And Darkness Fell

I woke up from my nap to a completely pitch black room. I checked my watch, and it was well past the time that the alarm should have gone off. I looked for the alarm and once I found it I checked the battery compartment. It was empty, so I could only assume the power went out at some point. I got myself put together and took a step outside ready for even more horrors to emerge in the dark.

As I stepped out I was actually in awe. Since the whole city was pitch black the starry sky shone beautifully. I never thought I'd see a night sky this perfect in my life.

The stars filling the sky illuminated the ground enough to just barely see, and this was where the issues lied. Unless I had thermal or night vision goggles, I can't see anything in much detail.

With that I went back inside my room and closed my door. As soon as I closed my door I heard a monstrous roar come from outside. I quickly checked the cameras and it was a big 4 legged hairless dog thing. As it ran closer I noticed it's head looked like a flower blossom. The flower blossom unfortunately opened up to way too many teeth to count.

I watched as it ran closer and closer to the motel until it stopped. It sat for about 10 seconds until it started tapping on the ground. As it tapped it drew closer and closer to the motel. Soon it was at one of the apartment doors. It tapped the floor, then it tapped the door. After it did that it used all of its might to knock down the door. It walked inside the room and I lost track of it. Pretty soon it walked out, tapped the ground and made its way to the next door over. This door however led to a room with an occupant. The creature tapped on the ground, tapped on the door, and broke it down.

I guess the first door tipped the person inside off because as soon as that door got smashed, then the creature's face got smashed by a bunch of bullets. The bullets only seemed to gleam off of the creature's skin and annoy the creature though. The creature giving another roar before charging in got yet another bullet to the face, this time though it went in it's mouth.

The creature recoiled in pain and went to attack again. Another shot right into it's fugly mouth. At this point I decided to take action, these people can shoot, they could be allies. I ran out of my room, slipped through the fence hole I made and ran down the steps carrying my shotgun. As soon as I reached the bottom I took aim and shot right at the back of the creature's head. It stopped what it was doing, turned towards me, and did exactly what I hoped it would. It charged me, unfurling it's mouth ready to eat me alive. I took aim and fired, the creature recoiled and came at me again. This repeated 4 times until finally the creature fell down to the ground bleeding out of its mouth.

I slowly approached it, pointed my shotgun right down its throat and fired 2 more shots. Inhad to make sure it wasn't gonna eat anyone after it healed or something.

I fell on my ass because my legs couldn't keep me upright. I was visibly shaking from what I can assume was shock. My vision started getting blurry, and I passed out.

When I woke back up I was still where I passed out. I went to stand up as the creature came back to life and bit at me. I woke up again, this time in a cold sweat in a bed, the room wasn't mine though.

The next thing I heard was a guy telling me to relax,

"It'll be okay, you're safe now."

My vision focused and I saw the face of one of the downstairs residents of the motel. He then held something towards me,

"You need a water" he asked "It's the least I can do, you saved my life after all"

I did feel a little parched, then again I haven't drank anything at all since the morning I played that damn game of would you rather. I haven't drank anything for probably over 12 hours now, and was under constant stress for most of it, of course I'm dehydrated.

"Thanks," I said as I grabbed the bottle and chugged the whole thing.

"Sorry, was that your only bottle?" I asked, realizing I may have drank his only source of water.

"No actually, I was already at the store when I got the notification. I immediately grabbed every bottle, case, and can of food and water I saw and booked it out of the store." He explained and gestured towards a corner with stacks of water cases and food cans.

"Heh, I grabbed all the long term supplies like water filters, hoses, tarps, nails, and electrical tools."

"So you're the one who put up the wired fence on the top balcony, that was smart! It stood up to those bat things at least. The name's Ray by the way."

"Alan, nice to meet you. Thanks for taking me inside"

"Thanks for saving my ass"

I slowly got out of bed feeling sore and stiff. I walked over to the door, turned around and asked, "You could move into the upstairs rooms if you want, I have all the keys including the master key. I'll even help you move"

"That sounds good to me, it's a lot safer up there" Ray responded

"I'll have to show you the layout so far, and I'll let you decide what to do"

"Layout? What's that supposed to mean?"

"You'll see"

I took him upstairs and showed him the map I made out of the motel rooms and occupants.

"That's the guy that died in the parking lot" as he crossed his name out "I was the other guy you probably heard screaming like a little girl, haha. Is everyone up on this floor still alive?"

I pointed at the door of my neighbor, made a finger gun, and mimed shooting myself.

"Damn, is he still inside?" Ray asked

I nodded my head

"Tell you what, I'll take care of him. I'll give him a parking lot viking send off" Ray suggested.

I shrugged my shoulders, gave him a lighter, and went ahead and grabbed every room key, and sorted them out. I nailed the map to my room wall, put nails in every room on the map, and hung each subsequent key on their respective nail. I then walked outside to find that Ray wrapped up my neighbor in his bed sheets like a cocoon and carried him out into the parking lot. He gently set my neighbor down, did what looked like a quick prayer and lit the sheets in fire. He then made his way back up to where I was.

"Before I forget, could you give me one moment?" I asked while pulling out my notebook.

"Are you making some kind of monster manual for the apocalypse" Ray asked

"Yup" I responded

"That's actually really smart"

Notebook monster 3,

Sound Dog

Fast, aggressive, intelligent, uses hearing to see

Strengths: heavily armored outer shell (max strength to be tested), highly intelligent, very sensitive to noises

Weaknesses: Open mouth is weak to damage, very sensitive to noises

"Can I see what you have?" Ray aske

I handed him the notebook and he read through my notes.

"The "wolf-bats" are weak to sound, wait, there are zombies? Eh, who am I kidding? Why wouldn't there be zombies? "Sound dog" is that a play on words of a hound dog?

I nodded and smiled

"Nice! Wait, it says here their strength is very sensitive to noises, but it's also listed as a weakness? How can something be a strength but also a weakness?"

"If they only see through sound, which is very effective that makes it a strength." I responded "It's also a weakness though because what happens when you overload their hearing?"

"They probably can't see very well, that's genius!"

"With that out of the way though, let's get your living situation... Situated"

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