Location: Former regional bank branch, edge of downtown district
Status: Seized, gutted, repurposed
Public Identity: Abandoned, looted, dead like everything else
Reality: Fully operational. Fully lived in. Fully lethal.
From the outside, it looks like any other corpse of the old world.
Broken windows. Faded logo. Doors hanging crooked. A place people already decided was empty.
That’s why it works.
The front of the building is left deliberately ugly.
Shattered glass left in place
Torn signage still hanging by one bolt
Old protest graffiti half-scrubbed, half-ignored
Windblown paper in the lobby visible from the street
It tells a story:
Someone came. Someone looted. Someone left.
No one imagines someone stayed.
The parking lot is a graveyard of old tire tracks and dust. No fresh signs. No obvious movement. No reason to look twice.
That’s intentional.
The lobby is a stage set.
Desks overturned. Flyers scattered. A toppled potted plant fossilized in dirt. The ATM casings cracked open like ribs.
It looks picked clean.
It is not.
Behind the wreckage, the space has been subtly reclaimed:
Furniture re-stacked for line-of-sight control
Old brochure stands repurposed as storage
A collapsed ceiling panel hides cabling and lighting
The security desk is hollowed out and reinforced inside
Nothing screams “base.”
Everything whispers “forgotten.”
The vault was never blown.
He didn’t need to.
It opens.
It closes.
It still works.
And now it is the core of the Black Armory.
Steel walls. Concrete floor. Temperature stable. Silent.
Where safety deposit boxes once lived, there are now:
Weapon racks, wall-mounted
Vertical storage cradles
Crate stacks with stenciled markings
Long cases arranged with obsessive symmetry
This is where the rare things live.
The things that don’t go out often.
The things that change outcomes.
The door is still the original bank vault door.
He kept it.
Because nothing says you are not welcome here like six inches of steel and history.
The small rooms behind the vault — once rows of boxes and private keys — are now specialized armory wings.
Each room has its own purpose:
Long guns room – precision, heavy, rare
CQB room – compact platforms, subguns, suppressors
Exotics room – the things no one is supposed to have
Sidearms wall – pistols displayed like a museum of violence
Blades wall – knives, axes, edged tools arranged by type
The boxes are gone.
The walls are lined.
It feels less like a stockpile…
and more like a curated collection of ways to end lives.
He didn’t live in the vault.
He’s not that kind of monster.
He lives in the back offices — the four old manager and loan officer rooms — all knocked into one open space.
This is where the contrast hits.
Old sectional couch dragged in from a hotel
Thick blankets
Stolen rugs layered on concrete
Books stacked in milk crates
Comics. Stacks of them. Old, new, dog-eared, pristine.
A big man sprawled on a couch with a comic book and a mug of coffee, boots off, weapons out of reach.
If someone saw him here, they would not believe what he is.
That’s the point.
Against one wall:
Flat screen TV
DVD shelf (action, horror, 90s trash, classics)
Old consoles
Arcade cabinet – one of the tall, glowing kinds with cracked decals
A second cabinet leaned against the wall, half-working
He stole them because he could.
He fixed them because he wanted to.
When the world ended, he refused to give up fun.
That makes him more dangerous, not less.
He knocked through an exterior wall.
Installed an industrial vent.
Dragged in stolen appliances.
What was once an office is now a real kitchen.
Not campfire. Not canned. Not survival slop.
Real cooking.
Stainless steel counters
Commercial range
Hanging pans
Knife rack
Shelves of spices, jars, ingredients scavenged from a hundred places
He cooks.
Not because he has to.
Because it reminds him he’s human.
That should scare people.
He didn’t park outside.
He made the building eat the cars.
The back wall of the office section was torn open and reinforced. The parking area behind the bank became an internal garage bay.
Now it holds:
Primary vehicle
Secondary vehicle
Parts racks
Tire stacks
Tool benches
Welders
Jacks
Fuel cans
Scrap piles sorted by type
He stole from six garages to build this.
It is not pretty.
It is functional.
It smells like oil, metal, and heat.
This is where things get made.
This is where things get fixed.
This is where things become weapons.
Between the garage and the vault is his workshop.
This is where the man becomes the machine.
Welding station
Grinder
Drill press
Vises
Pegboard of tools
Shelves of parts, springs, wire, scrap, hardware
Nothing is labeled.
He knows where everything is.
Because he built this place the same way he builds his hunts.
Deliberately.
One of the old conference rooms is now nothing but wall.
Wall.
Wall.
Every surface covered.
City maps
Hand-drawn overlays
Chalk markings
Pins
String lines
Notes taped over notes taped over notes
This is where the POIs live.
Not just places.
Patterns.
Routes.
Behavior.
Movement.
Territory.
He has:
Supply nodes
Enemy clusters
“Quiet” buildings
Danger zones
Kill streets
Dead spaces
Places where people vanish
Some are circled.
Some are crossed out.
Some have names written next to them.
Some have dates.
Some have no markings at all.
Those are the ones that aren’t done yet.
This is not a bunker.
This is not a barracks.
This is not a hideout.
This is a home that happens to be a war machine.
You can hear:
Old music playing low
Arcade sounds in the background
Tools clinking in the garage
The hum of a fridge
The scrape of a chair
The slow, steady rhythm of a man who is not in a hurry
It feels lived in.
That is the most unsettling part.