VAISHALI DISTRICT
Ahmed knelt on the hardwood floor of the dead doctor's house, surrounded by an array of scavenged materials: fishing line, tin cans, nails, broken glass, duct tape, and a collection of kitchen knives that gleamed in the morning light filtering through the boarded windows.
"Okay, okay," he muttered to himself, threading fishing line through a series of cans arranged near the back door. "Tension here... anchor point there... yes, this will work. This will definitely work."
He pulled the line taut, testing the resistance. Too loose and it wouldn't trigger. Too tight and a gust of wind might set it off. He adjusted it carefully, his hands steady despite three days of living on instant noodles and fear.
"Anyone tries to come through this door" He pulled the line experimentally. The cans clattered together, the sound sharp and immediate. "and I'll hear them coming. Simple. Effective. Beautiful."
He moved to the front entrance, where he'd already set up his masterpiece: a pressure plate made from a floorboard balanced on two paint cans, connected to a rope that would release a shelf full of heavy encyclopedias. Step on the board, get buried in knowledge. Literally.
"The classics never die," he said with a grin that didn't quite reach his eyes.
But the infected weren't his only concern. Other survivors might come. Desperate, dangerous, willing to kill for supplies. He needed a way to differentiate between the living and the dead.
From his bag, he pulled out a brass bell—the kind you'd find at a hotel reception desk. He'd found it in the doctor's study, probably used to summon a housekeeper who no longer existed. He mounted it carefully on a post outside the front door, just out of reach of the booby traps, with a sign he'd written in large, clear letters:
IF YOU ARE ALIVE, RING THE BELL.I WILL COME OUT.
Below that, in equally large letters:
BEWARE: BOOBY TRAPS INSIDE.DO NOT ENTER WITHOUT RINGING FIRST.
He stood back, admiring his work. The bell was positioned high enough that the infected—mindless, driven by base instinct—wouldn't think to ring it. But a human? A human would see the sign, process the words, and make the choice to ring.
"Assuming they can still read," Ahmed muttered. "Assuming they're not so far gone that words still mean something."
He tested the bell mechanism one more time, pulling the string that ran from outside, through a small hole in the door, to his makeshift alarm system inside. The bell rang clear and bright, and Ahmed nodded in satisfaction.
"Yes. Yes, this works. This absolutely works." He laughed—a sound that was becoming more common and less sane with each passing day. "Welcome to Fort Ahmed, where the infected die and the living... well, the living better follow instructions."
He returned inside, checking his traps one by one:
Trip wire at ankle height across the hallway, connected to a mason jar full of nails suspended from the ceiling. Another pressure plate in front of the kitchen, this one releasing a swinging cabinet door lined with broken glass. Fishing line stretched across the stairwell at neck height—nearly invisible, potentially lethal. And his personal favorite: a bucket of bleach and ammonia rigged to mix and release toxic fumes in the upstairs bathroom if the door was opened wrong.
"Chemistry saves lives," he said, patting the bucket like a proud parent. "Or ends them, depending on which side of the door you're on."
He settled into his observation post by the window, mobile in hand, and began today's recording.
"Day Three. The traps are set. The bell is ready. I've created a system to separate the thinking from the thoughtless, the human from the hungry." He paused, considering. "Or maybe I've just created an elaborate way to kill people who are only trying to survive. Hard to say. Ethics are... fluid these days."
He clicked off the camera and stared out at the street, where the infected shuffled and groaned and learned, hour by hour, to be better at what they did.
And Ahmed waited for the bell to ring.