Shared birthday

When the day began to draw closer to evening, everyone ate a meal of fish and fruit. Marcus had scraped as much sugar from the cooking pot as possible. Now it was time to make butter.

Marcus wasn't sure if night was the best time to do this or if he should have waited for them to come down the mountain during the day but turning back was out of the question. He found the goats asleep on a soft mossy verge not too high up the mountain.

Mountain goats were much larger up close and their horns looked like they could inflict a lot of damage. This obviously wasn't safe. Marcus kept hesitating every time he went to move closer. Several opened their eyes when he approached including one of the males who gave an intimidating snort.

The smaller, domestic goats that dwelled in the forest were too good at hiding. It seemed day would have been a better time to look for them. Marcus could have avoided the danger entirely then as domestic goats could be dealt with during a charge.

Marcus straddled around the male in a wide arc to not provoke him and instead moved closer to one of the females. She was laying on her side fast asleep. As Marcus reached towards her, the male made a quiet guttural noise. A warning.

Very slowly, Marcus took out a flask and crouched by the female mountain goat. The male watched menacingly as though Marcus was eating her but he only gently gathered her milk until the flask was full and moved on to the next one. He had brought everyone else's flasks and bottles to get as much as possible.

Marcus felt extreme terror similar to during the zombie horde attack. One wrong move and this creature would end him. How could a sheep like creature give off such a wolfish aura? It had a hump and it's hooves were much wider than the other goats in the valley but they weren't just hard to find, they were more timid and ran away.

He'd filled five flasks and was now surrounded by mountain goats. A few had got up and moved away from him while others slept through it all. Some woke up halfway through though which caused a ruckus. Fortunately, Marcus' high agility allowed him to make quick retreats but he was running out of goats to milk.

By the eighth flask, the entire herd had woken up and it was impossible to start another bottle so Marcus head back down without too much trouble. The male goat looked like it was going to charge if he came back again.

Leaving the milk outside in the cold night air, Marcus went to bed in the bunker. Everyone was sleeping in the bunk beds now. Their fear of the horde had eased for now. Marcus was pleased. He truly cared for their wellbeing after all.

The next day, he began preparing his ingredients. To produce the butter, Marcus shook the flasks of milk vigorously but only managed to make a small amount in an hour. When the others got up and asked what he was doing with their flasks, he just asked them to shake them and find out.

Eventually, Marcus had enough butter. The others were amazed and all had butter on their toast for breakfast. It was then that Marcus could finally start on the cake. Not knowing how much ingredients to use or which order to add them, Marcus first experimented by making individual cup cakes until he eventually got it right.

The final result was a plain sponge cake but it was amazing considering the others believed they would never taste cake again which is why they almost cried with joy when they saw Marcus carrying it out in a clay baking tray.

"Since none of us can remember our birthdays, I thought we should all have a shared birthday on this day!" Marcus announced to the group.

Recently, he'd drawn up a calendar in the back of his journal for the next two years. The system had the date and time visible on the main menu which helped a lot.

He'd added to it every day just to complete it. There were still more than a hundred pages left for other findings to be documented so he marked their birthday on it.

"H-how did you make this possible?" Asked James.

"Cooking is just science and it was easy to follow the instructions in the bunker library." Everyone cut a

slice from the tray.

"Hey, James! Why is yours so much bigger than ours?" Sam demanded.

"I'm a growing lad!" He claimed through a mouth full of cake. Marcus laughed and everyone else was quick to join him. Soon all the cake was gone and the day had just become that little bit better. So everyone worked harder. Training to their limits as well as finishing all their tasks early.

Recently, Marcus had not only implemented an order for sharing the duty of making breakfast but also a rotation for cleaning the bunker, preparing lunch, dinner, watering the plants, feeding the chickens and so on.

Speaking of the chickens, they fed them a mixture of grain from wild grasses, dandelion leaves, crushed up egg shell and left overs. They didn't feed them the actual grass stems as a book on keeping livestock mentioned that this could give them sour crop.

The egg shells would give them a source of calcium to form the shells for new eggs but they also mixed in some grit and snail shells also recommended by the book. A large clay bowl was made to hold their water as well.

At the moment, one of the hens was broody and the cockerel had been getting his leg up so Marcus only collected new eggs and let her sit on the old ones. Hopefully, they'd soon have some baby chicks in three weeks.

The sun was high and hot today. Not to mention the sky was looking a very clear blue. There were only a few white, fluffy clouds visible. It was a great shame when sunset came and the horizon was blocked by a wall of bodies. They weren't human.

'Large threat detected. Monster horde class C made up of class D zombie type enemies approaching from all directions.'

'Not again...' Marcus stared in horror at their possible demise written in the air only inches from his face.

"Should we head to the bunker?" Lana asked. Her voice contained a slight hint of panic.

"You guys go. My stats have rised significantly since last time. I promise not to do anything stupid. I have a plan and we can't keep hiding whenever they decide to come back. If we don't get rid of them now, they might catch us off guard in the future."

Lana, Sam and James nodded before running off. James stopped for a second to slap Marcus on the back. "Please don't die. I know the girls ran off without saying anything but in truth they're the most worried. I don't think they can handle losing another member."

"I swear I won't die today. It won't be like with Marya." James had avoided mentioning her name in case it caused Marcus to doubt himself but James smiled calmly remembering how Marcus was the first to pull everyone together.

"I'd offer my help but I think I'd just slow you down. Good luck." James also climbed down and secured the hatch.

"Alright, let's get this over with," Marcus breathed sensing everything around him all at once. Running to the river, Marcus was met by the full force of the horde. Every single one of them there exactly how he remembered from before.

Marcus clenched the hatchet in his right hand and gripped his knife tightly in the left. "Happy birthday zombos!"