So I think an explanation for the title is in order. The reason why I chose the Suffering of Man over something more telling on the main theme than a play on the word dead or zombie, was because I tried to focus on the interpersonal relationships moreso than the actual infected. Of course, I like my share of action and all, but the Suffering of Man also has to do with a specific portion of the human condition I wanted to explore which is suffering and pain and how people react or survive in spite of that. My later books (I won't spoil what they're about) focus on different aspects of humanity as well.

But seeing as there is a strong support for me to change the title, I just wanted to explain my thinking at least once before I do so. Thank you all for reading and I hope you stick with the story despite the coming change!

P.S I don't know about you guys, but The Dead Shall Rise has a ring to it that I kind of like.

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Chapter 20: Downtown

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The man in the coat walked over the remains of a broken house. The sky was grey, covered by an endless expanse of rain-heavy clouds. As a cool breeze brushed by, his hair flips in the wind. He had let it grow, not caring to cut it after the outbreak. His usually clean-shaved stubble had now grown into a scruffy beard. His dark brown eyes, sunken into his head, held a cold light that could pierce through steel.

He stood above the wreckage, his coat billowing out behind him. His compatriots stood around him, unable to summon the will to bring the man out of his thoughts.

The man noticed a paper at the corner of his eye. He picked it up to see that it was a picture. It portrayed the man sitting with his family, smiling towards the camera. It was one of the Christmas card pictures his family would take each year to send to their friends and relatives. They had taken the picture the year before but never had gotten around to sending it.

Jim walked up to him cautiously. He knelt down and saw the picture in the man’s hands.

“It will be okay, Eric. We will find your family.”

Eric Rider looked up at the city behind him. It had taken him weeks to fight through the chaos and get back to his own, only to discover that it was a shell of what it was before. His family was not there. It was a broken home.

“To your god or mine, I hope you’re right.” He said while standing up.

“Do not be saddened, Eric Rider. If they are alive, we will find them.” Jim said.

Eric nodded. He stood up and they walked away from the house. Tim and Gary were standing to the side.

“We better head out. This is chaotic turf.” Gary warned. They had nicknamed the areas not occupied by a specific group of people as chaotic. Not only were there hordes of infected wandering around at far greater frequencies than other places, there were also a plethora of independent survival groups, who had no problems with steal and killing others to survive. It was truly a very chaotic and dangerous area that anyone informed would stay away from. However, it must not be misunderstood that the claimed territories were any better. Infected still roamed the streets and the people there were often even more vicious to outsiders.

Indeed, as Gary was speaking, he motioned with his eyes to a house that was still partially standing. The others looked discreetly to see that people were moving to surround them

From the woodwork came 5 people. One of them strode up confidently. They had the group surrounded.

“You folks have a lot of balls to come to these parts of town. Let’s get this over with. Hand over all your stu-” Before the man could finish his sentence, a hole had appeared in the center of his forehead.

The marauding group were shocked as it happened too fast.

Tim had taken out his pistol and shot the man so quickly that they didn’t move until he had already shot 2 others in the chest.

They started firing but Eric, Jim, and Gary had already rolled away to the sides, avoiding the fire.

It had all happened within the span of two seconds and they all moved in one motion, already knowing the timing and thoughts of each other.

They were now in a position where they had their guns pointed at the marauders instead of the other way around. The two remaining attackers dropped their weapons and raised their hands above their heads.

“Best we head out immediately. I don’t want to have to deal with anything we could have just as easily have avoided.” Tim said.

“Agreed. Now that we have confirmed Eric’s home is empty, the next place would be to check is the army camp. Eric Rider, do you remember where they said the camp was located?” Jim asked.

Eric shook his head. “They didn’t specify when I was there. I had to leave early to run to the mart and pick up supplies and come back before we headed out but I was...caught up.” They nodded. They had met while Eric was trying to make his way back to the suburbs, and since they had no other place to go, they had followed.

As they got up to leave, the two people that weren’t dead piped up.

“W-What about us?” They asked. They were twins, no older than 18. One of them had urinated himself while the other was the one who was bold enough to speak up.

The guys turned to look at each other.

“Eric? What do you say?” Gary asked. “I’m fine either way.”

“Do you have others?” Eric asked them quietly. It would have gone unheard if the two hadn’t been holding their breaths.

“Just our family. Our mom and younger brother. Please, you can kill us, but don’t kill them.” They begged.

Eric didn’t talk for a while. He just left. The others followed. As Jim walked by them, he calmly whispered, “Best you leave quickly, lest we change our minds.”

His calm words and demeanor almost made them not notice the underlying threat in his words. They quickly ran away in the opposite direction, not daring to look back.

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As the four companions moved north-west towards the general direction of what they believed was the army refugee camp, they came across a shocking sight.

On the other block before them, there were thousands of infected milling around a police station, packed so thickly that they could not see the other side of the block.

“What is this? I thought the Jailers had this place cleared.” Gary grunted as they ran to take cover to avoid catching the attention of the infected.

“Don’t know. Perhaps the hordes moved to this part of town.” Tim conjectured.

“That is unlikely. From what we have seen, They generally tend to stick around. Or at least, we have not seen anything like it.” Jim refuted.

Eric shook his head. “There’s no evidence to support that. Maybe they simply wandered here in larger numbers and were attracted by gunfire as the Jailers tried to fend them off.”

“You think any of them are left?” Gary asked. “Those sick bastards had what’s coming for them. Everyone West-side knows what they’ve been doing to others in those cells of theirs. I’d gladly finish off any of them still alive.”

“I’m sure the infected have finished them off. Let’s go around.” Eric said. They skirted the outer perimeter of the hearing and smelling range of the infected.

“You think the Broods did it? Somehow attracted the infected to attack?” Tim asked.

“The Broods don’t have half the brains they need to pull something like that off.” Gary said. “Even though Jailers were under Rajan’s payroll, they weren’t even worth the dirt on his shoe.”

“If anyone did it, I’d bet it was Rajan’s men or they somehow pissed off the Hounds.”

No one could refute. They’d known Rajan was known to be brutal with anyone who crossed him and the Hounds were, well, the Hounds. If the Jailers had messed with one of their own, they’d make them pay from hell and back.

After the outbreak and explosion, people had been quick to stick to their groups. Some groups were especially large or powerful, controlling large parts of the city not completely overrun by infected or defensible. As they traveled and met different groups, they’d been able to garner a larger understanding of the socio-political make up that now ruled over the city. Only recently had the different factions started to solidify their foothold and fight for power, people, and supplies.

Suddenly, they heard a loud scream from behind them. One of the infected had spotted them and was yelling at the top of it’s lungs while hobbling towards them.

“Fuck, A screamer.” Tim said while he quickly unfastened his rifle from his back. He hoisted it up and put his eye to the sights. The gun fired and the hobbling infected was knocked back as a bullet appeared on it’s head.

However, the infected had already been rallied. A large portion of the group that were at the station started walking towards them.

“Oh for fuck’s sake. Run!” Tim said as he spotted several figures among the crowd. In the forefront of the moving mass of bodies were infected that were on the ground crawling towards them at a speed comparable to running.

Upon seeing the crawlers, the four sprinted away, trying to shake off the infected horde.

They saw a bus perpendicular to the road blocking their path.

“Hurry, get over!” Eric shouted. He cupped his hands while lacing his fingers together as he hoisted up each of the guys as they went over the top. Gary reached his hand down and grabbed ahold of Eric and brought him up. During this, Tim had taken a few shots and missed as he tried to aim for the crawlers. The crawlers had widely moving heads which made taking aim and hitting them harder.

“Quick! Find someplace to hole up!” He said. “I can’t hold them back at all!”

The others frantically looked for a defensible position.

“There!” Jim yelled. The others looked to see that it was a Burger Queen joint.

They jumped off the bus and ran to it. Gary turned around to see that the wave of infected were not hindered by the bus barricade as them. The thousands of infected slammed into the side of the bus and after a moment of wobbling, it toppled over and the infected climbed over it or simply pushed it forward with their bodies.

“Damn persistent, buggers.” Tim muttered.

They ran into the store, quickly shooting down a few stragglers inside. They ran to the back of the building just as the infected reached them. A ladder leading up to the roof was their goal. As they climbed, the crawlers were fast approaching.

“Go! Go! Go!” Eric yelled as he went up after Gary. Tim followed and Jim was almost up when a grabber grasped his ankle.

“Help me!” He yelled as he struggled to stay on the ladder. Despite his strength, the grabber’s pulled far harder than was humanly possible. Tim held onto the ladder with one hand and leaned back. He looked at the grabber below and pointed his gun and shot. The grabber fell into the sea of infected and the two made it up the ladder.

As they stood on the roof of the building, they looked down to see that their position had been completely surrounded. They had limited ammo so they just resorted to making sure nothing else climbed up the ladder. The only thing they could do was to wait it out until the horde lost interest, which could take a while.

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Eric, James, Sophia, Harry, Pete, and a few others had departed the following morning after rescuing David and John towards city hall. They weren’t confident enough to take on a hospital to get supplies but at the same time weren’t confident in dealing with Rajan either.

They had checked a dozen pharmacies along the outskirts of the city on their way, but most of them were empty of medicine. They had found a few medications and first aid materials but there was nothing that seemed to be relevant to their particular need. Not only did they not know which antibiotics to administer in the case of an infection, they didn’t know how much to administer even if they had the right medication.

Pete had been relatively quiet during the ride. He had always kept his quiet during most conversations, only contributing when he had something important to say. It was what made most people quiet down and listen once he started talk. Never did he start a conversation for small talk.

But despite that, he turned to Sophia sitting next to him.

“How are you?” He asked.

She looked up from maintaining her weapon. They were currently heading towards the hill but they decided to stop at a few places to pick up the gear that they still needed. One of the stops were the police station and if it was empty, they would enter and retrieve the kevlar suits. If it was infested, they would steer clear, but Sophia wasn’t taking any risks either way.

“Fine. You?” She said awkwardly. She hadn’t talked to the man much, but it didn’t hurt to be genial when approached.

He tilted his head and shrugged. “I’ve seen better ways to spend a Sunday.”

“Did you go to church?” She asked.

“Used to. I stopped after my wife died.” He said.

“Oh...I’m sorry.”

“No that’s fine. You couldn’t have known.” After thinking for a bit, he resumed. “You know what’s funny?”

“I had spent most of our marriage working, thinking the best thing I could do for her as a husband was to be able to provide anything she wanted. Buy anything she desired.”

“But after she died, I realized that it wasn’t what I did in her best interest that mattered. What she wanted most, and what I should have done, was be there for her and spend time with her.”

Sophia was quiet. She didn’t want to disturb his story.

But suddenly, he looked at her and asked.

“Sophia, do you blame yourself for what happened to John and David?”

She stuttered, taken aback by the sudden question. “Wha- I...I mean. Yeah.” She did blame herself. If it wasn’t for her not being able to take down the police or warn the boys ahead of time, they would have never become like they were now. If she had simply been faster, it wouldn’t have left the two broken.

“I understand that you may be going on this mission to atone for what had happened to John and David, but it was not your fault. It was nobody’s except the men who did that to them.”

She was about to defend herself, but Pete raised a hand to stop her.

“I will not stop try to stop you from going on this mission to Rajan’s but I want you to know that what happened had nothing to do with your inability.” He said.

She was stuck but then finally nodded her head in understanding.

“Good.” He simply said and returned to observing the outside world, not saying a word more.

She shook her head and then was about to return to her work when she caught sight of something.

“Stop!” She yelled. James slammed on the breaks and everyone jerked forward collectively.

“What happened?” Rick yelled. Sophia leaned forward towards the window.

“Look over there.” She said. They all turned to see that a sizable mass of infected were surrounding a store and on the roof were several figures trying to battle them away.