False Sense of Safety

[Erik POV]

It had been a few days since Dad and I had been brought to the Clemens old bunker, most of our time here had been spent just coming to terms with the new reality that we lived in, there had been a few new stragglers that had joined our 'little' group since we got here.

All in all, we number around 20 or so people, with the amount of supplies stockpiled in the bunker, we should be able to last around a couple of weeks at most before we need to venture out and get more food.

Although we have an abundance of water, everyone has agreed to ration it to make it last as long as possible, according to Mr. Oliver's calculations, we should have around a month's supply if we keep to our rationing.

'Sigh, why the fuck did this have to happen' I thought still trying to get my head wrapped around the whole situation.

If some of the stories from others are to be believed, if one of those, things, bites you anywhere on your body, then you will die and come back as one of them. 

Everyone who has witnessed this firsthand has varying timeframes on how long it took for the fever to kill the person and for them to reanimate, but the general consensus is it averages around a day or so.

I was a first-hand witness to poor Blake succumbing to his fever and rising back a couple of hours after just last night.

The poor kid was only 15 and yet all it took was one small but on his thigh that he didn't even know about to do him in.

While my family and I to a certain extent are adjusting and coping with our new normal, there have already started to be some signs of certain individuals losing their sanity and slipping further and further into shock.

Hell, just this morning Ms. Riley, Blake's mom decided to commit suicide via hanging.

It has only been an hour or so since she died but we still haven't thrown the body out due to the fear of those things coming back and swarming the area.

Now that I think of it I should really come up with a name for them that isn't just 'thing' and 'people'.

Hmm, ah, that sounds like a good name, yeah that should work, I'll start calling those freaks, Biters, after all, that was all they seemed to do when they came in contact with a living organism.

Yup, organisms, not just humans, I had left with Lukas to try and scout out the way to my house but there was still a small horde numbering around 30 blocking the road, and we witnessed a few of them chowing down on a few dogs and squirrels.

It pained my heart to see those poor pups being eaten by the biters but at least I held back on getting a dog of my own, I've always had a soft spot for cute furry mammals, and let me be honest, I probably would've gotten myself killed trying to save my dog if I did get one.

As I was just sitting on my cot thinking about life and what to do next, Elias came over and sat down with me, the poor bastard had been pretty distraught as of late due to his fear of Emilia being one of those biters out there.

While it didn't do much to ease his anxiety, I did tell him that the biter's dad, Lukas, and I have seen haven't looked like her so who knows, she may be held up in her home right now just like us, the only difference being we have a relatively safe bunker and she doesn't.

Looking up at him and flashing a soft smile, I greet my older brother. "Hey Eli, how is everything going with the people with injuries?"

"Sigh, hey Erik, well, since Blake and Alex died, so far we haven't found anyone else who had a bite on them, just some scrapes and bruises so hopefully if this thing is born from a virus, let's all hope for our sake that it only transmits through bites and not scratches as well.

Elias sat down on the cot in front of mine and rubbed his face with both hands as he relaxed his shoulders and body after finally being able to get a break from helping the injured.

"Man, you look beat, I guess that's what you get for being one of the only people here who have medical training," I said to him with a light chuckle to try and lighten the mood.

"Yeah, no kidding." He said with a smile smile

Just as he was about to say something else, we heard a scream come from the room we had put Ms. Riley's body in.

"Shit!" we said in unison as we got up and ran to the room to check out the commotion

Rounding the corner to the entrance, we saw a reanimated Ms. Riley trying to attack Evan, the man who was left to watch over the body

"Ahhh! Help me, she just rose from the dead and started attacking!" He yelled as he tried to hold her off, narrowly dodging her bite toward his shoulder.

Evan kicked her off of him and she went crashing into the solid concrete wall as she fell hard, but all it took was a quick moment for the reanimated housewife to get back up and swiftly shuffle back toward us.

"Fuck, does anyone have a weapon or something!" I yelled as I kicked the newly risen biter in her sternum and knocked her back down. gotta love hiking boots.

"Here, I found this machete in one of the crates!" Lukas yelled as came running toward us and handed me the weapon.

Although Elias was the eldest, I was the largest of our family, standing at 6'4(about 193cm) and weighing in at 220 pounds of muscle(99kg) due to playing football all through middle, high school, and even college.

While I may be the biggest out of our family, Elias was only a few inches shorter along with Lukas and our dad around that same height, apparently, I got my sheer size and frame from our grandfather, god rest his soul.

Grabbing the machete from Lukas' hand, I swung it across Ms. Riley's chest only for it to momentarily stun her before she lunged toward us with the same vigor as before.

"Shit," I muttered as I swung the machete down onto her head, making it around halfway through, this seemed to cause her to suddenly stop and go limp, so I stuck my foot on her chest and ripped the machete out from her skull.

It wasn't until a couple of moments later that we finally breathed a breath of relief as she stayed down, hopefully staying dead for good now.

"How the hell did this happen?" I said, unsure about what caused her to turn as we had checked her for bites and found nothing.

"I-I... I don't know." Evan said, still pretty shaken up about the whole situation. "One moment she was just laying there seemingly dead, and the next she started to groan and rose up from the floor and came at me!" Evan finished while giving the corpse a good kick out of frustration

After the whole ordeal was finished, a couple of the older men picked up her body and we tossed her outside after making sure there weren't any more biters around the backyard entrance into the bunker.

The whole time that they did that, I couldn't help but shake this odd feeling, it wasn't until I replayed the events In my head that I came to a conclusion.

"If my thoughts prove to be true, then we might be more screwed then we thought we were." I said to my brothers as our parents came over

"What do you mean mein sohn?" Mom asked with a confused look

"There's no easy way of saying this but... I think we all might be infected with whatever this virus is. I mean, we all checked her pretty thoroughly, Ms. Riley didn't have a single bite on her, and yet she still came back as one of those biters."

As i let my words sink in, i looked around at everyone who heard me and saw most of their faces pale, which i thought wasn't even possible as everyone already looked like ghosts just from the past few days.

[3rd Person POV]

As the bunker of survivors took in Erik's words, a symphony of thoughts and fears ran through all of their heads at the implications of his theory.

If what he said was true, then that means no matter what, no matter how long they live on, they would still come back as one of those things out there.

While the whole bunker had descended into complete silence, a sudden loud disorienting bang rang out.

"Holy shit!" Erik yelled out as he covered his ears from the echoing sound

"What was that!" Frederick said as he looked around

Although their ears still hurt like hell, everyone was able to hear the shriek that came shortly after. Once they grouped up to find the woman who had what looked like brain matter all over her, they found a grim sight.

One of the survivors, a man in his late forties had shot himself in the head with a gun he had hidden, committing suicide without so much as a warning.

"Everyone get back, we need to secure his body!" Erik ordered as the shocked people just dumbly followed his order without thinking much of it

"What do you mean secure it? We need to throw it out before he comes back as one of them!" a different man yelled toward Erik as he held his head with one hand and pointed his other at the door

"No! we need to see if he will come back, I don't care if I need to watch over his corpse myself, but we need to see what happens." Erik explained that he had a theory about something

"Son, what do you mean?" Frederick asked a little more levelheaded than most.

"You all saw how Ms. Ruiley went down and stayed that way after I rammed the machete into her head, I have a theory about brain damage being the trick to kill these things, and who knows, maybe head trauma is the trick to not coming back as one of the biters." Erik explained to his father and all of the other people who were close to him, their ears still ringing but they still heard most of what he said

After some more back-and-forth arguing between Erik and a couple of others including the man from before, they decided that if he wanted to run this experiment then he would have to sit in the closed room with the body.

The closed room they were talking about was a glorified storage closet but they had cleared it and spread the chests of supplies around in case they needed to store other things in there, this being the same room that Ms. Riley's body was in originally.

And so, armed with a machete and trash can cover for protection, Erik went into the storage closet and they locked him in there with the body, despite his mother's incessant complaints and pleas, Erik still went into the room for the sake of his experiment, something that would help not only him, but the rest of the survivors during the times to come.

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Author's Note:

Hey everyone, hoped you enjoyed the chapter, I tried my best to make it seem as realistic as possible and to make the process of them finding out about the rules of the walkers in a more organic way as opposed to being told by some scientist *Cough* Jenner *Cough*. I never really was a fan of that episode as i like the process rick went through in the comics better but hey, its not my show lol.

Make sure you add to your collection and throw me all of those sweet sweet stones!

And I implore you to comment and suggestions or just anything i general to spice up the chapter and to give me more motivation!