2: The Start

"Goddamn clown" I say to myself as I wake up upsidedown in a sole tree in the middle of an abandoned factory.

"Why the hell is there a tree inside?" Even though I'm hanging from my legs I can't help but ask.

I quickly pat my body down and find the bag strapped to my back, and the hammer dangerously close to falling out of my pocket.

My first task is getting the hell down from here before I faint, and as I reach for the bag I freeze for a moment.

What did the clown mean by it's always watching? Is it here right now?

The bag proves to be no help to me, the randomized item for the day must have been it's doing as a bunch of shit cubes start falling out of the upside down bag and onto my face before I'm able to close it. Gagging slightly I reach for my hammer to try yanking the rope knots loose.

Turns out, the clown is pretty crap at tying knots, how did I know this? Magic I guess.

Standing up fully right side up this time I pause before taking off the shirt I was wearing and wiping my face of all the shit.

"I will never be clean enough" I sigh to myself before picking up the bag and hammer that fell from my grasp in the fall.

Now that that is over with, I need to find a way out of this place, and a new shirt preferably soon.

This world is infested with zombies, I don't know if there are any special types of zombies, so I need to be quiet for now.

I slowly make my way through one of the many door frames, their doors suspiciously absent, I grip my hammer tighter just in case anything tries to jump scare me.

How does this hammer even work? I don't have any new knowledge just forced into my brain, do I just think about what I want to make and it just makes it for me? Like if I want to make a killdoz-.

My thoughts are immediately halted as it's replaced by excruciating pain, all the plans for a killdozer as well as what I would need are suddenly squished into my brain.

"Mghmmmmm shiiiitt." I groan out loud as I place my hands onto my head,dropping the hammer in the process but wanting to hit it with that damn hammer just to make the pain stop.

I just know that clown is laughing it's ass off watching me. Note to self, don't think of building anything complicated while holding the hammer, I wonder if my head will explode if I try making a spaceship or something.

The pain slowly diminishes into a light throbbing as I look around for the hammer I pause.

I hear light groaning behind me and when I turn around, surprise surprise there's my hammer... Right in front of a rotten walking corpse. The first thing I noticed was the smell.

Imagine a skunk, rotten meat, and some freshly caught fish, now leave all that in the sun during an exceptionally hot week for about 3 days. Only then will you get close to the odour I am currently smelling.

How the fuck am I going to get around it without a weapon?

The zombie slowly walks closer while I'm thinking, and then I notice something. It's going slow, like really slow. About the same speed as an old man whose walking cane I stole before I came here. I can just lead it back towards the suspicious tree, and then lightly jog around and pick up the hammer, without ever getting in danger.

So I start doing that, and for the next few minutes the only thing keeping me company was the zombies dead eyes, it's growls as it tries to swipe at me Everytime it gets close to me, and the rotten smell.

Soon I reach the tree again, and when the zombie comes too close this time I sprint around and back towards the area where I dropped my hammer.

That was surprisingly easy, and with the hammer now in my possession again I start looking for a way out. The zombie is still near the tree, and I don't really feel like getting in arms reach of that thing sans top.

It's not like it's going to be able to catch up to me, so I don't really have to worry about it right now.

A few minutes go by before I find a stairway down, which is weird because how the hell did they plant a tree not on ground level.

As I was jogging around, dodging around a third zombie on this level, I managed to find a piece of rebar, about 2 feet long (.6m). It was small, but still bigger then the hammer.

So with that in my hands my confidence is medium-high, I still don't have a shirt and im assumimg the virus or infection transmits through cuts, scratches, and bites from the zombies, probably blood too if ingested or absorbed through cuts and scratches, so ill probably still run if i find more than one zombie.

Walking down the stairs proves to be the right thing to do, and for the first time I see the outside world, and what I see leaves me slightly disappointed.

The stairs were close to a room with windows, good news? Maybe.

I'm on the first floor, thats easy to deduse as I see dozens, if not hundreds of the same slow as an old man without a cane zombies just shambling around in groups, groaning and moaning at each other like they can understand each other.

This is going to be harder than I thought.

Let's just keep wondering around the factory, maybe I'll find a back door or window where there isn't a bunch of zombies within hearing distance.

Each door I find, I open to see if there is anything worth taking. So far, nothing.

Nothing eventful happens as I continue to explore this strange factory I woke up in, awhile later I come across another room with a window. This time when I looked out, there was just a few dozen zombies scattered about in a large field. Past the field there is a row of houses with their doors closed and windows unbroken, so they probably still had loot.

The difficult part would be getting there, if I just run, all the zombies will just follow after me and I'll get trapped. It's especially worse if there is anyone in the closest house as I'll be trapped. That's the price I'll have to pay though to get across.

I was interrupted from my thoughts by multiple groans coming from behind me.

"Shit" I said to myself as I turned around.

"Wait a minute." I said in slight confusion.

"These are the zombies from upstairs. The first one I ran around the tree with and the other 2 zombies I encountered from up stairs as well.

I grip the rebar tightly in both hands, my hammer hooked into my belt loop to prevent losing it.

I slowly walk towards the zombies, and with a heavy downwards swing I hit the nearest zombie on the head, it's skull not putting up as much resistance as I would have expected. It must have been dead awhile most likely.

Blood and brain matter splash out and onto me as I yank the rebar bar out of the now dead for good, zombie.

It seems these zombies share the same weakness as the fictional zombies I read about and watched in my past life.

With blood and a bit of brain matter covering me I slowly back up, the zombies continue their advance towards me.

The room we are in isn't that big, the size of a small office without any furniture, but it was still big enough to slowly circle the zombie. They may be following me, but because they are still super slow, it's easy to just keep backing up and walking sideways.

A moment later I close in on them again, hoping to take another one out without getting caught.

With another swing I hit the next zombie in the head, this time it wasn't strong enough to crush the skull, but the hit did knock it down.

I was slightly winded after this exchange, I never was an athletic person and I'm actually surprised I killed that first one soo easily.

I slowly back up again, circling the sole standing zombie and now a crawler slowly moving towards me.

It's a bit harder to circle them both now as I catch my breath, as I had to do a little figure 8 around the much slower crawler.

I back up against the farthest wall and wait for the walking zombie to get closer before I swing the bar again, using all my weight I smash the rebar into the zombies head.

As the zombie falls to the ground, my bar follows suit, now stuck in its head.

I unclasp the hammer, and slowly walk towards the crawling zombie and with a grunt I smash it against it's head once, and then 3 more times just to make sure it was finally dead.

After the third strike, I leave the hammer in its now smashed up skull and sit on the ground, back against the wall, takiling a small breather before I start moving again.

I really hope my stamina improves, killing 3 zombies shouldn't be this tiring, and if I can't handle this few, I definitely wont survive this new world.

After awhile of sitting against the wall I reluctantly stand and go to pick up my builders hammer and rebar.

I quickly reclasp the hammer to my waist, and with a grunt I rip the rebar from the zombies skull.

With a deep breath I look towards the window. I have my work cut out for me.

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1672 words not including this note.

Chapter 2 is now finished and next time we get him escaping the spawn zone. Will he survive the run? Will he get overrun by zombies as his crappy stamina finally catches up to him? Will his bag give him something useful? Will he ever actually build that killdozer he now knows about? Tune in next time to find all this out.