4. Department Store Survivors

Later that day Leon is done sifting through all his new loots and stashes it away in his apartment. It's just now starting to get dark as he looks outside his window. He's not able to see much of the city from here but he does notice a few fires in the distance. They're mostly up on rooftops as the ground is not safe especially during the night.

"It's good there are other survivors out there. Maybe the others have already made it and found their families. Sigh... "

Leon pulls his gaze from the window as he looks back in his apartment and sees a little girl sitting up staring straight at him.

"Uh, hey." Leon says with a small wave.

"Hello." She says with a soft voice. "Where am I?"

"Ah, This is my apartment. I found you unconscious outside so I brought you here for safety." Leon explains how he found her with the two thug looking guys.

"Oh, thanks for saving me..." She says while looking down with a sad expression.

"Do you know where your parents are?" Leon asks.

The little girl shakes her head.

"Where were you before?

She shakes her head again...

"Sigh. Do you at least know your name?" Leon asks.

"Alexis."

"Nice to meet you Alexis. Im Leon." He says as he stands up and grabs a couple of pillows and a blanket and proceeds to bury Alexis.

"Let's get some rest for tonight and we'll figure something out tomorrow. Are you hungry?"

"Hmm, yes please." she says eagerly.

"Be right back." Leon walks to the kitchen and throws a couple of dino nuggets on his tiny gas powered camping stove.

After cooking for a few minutes he throws the nuggets on a plate with some ketchup and takes it over to Alexis . She's already close to falling asleep.

"Here you go, dig in."

He sets the plate on the table in front of her and goes to the other couch opposite of Alexis and gets ready for sleep.

After that, Leon fell asleep. He wasn't worried about being killed in his sleep or anything because he's an extremely light sleeper. On top of that he has insomnia so hes usually up at night anyways.

In the morning Leon is up packing a few essentials in his backpack for when he goes out today. He told Alexis to stay in the apartment for now. He wants to go hunting for some cores and hopefully an item or two if he's lucky.

On his way down the same street he always takes, he doesn't find anything noteworthy except a few zombies that roamed their way in.

After an hour and a half, Leon makes his way down this street and that's when he sees a large group of at least fifty zombies huddled in front of this hardware store. It looks like they are trying to get inside by banging on the front of the store.

Leon moves closer and is able to see the front of the store is barricaded from the inside. There must be people inside. Unfortunately there are way too many zombies for Leon to take on by himself.

That's when he thinks of something and looks back at his skeleton wolf who in turn gives Leon a confused look.

A couple of minutes later Leon is as close as he can get to the store without being seen. Then he commands his companion to charge towards the zombies.

Leon decided to give his first companion the name Spike. He thought it was very fitting for his new appearance.

Spike runs his way towards the zombies and slowly one by one they turn around and start shambling after him. Spike then turns and charges off into the distance.

Once the last zombie leaves the area, leon runs out of cover and to the front of the store. He lightly knocks in the door and calls out.

"Anyone in there! It's all clear!"

After a second or two he hears shuffling inside the store and a middle-aged man opens the door and peeks out.

"W.. Who are you?"

"I was just passing by and saw all the zombies gathered here. I lured them away." Leon says.

The guy looks around outside for a few seconds and then beckons Leon inside. Once inside Leon could see a small group of people spread throughout the store, About 30 people in total.

" How are you able to travel outside with all those things out there?" the guy asks Leon.

"I have ways to deal with them. Plus they aren't even that strong unless you get surrounded." Leon explained.

"We had some people in our group try to fight when this whole thing started but... They didn't make it." The man says with a bitter expression.

Leon doesn't know what to say at this point so he decides to change the topic. Most of the people in this store look exhausted and hungry.

"Say, you guys wouldn't have a nail gun would you?"

The man looks at Leon and asks "We should have one somewhere around here. What for?"

"I was just thinking if you would let me have the nail gun and a couple of boxes of nails I could trade you guys some food and water. What do you think?"

"Really? Are you sure you have enough food to spare?"

Leon just nods and pulls out a couple of containers full of different foods from his backpack and some water bottles as well.

"This is all I have right now but I can bring more to trade later if you want." Leon says.

The man looks at the food like he's never eaten a day in his life. He quickly sends someone to grab a nail gun and a few boxes of nails and Leon passes him the food and water.

He immediately begins rationing it out to the other members of his group. The reason Leon wanted this nail gun is for two reasons. The first, is that he can use it to make some stronger fortifications in his apartment building. The second is maybe he can use it to silently take down some zombies with a well placed shot to the cranium.

A couple of minutes passes by and the guy comes back and hands leon the nail gun and nails. He shoves them all inside his pack and bids them farewell for now.

They seem like some good people. If I need anything in the future I can probably come trade for it here. I have plenty of food and water anyway so it's not like I'll be running out anytime soon.

Leon's quickly exits the store and closes the door behind himself. Once outside he finds spike waiting for him. He looks unharmed so that's good.

"Good boy!" Leon says while rubbing spikes... Scalp?

Clack clack clack! Spikes feet clack on the pavement as he jumps up and down in excitement.

Spike and Leon start making their way back to the apartment. It's going to get dark in a few hours and he doesn't feel confident in surviving outside at night yet.

In a couple of hours they make it back and climb up to his apartment room. When he walks in he looks around but doesn't see Alexis at first glance. Leon has a slight heart attack but quickly calms himself as he sees her rummaging around in the kitchen.

She was just so short he couldn't see her behind the counter. "Alexis, I'm back. How are you feeling?" Leon says and throws his backpack on the chair.

"Hmm, I can't reach peanut butter." she says while pouting.

"Haha! here you go." Leon grabs the peanut butter and hands it to her. He sits down and watches Alex try and fail to make a peanut butter sandwich.

A few minutes later he and Alex are sitting in the living room. Leon is absorbing the few E rank cores he got and Alexis is eating a sandwich that he helped her make.

For the next few days things go by rather peacefully. Leon makes regular trips out to the department store to trade his extra food and water for some tools and materials that he then uses to add some security to his apartment building.

Sometimes he uses spike as a pack mule of sorts to help carry extra supplies. He doesn't seem to mind. Actually he doesn't ever seem to get tired either.

Alexis stays in the apartment and help leon with some of the easier jobs. She still doesn't talk all that much and doesn't seem to know where her family is. It's a little sad but they'll probably run into them one of these days if they are still alive that is.

Leon managed to board up the windows with the nail gun so nobody can see inside and light doesn't escape outside. The doors are also reinforced with wooden planks. Even if the zombies stacked up on the doors it would be doubtful if they could force their way inside.

Today Leon packed up as much food and water he could carry in his backpack and a duffle bag. He also created a saddle bag for spike so he can help carry a few things.

After saying goodbye to Alexis, he makes his way down the usual route towards the department store. He's gotten pretty close with the survivors there over the past few days.

They are all extremely grateful for the food and water he brings. They also got a peek at spike fighting just out in front of the store one time when a few zombies ambushed him.

The look on there faces were priceless. George, the leader of their group, was especially surprised. They haven't seen items or cores yet because none of them really have the stomachs to fight. So they end up hiding until the zombies leave.

Spike has also gotten better over the past days. His fighting style has gotten much smoother. He swiftly charges at the zombies either biting off their heads or ramming into them with his bone spikes covering his body.

Leon doesn't even have to fight much anymore with how effective spike is. Although he is disappointed he hasn't gotten any new items since the first day of the apocalypse. He must have been extremely lucky to get spike as soon as he did.