Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

We were dazed for a short moment but it didn’t take long before the tower adjacent to it also had an outpour of dead bodies. They almost blocked the sun from our angle and I would’ve cursed my team if we were below them. They all came from different floors but I could fuċkɨnġ hear the crunch in my head the moment they landed, scraped, and smashed on the hard pavement, the smaller buildings below them, or the upturned and broken down vehicles below.

However, not all of them were free-falling.

From a dozen or so floors above the ground and floors much lower down, it looked like several figures leaped into the air like a free-runner would before using the pile-up below as padding. As soon as they landed, some of them limped in place as they were slightly injured but all of them survived the jump. We couldn’t identify if there were more of them because the sound of glass breaking didn’t stop.

The two towers kept on ‘spilling’ out their undead inhabitants as if their payment was overdue and were being evicted.

I instantly directed Iskoh’s mobile outpost to drive back and clear the same path they used to get here since we needed all the driving routes we could if we ever had to take them all down. We couldn’t just plant our feet on the ground and face them because a herd this size was enough to fill two residency towers smack in the middle of two cities. It would be a bog once the road littered their bodies so we needed as much space as we could.

After that, I radioed everyone in the immediate vicinity about our current predicament. The people that answered were our clearing groups but the mobile outposts made up of my people and Morales’ soldiers did so as well.

“THEY’RE MOVING~~~”

The small mountain that was in front of us kept growing larger and larger and it instantly sent out its faster minions that survived the drop. They were being led by seven ferals that dropped down on huge trucks but didn’t even take a smidgen of damage from the fall. Their bodies were crooked forward and one of them was a size larger than everyone else. Despite that, he was the one behind the other six that looked like they were starved for years.

However, Bogdan didn’t give a fuċk as he sent a fuċkɨnġ RPG straight towards them.

A large explosion rang out and the dust and red puffs along with torn down flesh and bones didn’t even clear before Igor followed after him and sent another one straight at them. It went into a different angle and whizzed past the original spot but we only saw the bigger one come out from the smoke.

Its body was covered in debris but most importantly, a large chunk of metal had dug into its ċhėst cavity. It seemed that it came straight for its right shoulder first because it had torn a large portion of its upper body, making its right arm limp and flap out, unable to be utilized. It let out a large fuċkɨnġ roar and six ferals and more than a dozen sprinters came running out of the smoke.

The ones we killed earlier were in much better shape than they are but they were gunning straight for us.

“START FIRING AND KEEP THOSE ENGINES HOT!!! TAKE OFF WHEN I TOLD YOU TO!!!”

Everyone else aimed for the ones nearest us but I opted to lock my sights on the big one still trailing behind.

Since all of them almost always run on all fours, it had a lot of trouble running with two legs since its body had malformed to be a little too top-heavy. I sent a bullet that grazed the size of its head but all it did was rip apart what was left of its discolored ear. I took another breath and recalculated before firing two almost simultaneous shots from my rifle.

It was the first one to fall face first but more deadheads came from the smoke.

The slower herd managed to catch up but Bogdan sent another RPG towards the thickest spot. It instantly made a meat salad when it connected but there was still more coming from the smoke and the two towers. Furthermore, we have no idea if there were more herds coming from other directions because we only have two routes cleared: the ones we came from and the ones Iskoh’s team used.

Bogdan was about to load another RPG but I stopped him, “PUT THAT DOWN! SAVE IT FOR LATER! WE DON’T KNOW WHAT MIGHT COME NEXT!”

“YEAH! YEAH! GOTCHA!”

“DROP THAT RG-6!!! GRAB YOUR AK AND– STOP USING THINGS THAT OBSTRUCTS OUR VIEW!!! WE CAN’T KILL IT IF WE CAN’T SEE IT!!!”

“DAMMIT, YOU’RE RIGHT! OKAY!”

“IBARRA!!! START FUCKING DRIVING!!! KEEP IT STEADY!!!”

Each one of us kept shooting but instead of mindlessly mag-dumping just to take them down, we used their ticks or behavior against them. We used the same route Iskoh’s team used to drive back but we took a left turn and it landed us on a street in between several Chinese Restobars and a Christian High School.

The most obvious was their weaknesses on turns.

Sprinters would almost always overshoot while the ferals would almost always keep a tight turn.

Kaley and I shot down the sprinters that almost went over the intersection while Bogdan send out a couple of grenades from his RG-6. Before it even exploded, Jared’s sights were already locked into the space where the explosion radius wouldn’t reach. There have been instances of them dodging our attacks but it was a different story if we know where they would roll to.

Like fuċkɨnġ clockwork, a single feral survived as it leaped to the side and rolled a few times but a bullet punctured its neck before a quick follow-up shot entered its temple.

Tvu araoafi ovzufo jfl msuz gpo ao jfl rmo ovu oaqu om euo hmqdmzofgiu. Irlouft md hazhiare fzmprt dmz frmovuz immn fzmprt ovu gimhc, ju xae-xfeeut fhzmll ovu arouzluhoamrl om dalv mpo frw zuqrfrol ovfo lpzsasut frt om luu jvuovuz vuztl dzmq f duj gimhcl fjfw emo foozfhout tpu om ovu lusuzfi uknimlamrl.

We even caught up to the team that we sent away and they met up with the smaller team they talked about earlier. They have just put down a smaller herd but their bodies still littered the road.

What we needed was a cooldown period to take care of the bodies we put down while figuring out another way to tackle our current problem. Everyone thought it would be an easy in-and-out to get a lot of supplies from the medical center but instead, we encountered a lot of problems before even doing the main job.

It was a great fuċkɨnġ idea we still left Unc Zardon and a small number of soldiers back at our original spot earlier or else they would’ve trailed behind. That truck couldn’t go as fast as ours and we would’ve planted our feet or would’ve left the truck and made Unc Zardon ride and the rest ride with our faster vehicles.

‘All these bodies littering the road is making me wish for that monster truck to get done faster…’

“What are we gonna do now?” Kaley turned to me.

“Refill all our mags first before we go back. We still haven’t finished off the herd we left behind and it will only be a matter of time before they stumble upon us.”

Bogdan from the other vehicle called out to me, “They’re probably getting cut up into smaller herds right now. A few zigzags here and there would make them fill up the space they could occupy.”

I nodded, “Then a short break here while we fly the drones over them.”

“Agreed.”

Wvaiu ovu zulo md mpz oufq ommc f lqfii gzufovuz om hvuhc pn mr mpz fqqm frt mpz uypanquro, Jfzut frt I diuj mpz tzmrul msuzvuft om hvuhc mr ovu msuzfii laopfoamr. Fzmq fdfz, ovu ojm omjuzl juzu loaii lnaiiare mpo jvfousuz tuftvuft ao hmpit jvaiu ovu mrul fizuftw ovfo lpzsasut ovu dfii juzu lniaooare pn iacu ju ovmpevo. Tvu qfar vuzt jfl euooare lqfiiuz ufhv oaqu ao hzmllut fr arouzluhoamr, hzufoare lqfiiuz vuztl om zudaii ovu uqnow lnmol ovuaz dfiiur hmqzftul iudo guvart.

However, the ferals going in a different way from them couldn’t be missed and they definitely grew wary when they caught a glimpse of our drones.

Despite that, we managed to pick off one of them since it tried to chase after us. It climbed onto smaller cars at first and once its head stuck out like a sore fuċkɨnġ thumb, a bullet entered its mouth and broke all of its front teeth. Another quick shot would’ve followed but it seemed like the bullet tumbled and bounced at the right angle, stayed inside its head, and moved upward. Despite that, we enforced the rule of double-tapping because we couldn’t be too sure that it really did happen.

“Really, bro?”

“Yep.”

“Okay, then…”

Another bullet sped past and it broke the top of its head, shattering its skull and letting out what was left of its brain matter ooze out slowly.

In the meantime, I checked on my uncle and the rest of the troops we left with him. They were definitely doing better than us since we attracted most of the threat towards us and they only encountered deadheads that only numbered less than a normal magazine could carry. However, we eventually decided to think about what to do with our original plan because what we needed to do right now was lower the threat even more so we could have a safer space for clearing that medical center.