DayZ Diary – Day 1 – ‘It’s a dangerous business going out your door…’

Day 1

I awake near the coast, the tide is lapping on my feet as the swell pushes the sea onto the shoreline. A few moments of peace descends as the sun shines on my back and the wind gently drifts through the trees…

“Hello! Friendly black man here….”

Right, enough of that then. Panic mode engage and I sprint down the coast in the opposite direction the voice is coming from.

“Wait, where are you going?”

I don’t turn, I don’t waver, I run like hell. Past some shacks until I hear nothing and only then do I glance behind me to see what’s going on. No one is there. I take a moment to catch my breath. Friendly black man indeed, friendly black man who is really a very unfriendly white man destined to punch me in the face more like. I quietly consider whether this course of action has turned me into a racist. The answer is simple, it’s the fact he said friendly. No one on this world is friendly unless you can point a gun at them. Colour is irrelevant.

What isn’t irrelevant is that I’ve run half a mile in a random direction, away from any kind of shelter, food, drink or weapon. I spy a lone house and creep inside, it’s deserted. In one corner I spy something, a baseball bat. I quietly say a prayer to whichever deity is looking out for me today and slide the 42 inches of ash onto my back. A cursory check of the house reveals nothing more than a baseball cap and a blue shirt. ‘Well, at least I’ll look cool when someone shoots me in the back of the head’ I think and carry on out the house, following the coastline north.

Looking to my right I see a large island and beyond that island another with a lighthouse perched on it. My curiosity is peaked but there now faces a stark choice. I can guess the coastline probably swings round to meet the islands far ahead, a journey that could take me past some houses I could loot but probably also zombies who I’d rather not meet. The alternative is to strike out into the channel between the mainland and the first island and hope that the distance isn’t too far after it.

The threat of having my face bitten off decides it and I head into the water and begin to haul myself inexorably to the landmass ahead of me. It’s a tawdry journey, no fish or plants lie beneath me and no one bothers me as I make my way. Eventually I hit the first island and doggedly I run straight on up it’s high slopes, hoping the top may give me some vantage point to assess the next leg of my journey. My body is crying out for a drink and my stomach begins to complain about the exertions I’m putting it through. ‘Just a little father’ I tell myself ‘There’s bound to be something to eat and drink ahead’.

The hill top finally meets me and I see…. trees. Shit. The forest obscures my view so I begin the jog down the other side until I reach the shore line. The second island heaves into view and I suddenly see that in fact this is not a second island but that it is separated from the hill by a large bay. I cut my losses and choose to follow the bay around rather than swim. I reach the few houses that neighbour the lighthouse. I check the first… empty. I check the second… empty. Double shit. I head out to check the lighthouse, my last hope…

“GRaaaaagggghhhhh”

A shambling, disfigured woman lurches from behind a tree and races toward me. I manage to pull my baseball bat from my back in just enough time to deliver at least one blow to her shoulder.

“Mwwwarrrrrgggghhhh”

The fuck? A second piercing scream erupts from my right. A second female lumbers into view. Sensing that my bat isn’t going to hold off two brain crazed zombie chicks I run back into the nearest house, hoping that I can at least take them on one at a time. The first zombie politely limps in through the front door, the second seems to blast through the wall. Now I’m trapped inside a house with two zombies one of whom is stood directly in front of the only exit. Without a pause I think of the only tactic left open to me. I Leroy Jenkins it past the first zombies, waving my bat like an idiot hoping to knock it down and escape.

It works.

Suddenly I’m outside, with no expectations of having made it I turn back to see what’s going on behind me. First zombie lady has turned to follow me, the second… seems to be staring at me mournfully through the window. For a split second my mind is full of thoughts. Are these zombies simply fleshing eating machines or could a remnant of their former being be trapped inside their rotting form, desperately trying to stop the rampage of blood lust they are caught up in.

I slam the baseball bat into the skull of the first zombie with a sickening crunch, she goes down face first. I try to hit her whilst she’s down but she manages to make it back to her feet. A second swing connects with her face and this time she staggers back, falling to the ground and moving no more. I look back to the house, lady zombie #2 looks back in her ripped pink cardigan, saying nothing.

I leg it.

Toward the lighthouse I run, stopping only to drink some fetid water from a well to quench my thirst.

I finally reach the lighthouse, the goal I set myself has been achieved and as I slowly climb the ladder to the top I congratulate myself. I note that I’m bleeding… quite a lot. Definitely a little too spurting for my liking. I reach the top and take the sad decision that my blue shirt is going to have to become bandages. I tear it into 4 strips and make the best I can to stem the loss of blood. Still, at least I’ll find something cool here that will make it worth the effort.

I reach the top of the tower… nothing. I search the viewing platform…. nothing.

Fuck.