Rise of the Desperate: Donald Carter's Zombie Survival Guide

Chapter 7: End of First Wave

When the hour passed, Donald nearly breathed a sigh of relief. However, it was too soon to celebrate. It was just the first hurdle. They still had to see if Amanda received any powers. The two waited with bated breath to see if a system would pop up and inform her that she had powers. Several moments passed, and as time passed, their hopes got smaller and smaller.

Amanda looked at him with a panicked expression. "Am I not going to get any powers?"

"You might have to do something to get them," he said.

"Like what?" she hissed. "You can't expect me to electrocute myself like you did."

In response to her words, Donald stared blankly at her. She was immediately cowed by his expression and fell silent. While he understood she was frantic, she should know how to speak. He really shouldn't have teamed up with her, but there was no helping it. Maybe he could somehow ditch her somewhere and go solo or find someone else to work with.

"My system said that it's random," Donald started when a message popped up in front of them.

[Congratulations.]

[You have survived the first wave.]

[Those that have survived have done well so far. However, more waves of zombies will continue to happen until the source of the zombies is dealt with.]

[In order to stop the zombies, you must kill the one responsible for creating them.]

[Until then, the zombies will continue to grow stronger and more dangerous.]

[To counteract this, a select few will become awakened and gain powers and a system to survive against the zombies.]

[Do your best to survive.]

All the information in front of them was everything they knew already, which didn't do much for them in the long run. They needed new information to help them, but Donald supposed it made sense that it would be stuff they knew. Everyone else would have been ignorant of what was going on until the system informed everyone of what was happening.

"Do I get powers now?" Amanda asked.

Donald stared blankly at her, and she closed her mouth. If she had to ask that, it meant she wasn't one of the lucky ones to get a power and a system, which meant she was dead weight. Now he had to assess the situation and figure out what he should do to survive. The system hadn't mentioned anything about when the next wave would happen or what would happen.

[The system can't inform users ahead of time when a wave happens, as this information might give away details about the user creating the zombies.]

His eyes instantly narrowed. Without meaning to, the system had already given a clue about the zombie user. If learning the time between waves was a clue, it probably meant that the user's power had a time aspect to it. It was likely they had some kind of cooldown that prevented them from creating zombies nonstop. Otherwise, they wouldn't have waves.

Unfortunately, that was all he had to go on. Without knowing how long the cooldown was, it was impossible to tell when it would be safe to approach the zombie user, and that was only if they managed to figure out who it was. Of course, he wasn't crazy enough to confront them himself, or at least on his own. The zombie user had who knew how long to get ready.

"Donald?" Amanda prodded him when he remained silent for too long.

Snapping his head in her direction and causing her to flinch, he said, "We have to make a decision. Do we risk going down, stay here, or exit through the fire escape?"

The look on Amanda's face made it clear that she thought all those choices were insane. Well, if she wasn't going to pick, he would decide on his own and possibly leave her alone to fend against the zombies. After careful contemplation, he chose to go with the last option. Even with his fear of heights, it was better than doing nothing.

"I'm heading for the fire escape. You can join me or not. It's up to you," he said as he stood up.

He took one final look at the stairs heading down to the third floor before walking toward the direction of the fire escape. When Amanda called after him, he ignored her as he had nothing more to say. If this was where they were going to part ways, he had nothing more to say to her. It was also quite dumb of her to speak up when zombies were nearby.

She seemed to have realized her mistake, as she didn't try again. When he didn't hear any footsteps, he took it to mean that she was going to stay behind. It was only when he was close to the fire escape that he heard running footsteps. To be safe, he raised his ax up just in case he needed to use it. It proved to be an unnecessary caution, as he saw it was Amanda.

"Wait. I'm coming with you," she said, keeping her voice low.

Donald nodded before opening the fire escape. There was no alarm, much to their relief. He knew it was a possibility, as all fire escapes were outfitted with an alarm to prevent people from abusing them, but it would be a death sentence in their current situation. Peering outside, he didn't see any zombies on the fire escape. The zombies apparently didn't know how to use it.

Signaling for her to follow, he took the first step out. His stomach dropped at the sight of the ground so far below. Shaking his head, he used the fact that it could have been higher if he had used the fire escape on the seventh floor to make light of the situation. That didn't stop him from using one hand to grip the railing. It wasn't the smartest thing to do.

What if a zombie popped out? He would need both hands, but he couldn't bring himself to let go of the railing. Forcing himself to descend the steps, he heard Amanda close the door behind him and follow after him. As they passed the door to the third floor, they paused to glance at it before moving on. There was no point in opening it and falling headfirst into zombies.

It would have defeated the purpose of using the fire escape. Then they passed the second floor door and were close to the ground when they spotted some zombies heading in their direction. The duo immediately stopped in their tracks as they panicked. Would the zombies see them? What should they do? Should they go back into the building to hide?