War Stories: I am the king of a ruined world

It all starts the way things always do in DayZ: I wake up standing in the surf of a sandy beach on a clear day, with the waves lapping at my feet. I have no memory of what happened before this moment, and nothing on my person aside from some simple clothes—a t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers—and a flashlight. In front of me, a road curls off to the right; peering into the distance, I spot rooftops. Civilization! Jogging towards it, I realize it has definitely been a while since I last had a drink. Maybe I’ll find something in the town ahead.

When I arrive at the settlement—a quaint European village—my heart sinks. The town is empty, save a lone figure shambling down the central road. She is covered in dirt and blood, murmuring a guttural growl. It’s not clear exactly what’s wrong with her, but I get the distinct impression that my stay in this village will be noticeably more pleasant if I can avoid attracting her attention. So I drop to my stomach and crawl through the grass between each house, slowly searching the area for anything useful. I find a tin can full of spaghetti; however, I have nothing with which to open it.

It’s clear that my salvation lies further down the road somewhere, so I stand up at the far end of the village and begin to jog north, or at least in the direction I believe is north based on the sun’s position. A shriek echoes out behind me and I jolt into a full-on sprint. Fifty meters or so down the road I take a glance over my shoulder to confirm my suspicions, and the zombie woman is indeed following me.

What follows is a protracted, low-speed chase over hills and through bushes and shrubs along the side of the north-running road I’m trying to follow. At a dead sprint, it’s clear that the zombie woman cannot catch me. But it’s equally clear that she intends to keep following me until I slow down. It isn’t until the next town up that I’m able to break her line of site long enough to find a decent hiding place, where I cower in fear until she wanders off.

Fully kitted out.

The next few days are a blur of rummaging through houses, pubs, barns, and sheds looking for anything I can use to protect myself from zombies, or other players. I find a few sodas, some more canned food, a wood-splitting axe, and various odds and ends. I find a decent backpack with which to carry my new loot. But I am still hungry, still thirsty, and still desperately vulnerable.

Then, one day, I win the lottery. Opening the door of a colonial apartment complex, I stumble onto the scene of a massacre. In the courtyard, three people—not zombies, clearly—lie dead. What killed them is unclear: were they overrun by zombies and simply unable to defend themselves? Did they kill each other in some kind of standoff or robbery gone wrong? Whatever the cause of their deaths, there is no time to ponder it. These men were armed to the teeth, and their death is a gift. The DayZ holy grail.

In fact, there’s so much that I can’t carry it all; I have to choose. I pick the fully-kitted M4A1 over the shotgun; the military backpack over the smaller green one, and the half-full water canteen over the empty one. I grab a full first aid kit and several 60-round ammunition clips for the rifle. I grab the fireman’s axe. I grab the compass. I grab the cool aviator sunglasses. Suddenly, I am a badass.

Immediately, having the means to defend myself goes to my head. I keep heading north—whatever happened to these dead guys, I don’t want to stick around and let it happen to me now that I’ve stolen their gear—but I’m less careful about avoiding zombies because I can drop them at a distance with a few rounds from the M4. But my ammunition is not unlimited. Checking a map, I see that I’m only a kilometer or two south of an airfield. Perhaps I’ll be able to refill my ammo there.

Getting to the airfield requires me to run over 500 meters or so of open grass. It’s a nerve-wracking sprint, because if anyone’s in the air control tower with a sniper rifle and decides they don’t like the look of me, I’ll be dead before I even hear the shot. But aside from a few zombies I can quickly gun down, I attract no attention. And in the airfield, I find nirvana.

Fresh med kits. A ballistic helmet. A tactical vest with extra pockets for the buckets of ammunition I’ve found lying around. More food and drink. Everything a survivor in DayZ could possibly need. I stuff my bag and my pockets full.

As I exit the door of the main building, I see a zombie sprinting away from me. A pathing error? No, it is headed directly towards another building at the far north end of the airfield. Another survivor must be scavenging here, too. I take to the tower, with my rifle up, surveying the scene. I see no one, hear no one. Is there someone there, or was it just my imagination.

The airfield