“Take one more step, I dare you.” Aaron muttered to himself, knowing the shrieker was way too far away to hear him. It shambled a few steps forward, clearly unaware of its imminent demise.

Aaron adjusted his aim and pulled the trigger. The muffled sound of his silenced L96 sniper rifle was the only thing that could be heard nearby, but the second Aaron hit his target he knew it hadn’t had a chance to make a sound; it flopped to the floor like a ragdoll. He pushed the bolt up, and pulled it back, releasing the red-hot shell from the chamber, pushed the bolt forward to load another round, and locked it back in the starting position. There was a satisfying puff of smoke leaving the barrel.

This was his job; guarding the farm, and he liked it. He got to sit on top of the silo, could look down on everybody (even more so figuratively), and was never bothered, unless there was an emergency, which he could usually see coming anyway. For a social person, this job would have been hell; the whole situation was hell. Luckily for him, he wasn’t a social person, but that didn’t change the fact that the situation was still hell.

It had finally happened, the thing that all of the rednecks and apocalypse preppers from the History Channel had been dreaming of and fearing for years: a zombie apocalypse. Unfortunately for them, there was no way to prepare for these zombies; they weren’t the brainless, flesh-eating piles of walking flesh from the movies and games. No, these were the not-quite brainless, super-hearing, flesh-eating piles of walking flesh from your nightmares. There was nothing fun about the situation, there was just survival, or death.

He set the rifle down, grabbed his binoculars, and resumed his position on his chair. He chuckled, remembering how stupid and dangerous it had been getting the folding lawn chair on top of a barn silo, but he was a reckless person, and had done it anyway. Now he was sitting on his the physical embodiment of his arrogance and stupidity. It was comfy.

He scanned the horizon for shriekers, to make sure that nobody else had heard the shot. Loud noises were dangerous things.

Nobody heard it, but there was one shambling up the road. Aaron grabbed his rifle, laid down, and tried to steady his breath. It wasn’t a very windy day, this one was walking straight ahead, and he guessed it was probably close enough he wouldn’t have to raise the crosshairs more than a few inches higher than head level. This would be an incredibly easy shot.

The crosshairs were on target. Aaron took a deep breath in, and slowly exhaled, so the only thing that could throw off his aim would be his heartbeat, or some sort of external disturbance.

“AARON DO YOU SEE THAT?!” somebody shouted over the radio. It startled him just enough to throw off his aim by a few feet, and he missed his target. But something was wrong; something other than Aaron missing a target. Instead of letting out a guttural wail, like a shrieker would, this one ducked, and started to quickly limp into a ditch. Then he realized what was wrong: it wasn’t a shrieker, it was a person.

“Yeah, I do see THAT.” Aaron replied, in the most insulting imitation he could muster.

“It’s a person! There’s a HUMAN coming to the farm! What should we do?” replied Harry, the young lad on the other end of the radio. Aaron never really liked Harry, he could get work done if asked, but he needed to be reminded of what to do several times before it actually sunk in. Even if they didn’t need to repeat orders, Aaron still probably wouldn’t like him. Aaron didn’t really like people in general.

“Pipe down! Do you want a horde of shriekers to come running?!” Aaron snapped back, knowing there weren’t any nearby. He just wanted a little revenge.

“Sorry, it’s just that… Well it’s a person! We haven’t had one in MONTHS. Did you... Shoot him?” said Harry. He sounded like a puppy who had just been scolded by its master.

“No, I missed.”

“Wait, you actually MISSED someth—“

“Just go get Joel; and go find out what’s up with this guy. He looked hurt.”

Joel was the only one of their motley crew with actual leadership experience; he had been the captain of a paintball team, was charismatic, persuasive, hard to anger, and for the current situation’s standards, not bad looking. It was no wonder he was the unofficial leader.

“Aaron, are you there?” asked Joel, who was suddenly on the radio. Aaron could see him gathering up the group to go out. That was their tactic: round everybody up to meet people so it looked like they had a larger group than they really did. It worked great when warding off unwelcome guests like bandits and other undesirables who could still think. Most people didn’t call their bluff, but they had had some trouble with a bandit group a few months ago, so everybody was still wary.

“Of course I am, where else would l be?” replied Aaron, a bit harsher than intended.

Unlike the other four survivors: Lily, sometimes called Lily; Megan, Lily’s sister, who was fairly short, and frequently called “Lil’Meg”; Jackson, the guy who had found the farm first, he had built the barriers, and was a bit of an evil genius; and Mike, the brute force of the group, a real hammer in a child’s toy toolbox; Aaron actually liked Joel. Aaron felt that respect should be earned, not expected, and Joel had definitely earned it; he had earned it several times over, in fact.

“We’re going to go check this guy out, it looked like something was wrong with him,” said Joel, over the radio.

“Got it,” replied Aaron.

“Stay alert up there, something feels fishy about this. If need be, take the shot. Any of our weapons will bring every shrieker from miles around right up our a****.”

“Can do,” replied Aaron, aware of the potential risks.

They weren’t worried about the man hurting them; they were worried about the noise that would result if he tried. Aaron’s sniper was the only ranged weapon they had that could be fired without attracting shriekers; the rest of the guns were really just for show until they found silencers. A single shot from another weapon would attract dozens, maybe even hundreds of them to the farm, and with every shrieker that feasted and wailed another would surely hear. Trying to stop a horde of them while they were feeding would be like trying to stop a giant row of dominoes that were in the process of falling. The only way to deal with it would be to not be there when they arrived.

Aaron watched as his group cautiously moved towards the other survivor. He noticed a strange bulge on the man’s upper arm, it looked like a bandage. A very dirty, very infected bandage.

When Joel and the group arrived, they appeared to start talking. Aaron could only imagine what was being said. Watching Joel speak was like watching a game of chess; it didn’t look like much, but he knew that Joel’s mind was racing a million miles an hour, trying to calculate what would be said before it was spoken, planning out various paths the conversation could flow, and knowing how to execute a backup plan if things went south. Offer one hand, while arming the other; one could never be too careful.

They appeared to be negotiating something, when Joel suddenly pulled out his pistol and pointed it at the man. As if on cue, everybody did the same. The man backed off a few steps, and started to slowly remove his bandage. Even through the scope, Aaron could see what was going on. The man had been bitten by a shrieker; it was only a matter of time before he would turn into one himself. Aaron saw Joel pull out his radio.

“Drop him, Aaron, there’s nothing we can do for his arm, it’s too infected. He’ll be a shrieker within hours, and he’s made it very clear he has no intention of leaving.”

Aaron couldn’t believe what he was about to do. He had never killed somebody who appeared so harmless before, but he knew what needed to happen.

“You guys probably won’t want to stand that close.”

Aaron watched, as Joel waved everybody off. The man was on his knees, in the road, and appeared to be sobbing. But something felt horribly wrong; the man was reaching for something. Aaron watched his hand snake behind his back, and pull out a shiny object. In an instant, Aaron realized what it was.

“JOEL, HE’S GOT A GUN!!” Aaron screamed into the radio.

But it was a moment too late. The man had already leveled his weapon, and fired three times before Aaron even had a chance to react. He took the shot; the man slumped over exactly as a shrieker would. He stared at the corpse for a moment, before he dared looking at his friends.

Harry was standing there, apparently in shock; Mike was on the floor, clutching a badly bleeding wound a few inches below his left collarbone; Jackson was rushing over to Mike; Megan was lying was next to her sister, weeping. Aaron couldn’t tell which one was bleeding. The worst, however, was Joel. He was dead; one of the bullets had gone clean through his skull.

Aaron was horrified; it was like losing his brother all over again. He could have prevented it had he acted a split second sooner; taken the shot instead of using the radio. His mind was spiraling into a storm of guilt, disbelief, and shock.

But the world didn’t allow him a moment to collect his thoughts, for he could hear the deafening bellows of the shriekers from all around; getting closer with every moment. They had heard.

And they were coming.