DayZ Diary - Entry Two

Dear Diary,

Only few days have passed since my first entry and yet it seems like a lifetime. I had managed to make my way to that army camp that I had mentioned but there was little to be found there. It was filled with slaughtered army recruits, fresh off the production line that is the U.S Military. The only thing that I managed to scavenge from the place before the infected descended was a handful of crossbow bolts - not very useful when you have nothing to fire them with - and a smoke grenade.

Anyway, I travelled East from the army base in search of civilisation. Luckily, I didn’t hit much in the way of trouble until I came across a deserted petrol station. I could see a hatchet lying on the floor of the stations store but there was a catch. Three-feet from the front door was a small gang of Bandits sorting through their loot. I skulked around the treeline, keeping to the shadows as not to be seen or heard. As I got closer, I overheard the Bandits talking about their hauls and bragging about their kills. My heart raising, hands twitching, I reached into my bag for the smoke grenade I’d found earlier, pulled the pin and threw it far to my right, into the trees. It took about half a minute for the smoke to get thick enough for them to realise, but the second they did, they were off. Without a second thought, I sprung from my hiding place, down the small bank to the backdoor of the petrol station, wrenched it over, grabbed the hatchet and was back on the bank before they had even reached the smoke.

Triumphantly I snuck up the hill and buried myself in the trees, still moving east. I could hear the voices of the Bandits from the gas station, angrily shouting threats but I was long gone and they wouldn’t dare venture into the woods. The sun was setting and by the looks of it, they didn’t have much of a light source and the forest is a dangerous place at night. Sadly, neither did I.

It wasn’t long before I could see the lights of a town through the brush and as I walked out onto the road, I realised I had moved in a very large V-shape and wasted god knows how long covering a distance of 200 metres. I slowly made my way towards the town but as I got closer, I began to hear something that sounded a lot like gunshots and stopped dead in my tracks. These gunshots mean one of three things.
1. This town has infected within it and survivors that are fighting them off.
2. This town has infected within it and survivors fighting a losing battle.
3. Bandits.
As the last light sank beneath the horizon, I noticed a shack on top of a hill on the outskirts of the town. The only thing between me and the hill was either a short walk into the town or a swim through a cove. I chose to swim.

By the time I reached the shack (and I don’t use this term lightly. It was made of wood and had a door, that’s it. No furniture or windows) just after dark and settled down for the night in the corner, placing a reel of barbed wire I’d found just outside, on the floor. That should protect me from the infected at least the very least.

It wasn’t the best night of sleep I’ve ever had to say the least. As dawn broke, I was cold and stiff from the cold and hard floor. Aching, I got up, maneuvering around the barbed wire and squinted as the sun hit my eyes.

It was early and I figured that the bandits may only have one, maybe two lookouts or even better, be dead by now. My mouth dry and my belly rumbling, I knew that I had to find food and water and soon. I made the decision there and then to venture into the town in search of survival. This was the opposite of what I found.