Noticing that he was hungry, Dave pulled a tin of food out of one of his shopping bags. He had nothing to eat it with. Getting up Dave walked to the kitchen and looked about for a spoon. He had also found a saucepan and was thinking that it would be nice to heat up his can of soup when the lights went out in the room, canceling any further cooking plans.
Dave walked over to the curtains hiding the balcony and peeked through a gap. He nearly gasped out loud to see a few dozen walkers were now on the streets. Dave noticed something weird: these walkers were rather agitated for some reason and he hoped that it wasn't because they sensed him. The sun was trying to set and night was about to settle on the dying city. Looking away from the shambling walkers Dave noticed that there were no lights anywhere. There was not a single hint of electricity anywhere outside.
The power seemed to have failed over all the area that Dave could see and so Dave doubted that the power was on anywhere in the city. There was a small TV near the wall across from the couch and Dave looked at it wistfully. Without power it would be impossible to live in the city. Dave wondered if there was anywhere that one could successfully live.
Straightening up, Dave looked towards the curtains that covered up the balcony. The power failure had come at a terrible time. With night falling darkly upon the mostly dead city, those few poor souls left alive would now have to face the terrors of the night without any way to even see what would attack them. Dave didn't want to think about this for long.
Dave returned to the kitchen where he had left his can of soup. Without electricity there was no way that he could cook the soup. It was getting dark fast as the last of the twilight faded. The pulled curtains accelerating the coming darkness. Knowing that he didn't have much light left, Dave pulled on the top of the soup can and opened it. He then found a drawer in the kitchen that had utensils and dug out a spoon.
He paused for a moment, took out some more spoons, a cooking knife and a can opener. Dave took these items back to the coffee table. He placed the spare utensils in a shopping bag and sat down on the couch. He picked up the soup can and a spoon and grimaced as he ate his soup. It was a rough meal but at least it was a meal.
Taking care to not cut his lips on the can's edge, Dave drank the last of the soup juice. He stood up. Not too sure what to do, Dave walked back to the kitchen. He tossed the empty soup can into a plastic bag lined bin with a foot operated popup lid. He took the spoon to the sink and found that there was still running water. He squirted a bit of washing detergent onto the palm of his hand and quickly rubbed his hands all over the spoon that he had eaten with before rinsing it under the tap. Dave dried his hand on a tea towel hanging from a towel rack.
After searching about the cupboards, Dave found a glass tumbler that he filled from the tap. There was no real reason to doubt the water quality, and without electricity there was no way to really boil it, so Dave drank down the entire glass of water. He refilled the glass from the tap and went back to the couch to rest. There were some bottles of water in his bags, but Dave was of the mind that it would be best to save these bottles for a truly desperate time.
While sipping his glass of water, he heard a metallic clanking noise that an empty can would make when kicked. Curious, Dave put down his glass of water, stood up and went to the curtains that covered the door to the balcony. He opened a small crack in the curtain and peeked through that.
There were now several dozen walkers on the street. Dave figured that one of those walkers had kicked the can that Dave had just heard. But then Dave saw something unexpected. So far Dave had only seen the walkers moving as fast as a shambling walk. Usually the walkers just stood there as if without purpose. Sometimes they would stumble around. But in the rapidly fading light, Dave could see the occasional walker sprint a short distance.
And as the dark grew into full night, Dave could see more and more walkers dashing about. There seemed to be no reason or purpose to the dashing. They just seemed to pick a direction and sprint about ten meters. It was completely incomprehensible. Although there had been initially a few walkers with yellow coloured blemishes on their skin, at this time Dave could only see walkers that had fully grey skin. Dave struggled with making a pattern to what he was seeing.
And as the night fully settled in, Dave noticed a change come over the expression of the walkers. Previously they were blanked face and appeared to lack any sign of intelligence. Now they displayed signs of rough intelligence. They were rapidly looking about them. For example, staring at a car before spinning about and dashing to a garbage bin and then staring at that, before dashing to the next thing that caught their attention. No longer were the walkers staring mindlessly into empty space but were, with great agitation, aware of the objects around them and appeared to study everything in turn.
A loud crashing sound came from within the building where Dave was hiding, and a number of walkers looked in Dave's direction. Dave quickly stepped to the side in order to break line of sight. Hidden in the dark gloom Dave turned for a moment
