Dead Man Walking: Living By Day, Dead By Night - Chapter 30

Chapter 30: Contributing To The Group
After realizing that he was no longer safe on the rooftop, Zane immediately re-entered the second building of the High School, where he popped the ten blood crystals he had received for selling the corpse of his victim to the Stalker into his mouth, consuming them on the spot.

Naturally, he received a familiar message when he did so. For every blood crystal he consumed, Zane received this series of messages in a bold blood red lettering almost as if he were living in a video game.

—

[Blood Crystal Consumed!]

[Buff Applied: Living Dead]

[+10 XP]

—

Zane stared at his xp bar after consuming the ten blood crystals and realized he had quite a bit more to go if he wanted to level up to level 3.

—

[Current XP: 100/300]

—

Zane sighed in exhaustion after he saw this number. If he did his math correctly, he needed to consume another twenty blood crystals if he wanted to advance to level two. Which meant he would probably have to kill another one hundred Walkers, as thus far he had determined that there was a one in five chance of getting a blood crystal after killing a Walker.

Of course, Zane had other matters to attend to. After all, he could not just go around slaughtering undead 24/7. He now had a group of survivors he had to manage, and he was one man shortly after killing that teenage boy who Zane had never learned the name of.

With this in mind, Zane decided to go check on their rations to make sure that they all had enough supplies to last them for the next few days. Because if not, Zane would have to make another journey to the cafeteria, and retrieve what little supplies remained that he and the other survivors had not already pilfered.

—

After bringing supplies back to the gymnasium, Ryan had become a hero among the survivors taking shelter there. Unlike Zane, who established his hierarchy with him at the top, and everyone else below him via brute force.

Ryan took a more democratic approach, using his previous and newfound popularity to establish himself and his friends from the football team at the top. Effectively, he was the “president” of this little coalition of students and faculty. While his friends were just below him. Below that was everyone else.

This, of course, left much to be desired, as aside from operating as the captain of the football team, Ryan had few leadership skills that could help his people stave off starvation and death. Instead, the hierarchy quickly became abused, as the members of the football team horded the rations, and distributed them unevenly.

Many of these survivors had grown increasingly concerned about their families, who had yet to come to retrieve them even though three days had passed since this crisis had begun. And when those young men who were not a part of the hierarchy realized that they were not being treated fairly, they began to talk among themselves about what was in their best interest. Albeit secretly behind Ryan’s and his goons’ backs.

“I’m sick of this shit… It’s been three fucking days, and all I’ve had to eat and drink during this time is a bag of chips and a fucking juice box. And that was back when Mr. Diaz was in charge! Dude… I can’t stay here any longer! My mother and sister have to be worried sick about me!

I’m not going to stay around and wait for my death at the hands of the rioters. And neither should you guys. If you ask me, we should steal some rations for ourselves when everyone else is asleep. Then once we have the supplies we need, we get the fuck out of here for good!”

Despite being worried about their families, and the ever dwindling resources. These young men were also concerned about their safety. They had all seen what was awaiting them outside the gymnasium. And the only person to return alive from a quick visit to the main building was Ryan.

Everyone else, including Mr. Diaz, had perished simply attempting to get some food and water for the group from the cafeteria. If that was the case, then what the hell was the rest of the city like? These were the thoughts going through the other boys’ heads as they cautiously eyed one another with fear on their faces before expressing this very sentiment.

“I don’t know Josh… You heard the President. These riots are a nationwide phenomenon. We are supposed to stay indoors and button down the hatches until the national guard can restore order. I’m sure our families are fine if they followed the same protocols… Besides, now that we know that a disease is causing people to go crazy, I don’t want to get infected and turn into one of them, that would be horrible!”

Several of the other boys nodded their heads and were just about to agree with this sentiment when a girl approached them. They all knew who she was, as she was the girlfriend of the teenage boy who had suggested stealing supplies and abandoning the school.

There was a dreadful expression on the girl’s face, and it was clear that she had previously been crying due to her puffy eyes. But nobody really thought anything of this, specifically because lots of girls had been crying since this whole crisis began.

However, what immediately caught the group’s attention was the fact that this girl has some rations in her hands. A few peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, along with some juice boxes to wash them down. Considering the fact that all of these boys were starving, they immediately approached the girl as if she were their savior.

“Oh, my god! Kristen, where the hell did you get those rations? I thought that Ryan and his thugs weren’t giving them out unless people contributed to the group….”

There was an evident tone of mockery in the girl’s boyfriend’s tone when he spoke of the concept of contribution. And he was laughing at his joke so much that he missed the fact that the girl had immediately averted her gaze when he spoke to her, and continued to do so even when she spoke.

Her voice was so meek it was almost a whisper. But it was clear by her words that she would not be elaborating on how she got her hands on the supplies.

“I don’t want to talk about it… Can we just… Eat in peace?”

This was a curious request, but the girl’s boyfriend thought nothing of it, completely unaware that there were still faint traces of tears running down her eyes even now. Of course, nobody else suspected that the girl had gone through an ordeal just to get some rations, because they were all too hungry themselves.

And it was because of this that nobody realized why the rations were being distributed so unevenly. After all, “contribution to the group” meant something entirely different if one was female….