay: "We should probably shrink our normal activity area to a smaller part of the house and stick together from now on."

Elon: "Let's move up to the second floor, there's only one curved stairway connecting the two floors."

Christian: "Yeah there's also that control panel by the stairway on the second floor. Our phones can't connect to the home security app since there's no wifi or cellular service, but we can watch the sensors on the panel."

Jay: "Will it show something if a motion sensor's triggered?"

Elon: "I don't know, but I can code it in if there's no setting to turn it on. My laptop probably has some battery left, just need to find a cord to connect the panel to it."

The group discussed quietly, and knowing that the glass garage door in their living room was still open, they sealed their leftover food air-tight and placed it either in the cooler or freezer to avoid attracting unwanted visitors.

They decided to move all the necessary stuff to the second floor. Jay suggested having two people guard the only entrance to their house right now, which was the opened glass garage door in the living room, while the other two moved all the essential supplies.

Although that would halve their speed, the group agreed that it was a necessary caution to take. The group was able to sail smoothly in the online world of PUBG and proceed to win first place in the global tournament in 2018, and a lot of that could be accredited to Jay's leadership.

In a game of battle royale, the ability to kill certainly matters, but one could only win the game and eat chicken dinner if they could survive until the end. It didn't matter how many kills someone could get, if one dies then one is eliminated, and no amount of kills could reverse that.

To ensure winning in crucial games, Jay would always make calls that might sound like a coward and couldn't guarantee the squad with good loot. However, those calls would significantly increase their survival rate and put them in a better position to ambush other players.

He wouldn't be worried about not starting the game off with the best equipment, because, in his mind, other people were simply looting for them to collect later down the road.

Of course, for entertainment purposes, Jay did prioritize excitement over winning and often went balls deep when they were streaming.

Playing safe was a rule easier said than done, and a lot of players online would sometimes go with the "feel of the moment" and end up making a play they would regret. Even in real life, some people would still occasionally go "YOLO" and let Jesus take the wheel.

Now that the survival game is happening in real life, Jay was being more careful than ever, and the squad naturally followed his lead.

Just as they went downstairs and was about to have Alex and Christian go guard the door, Christian suddenly stopped in his track.

Jay: "What's wrong?"

Christian lightly smacked his forehead and exclaimed, "Wait, is insurance still a thing?"