Dear Zombie Apocalypse Diary Day 4: Where I get a gun! And fail to have a quick death…

He had a hatchet, I had a gun. We were ready for those zeds.

Sunday, an entire day I get to devote to DayZ. And it’s “day”, this has significance, because within DayZ, day and night time match the location of the server. Most of my playtime is a short time in the evening after I get home from work, so I’ve often resorted to playing on a US server so it’s usually daylight in the game. Probably not the best idea because of ‘ping’ reasons, but I’ve not found any big lag issues, and I’m too new to this game deal with night time yet. Though I heard that one can go into 'Options' and adjust brightness and gamma to make night time like day, I think I may try that some night.

The other reason I was playing on the US server was because I’m still new to the game, trying to just learn the ropes, I’d chose a low population server, as I didn’t feel ready to encounter other people in the game yet. Other various reasons are, I’d try for a server marked “Recruit”, because really, if I was to give a label to my skill level, that’s it. And it can be hard to get onto an AU/NZ server during peek times. This time because it's Sunday morning, I choose one of those AU/NZ servers.

So I start my session, bringing up a DayZ map in a browser, so I can tab/alt to it, so I can see if I can get an idea of location when I login, and spawn as a brand new helpless survivor.

Dear Zombie Apocalypse Diary…

A new day, alone on the beach, nothing but that backpack, torch, bandages and painkillers, I could see the lighthouse not far off, it was starting to be a familiar sight, I checked the map. I think I was close to Kamenka. So at a quick jog I started to make my way to what I think was Kamenka, the closest town on the coast.

When I got there, carefully avoiding zeds by keeping low, I made straight for the large warehouse on the water’s edge. Opened the doors, and I could see the loot inside, started to make my way in, only to be stopped, by barbed wire fencing. I was inside the warehouse, but the barbwire fencing surrounded a few metres in front of the door, I had closed the doors behind me, so the zombies could not get me, I had attracted a few on my rush over, I was fine, as they proved easy to avoid. But I could not get over the fencing to reach the loot.

This fencing wasn’t high, it was low coils of barbwire (in the real world outside of the game, I think I’d be perfectly capable of carefully stepping over it, without a scratch, but in the game, can’t get through it, the [v] key for stepping over low obstacles failed to work). I spent a fair amount of time trying to get over the barbwire, with no success. The zombies continued to growl outside. If I got too close to a wall, it almost appeared that a zombie leaped through, I kept away from the walls.

I even went prone, maybe I was trying to roll under the barbwire, I was very close to the wall in one attempt, and then that’s when it happened. I phased through the wall. Suddenly I was on the outside of the warehouse, with the zombies, who instantly crowded around me. I scrambled up, ran to the other door of the warehouse, and opened the door, fuck. Barbwire stretched across the opening. Ok, I can't remember what a happened next, I’m not sure how I lost the zombies.

But there I was, down in the prone position, in front of the warehouse, at a corner. Keeping very still, and looking directly up at a zombie who seemed to be completely unaware of my presence. There were actually two zeds at that corner, I stayed still for some minutes, afraid of attracting their attention. At some point, I got restless, and very slowly backed away. Then scrambled up, ran for the other door, and ran into the warehouse, slammed the door behind myself. I was safe. Back with the bloody barbwire, and that damn loot, so close, yet so far away.

I made more attempts, and a barbwire kit spawned right in front of me! I tried it, it didn’t cut the fence, it just made another. Then I tried to do a run and vault in the limited space available, a few times, it didn’t work.

Then I resorted to google, no real suggestions. This was a known “trolling”. I’d must have been trying to figure it all out for over half an hour, or more. As I was looking up for any solutions, I think it was some suggestion I saw. And this is where I feel bad. I cheated. I gave in. I disconnected from the server, logged into another server, walked forward a few feet, and then logged back into the original server. And I really do feel bad about it, I’d rather not cheat. And I won’t be doing it again.

Anyway, I was now on the other side of the barbwire, and I was just starting to pick up stuff, when another survivor came through the far door. I was sprung! Guilt washed over me! And a little fear too, he could have just very well of shot me on sight, which I hear is a habit of many survivors. But I had nothing to fear (using a combo of text and mic we communicated, first use of my new mic!), we established we were both ‘friendly’, "Hey buddy, I'm a friendly", not the shoot on sight types. His name was Brett.

Brett asked me how I got to other side, I told him how. I’d picked up some loot, there was no gun. Just some random ammo, I can’t remember what other stuff, I stood close to the fence and tried to drop a lot of stuff on the other side of the fence. I hope he was able to pick something up.

I’m afraid here is where my adventures are going to get vague, it’s been two days now since these events, and I find my memories have faded. Anyway, the adventures did continue, while Brett and I were trying to figure out the barbwire, a whole bunch of other survivors turned up, they were also friendly, I made a few attempts to now get over the barbwire, to get out of the warehouse. Eventually, likely because of a raised surface on my side of the fence, I was able to get over it, and out of the warehouse. After the others had wondered off, Brett suggested that we make for the airfield, so we made our way in that direction.

At the airfield, I think it was there I picked up a gun! Or maybe it was earlier, I wish I could remember clearly where I picked it up. It was a Remington. But I had no ammo, so I was carrying that thing around for a while, and I’m sure I looked awesome and bad ass! But still, I was defenceless. But with Brett’s company, zombies didn’t seem too scary, I took note of his confidence in manoeuvring around the zeds. He gave warnings of when we were coming close to any, and shared some useful ‘avoiding the zeds’ tips, mostly by demonstration.

Around the airfield we picked up more loot, I picked up a hatchet, finally I had a weapon I could use. Though at first I couldn’t figure out how to use it, with Brett’s suggestions, I was able to get it swinging. And some zeds came into where we were, and I swung, killed my first zeds! Then Brett pointed out some ammo I could use for my Remington. So I switched to that, which was useful, because at some point Brett ran out of ammo, I gave him the hatchet. While we were at the airfield, another friendly survivor was met, Gabe, we ran around the airfield with him for a little bit, and then said our farewells. After that Brett and I started to head off in the direction of Chernogorsk. On the way, Brett had to move on elsewhere (likely lunchtime), so we said farewell, I thanked him for the company, and I hope I remembered to thank him for all the great instruction as well, whether he knows it or not, just by demonstration, I think I picked up some useful survival skills from him.

After that I continued to towards Chernogorsk, I was a long way off, many towns between, at one, that seemed familiar, I found a familiar house to explore, just the two rooms. During my travels, at some point I had been a bit zombie mauled. I can’t remember exactly when, if was around this time, or later. But I’ll get to the consequences of that later on. At the house, I shot a zombie going in, grabbed some beans off his corpse. Then in the house, I figured it was a great place for a rest. So this is where I logged out, in a safe spot.

~*~

Later on in the afternoon, after some lunch and a long nap, I logged back into DayZ, to a surprise. Just as I appeared in the house, another survivor was entering the house, I announced that I was friendly, and would do no harm. And everything was fine, he backed away out of the house, I then left the house too, and continued my travels towards Chernogorsk. At some point in my travels, it had become very important that I make it there, I was low on blood. I needed to get to the hospital at Chernogorsk, and get blood. It was starting to have an effect on me, like occasional blurry vision.

Eventually I made it to Chernogorsk, but finding the hospital proved to be difficult. I looked at the map, it didn’t help, I wondered around for what seemed a long time, and it was just as I was having another run in with zombies, as I was giving them a merry chase and they had taken more chunks out of me earlier, I found it! the hospital!

I ran around the Hospital in an effort to lose the zeds, I climbed up the ladder to the hospital's roof. I thought they might follow, but I must have lost them. On the roof, I found more supplies, including blood, which was just as well, as I really needed it at that point. I was doing very poorly, I couldn’t see very well. And this is when I discovered a survivor cannot administer a blood transfusion on themselves, they need another survivor to do it for them.

I was doomed. I guess I could have looked up that “Reddit Rescue Force” I’d heard rumours about, but I didn’t want to, I was still feeling the guilt over that magic barbwire trick from earlier in the day, felt in this life, I didn’t deserve it. I had to try and survive on my own till it was over. And then I would be able to start with a clean slate. And that’s when I decided, to just let myself die. But I couldn’t really do a suicide either. I thought it wouldn’t be long till I’d die anyway, but I was wrong. It took forever.

I wandered around for a bit, attempted to throw tin cans at the hospital windows, but couldn’t break them. Teased zombies into chasing me, they never got me, I was very disappointed in them. I wanted to die. At one point I heard something awesome, a helicopter, someone had got a helicopter to work, I looked up, standing in the middle of the street, not worrying about zeds. I could see it, the helicopter. I wish my vision was better, so I could have seen it more clearer. I tried to follow it. But it disappeared into the distance.

At some point, I finally gave in to the suicide option. My death was taking way too long. So I ran around, got a whole bunch of zeds tailing me, then stopped in front of the hospital and let them eat me. Hopefully another survivor would find my body there, and be happy for the loot they would find on my body. Including the blood and the epi-pen.