Dave returned to his backpack and got his sleeping bag which he placed on top of his make-shift bed. It wasn't a great bed, but compared to sleeping on a hard roof top it was fairly luxurious in Dave's opinion. It's amazing how one's expectations can be changed by the direness of the circumstances.
It was getting late in the day but it still wasn't twilight yet. There was time to do some extra tasks quickly but Dave wasn't sure what they should be. To generate some inspiration Dave walked to the edge of the roof and looked over the half-walls. The streets were empty. This made Dave wonder if the blocked roads at the intersection were discouraging the walkers from coming near the area.
Dave frowned. Wait! Did that mean that the walkers were intelligent enough to understand that there was no access through the defences that blocked the intersection? To have enough memory that the walkers would be aware that they had pathing issues with this intersection was something that bothered Dave.
For the entirety of this situation Dave had assumed that the walkers were just mindless. There were the talkers that displayed intelligence, and the way that the talkers spoke only emphasised the walkers lack of intelligence. Dave rewound his thinking. What was his procedure for judging intelligence? Was it the ability to make understandable phrases made up of spoken words? Or could intelligence be seen in behaviour?
Dave had felt that he had been dreadfully blind and that some new way of thinking was right on the edge of being revealed to him. He needed to brainstorm some more on these ideas, so he walked to his backpack, dug about inside and pulled out his notepad and some pens. Before it got dark he needed some time to write down his thoughts and sketch out some plans.
* * *
Dave opened his eyes to a sun that was in his eyes.
"Fuck," said Dave as he realised that he had slept longer than he expected.
He struggled out of his sleeping bag and sat on the camp bed for a moment to gather himself. Dave really missed coffee. Without coffee it was just too hard and too mentally draining to get started in the morning. Regardless, Dave stood up and thought about having something for breakfast. As he was stretching he heard a scraping noise.
It was a gravelly rasp that came from the other side of the intersection. Alerted, Dave crouched and jogged to the side to the roof that overlooked the intersection. He slowly peaked over the half-wall and down onto the streets below. A person was climbing up onto the improvised defences.
From the swearing Dave could tell that it was a living human and not one of the dead. With the person standing on a bus, Dave had a much clearer vision of them. Dave couldn't believe what he was seeing, and he stood up showing himself to the person below.
"Josh?" called out Dave. "Is that you?"
Josh lifted his head in an effort to spot Dave's location. "Dave?"
"Yeah."
"Well, fuck!"
"There's that."
There was a moment of awkward grinning. Dave was surprised by how much relief he had felt on seeing Josh.
"It's dangerous down there," said Dave. "There's a door below me. Wait outside that for a moment. I'll come down and unlock for you. It's safer if we talk up here."
"Yeah," said Josh in a way that left a lot unsaid.
Dave, forgetting his breakfast, jogged to the hatch in the roof, opened it and climbed down to the storage room. He jogged to the front of the supermarket and waved to Josh who was just jumping down from the southern defensive wall. Dave unlocked and opened the store door.
"Come in."
"Thanks."
"Just this way," said Dave closing the supermarket door and locking. Dave walked back to the storage room area and pointed up the ladder. "I'm just up here. I was about to have breakfast. Would you want to join me?"
"I ate something before, but I'm a bit parched."
"I've only got water," said Dave as he climbed up the ladder and onto the roof.
"That's better than nothing and I'll be glad to have it."
Josh had followed Dave up on the roof and was looking around.
"It's not much," said Dave gesturing about the roof. "I only just got here and I'm still in the process of starting to get set up."
"Are you planning on being here for a while?"
Dave nodded and walked to the hut and pointed inside. "Yesterday I carted a tonne of water from a nearby river and scrubbed the hell out of this hut. I'm such a damn sponge that I ended up exhausted and sleeping in today. But I'm hoping that if we have a clear day today then I'll be able to move in and living inside will make it a more comfortable place than just living outside in the elements."
"It's not a mansion," said Josh grinning.
"But at least it's not on the ground. So far I've found that just being one floor above ground level is safe enough."
"You look like you have a plan."
"I do. But I'll tell you latter. I'm still sort of putting it together. If you stay for a day or so, I'd like the chance to bounce my thoughts off someone."
For a few moments Josh was quiet. "Well, I don't have a real plan. I was kind of hoping that we just hang out."
Dave could see that a lot had happened to Josh. "Sure. But I might just rope you into my plans."
"Ha," said Josh with what looked like an uncomfortable bravado. "Bring it on. I hope it's not dangerous."
"It could be."
"Fuck me."
"But let's not talk about my plans for now. I've not had breakfast so you'll have to excuse me while I dig into something."
Dave reached into his backpack and pulled out a can of soup, two water bottles and a spoon. He handed a water bottle to Josh.
"Thanks. I'm dry as hell after sprinting
