Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

After the second explosion, more pulp and dismembered pieces were regurgitated from the door that was barely hanging on, but it didn’t take long before several alarms blared one after the other. Coupled with their rotating orange lights which were also present in the hallway that we were in, our attempt to sneakily shave off their numbers had gone to shit.

But at this point, I already had my rifle ready but Dave and Quinn were still arguing a few steps above me.

Dave exclaimed, “WHAT THE FUCK’S WRONG WITH YOU ALL?! THAT WAS ONLY A COUPLE OF ZOMBS, YOU DON’T HAVE TO BLOW THE PLACE UP?! CAN YOU IMAGINE THE REPAIRS—”𝒪𝓋𝓵𝐞xt.𝗇𝓔t

Quinn almost smacked the shit out of him, “REPAIRS?! THAT’S WHAT YOU’RE WORRYING ABOUT?! CAN YOU EVEN BEGIN TO EXPLAIN AS TO HOW YOUR SURE-FIRE WAY TO KEEP THEM IN PLACE GOT BYPASSED?! THAT’S MORE THAN A COUPLE THAT GOT FREE, RIGHT?!”

“N-NO! T-THEY SHOULD BE FUCKING BEHEADED IF THEY EVER TRY TO—”

I cut them off, “WELL BOO FUCKING HOO! ARGUE ALL YOU WANT BUT WE GOTTA TAKE CARE OF YOUR CREW FOR THE SECOND TIME! EITHER START ORGANIZING THE ONES THAT ARE ALIVE OUTSIDE OR WE’LL HAVE UNNECESSARY CASUALTIES, AND I’M NOT PLANNING ON WASTING MORE GAS TONIGHT!”

Right as I finished my sentence, two lanky deadheads crawled from the small opening of the door, lacerating their bodies with the metal parts sticking out but like the partly headless one that I saw earlier, these two also had some form of damage in regards to their heads.

The first one that came out had its head degloved—or should I say “dehelmeted” because its skin, along with its lips, nose, ears, and its eyelids seemed to be scraped off roughly with some sort of tool while the second one had all manner of its brain exposed.

Two shots from my rifle quickly put them down but since there would be more coming, Kaley and Jose had already taken their stance from behind me. With that said, Kaley only had to see a silhouette before she fired at the figures still squirming inside while Jose was giving a quick rundown via radio to our people above.

I doubt we would be able to clear all of them from this narrow space but we gotta put down as much as we could before we move on to above ground.

Then I had a thought, “HEY! IS THIS THE ONLY ENTRANCE?!”

Quinn turned around as she barely heard me because she was speaking through her radio, “WHAT?”

“IS THIS THE ONLY FUCKING ENTRANCE—”

“FUCK! NO, IT’S NOT! GOTTA INFORM EVERYONE!”

“HAVE EVERYONE BARRICADE THE ENTRANCES SO THIS WILL BE THE ONLY ONE! HOW MANY ARE INSIDE THE GEN ROOM?!”

“I DON’T FUCKING KNOW! HUNDREDS! IT’S NOT JUST OUR CREW WHO WAS INSIDE THEM!”

I shook my head bitterly as I threw them a hateful glance, “THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU MESS WITH THE DEAD! YOU DON’T PLAY WITH THEM AND EXPECT FREE SHIT! THEY EVOLVE FOR FUCK’S SAKE AND—”

Kaley cut me off, “HEY! STOP ARGUING AND START SHOOTING! WE—”

I also cut her off as I turned back to Quinn, “YOU STILL HAVE OTHER MEANS TO GET LIGHTS, RIGHT?! MAKE EVERYONE FORM A CIRCLE AROUND THE ENTRANCE ABOVE SO WE’LL HAVE GOOD VISIBILITY! CAR LIGHTS OR FLOOD LIGHTS WOULD DO! MAKE THEM GIVE US A BIT OF SPACE TO MOVE AROUND! WE’LL TAKE IT UPSTAIRS IF WE CAN’T HOLD IT DOWN HERE!”

“GOT IT!”

Quinn went back to barking orders through her radio while Kaley had already sent round after round to the small gap provided for her. The bodies she put down on the other side of the door have definitely slowed down their advance but god knows how many we still need to take out.

However, Quinn and Dave’s radios started to blow up with several reports telling them that the deadheads behind the doors they barricaded were getting more and more aggressive to the point that they were about to break in.

–

*bzzt*

“WHAT THE FUCK DID I SAY?! BLOCK IT WITH EVERYTHING YOU HAVE ON AND DON’T YOU FUCKING DARE TO HAVE ANYTHING GO THROUGH IT!!!”

*bzzt*

–

Dave was also shouting the same things through his radio but I felt like something was off.

Kaley know full well that she could fire at will but there had already been several seconds where she was just looking through her scope. Even Jose who had his rifle up had already put it down while wearing a distraught expression.

I was pretty sure that they had only taken down a few dozen deadheads which were way~ too far from the number that Quinn mentioned, but for some reason, I felt like walking toward the door that they were shooting through.

Kaley instantly called out to me, “W-What are you doing?!”

“Just watch my back— no, you get the idea…”

As I was making my way to the beat-up door, I quickly double-tapped the two deadheads that managed to come in with my pistol, but the moment I peeked through the gaps Kaley and Jose were shooting through, I suddenly jumped back from what I saw.

From the other side of the door, some lights were still on and rotating like the ones we have on our side but it only took me a few seconds to notice that almost all of the deadheads in the immediate vicinity were standing upright, facing the door I peeked at while their heads were mangled to shit.

The reason I jumped back was that almost all of them suddenly twitched and move a step forward when they “sensed” my presence but now that I was far from their radius, they stopped moving altogether.

I was kinda familiar with this situation but other clusters aiming for the other entrances told me that there were others that could ignore its influence.

But since moving close to the door was the signal for their dinner bell, I moved back to the same spot with my rifle raised.

And once I did, the deadheads having more than a headache got a lethal dose of 5.56s and I quickly dropped 30 of them before I had to switch to my secondary and drop 18 with 9mms.

You don’t fucking bring zombies to a gunfight and even if they still had the numbers advantage, I could just easily reload and come back for more.

With that said, I came out of their view and reloaded my guns but when I peeked back, I could barely see any deadheads waiting to get their heads popped.

‘Hmm…’

This definitely made the clearing process a little harder because the ones in control inside were trying to divide us and/or lure us in.

We had no idea which deadheads are trying to break into the barricades of the other entrances but it was either a sentry or a stitcher/slurper that was trying to play mind games with me.

It was because the moment they tried to get out, they were shut down immediately so they opted to make use of the other entrances available to them. But since the other entrances were also taken care of, some of them lay in wait, waiting for us to make one false move to try and break out while the others continued to make the same ruckus on the barricaded areas.

It’s just that their rotting bodies had no chance to defend against fast-moving projectiles and I’m gonna assume they would try a bit harder to break through one of the entrances they were denied on.

‘The itch to just break in and be done with it increases though…’

I didn’t think we’d face a few with intelligence around this area but before I make another decision, I needed to learn more about this place.

But as I was just about to head back to where Dave was to ask for more information, the sound of several bodies dropping from an elevated position came one after the other. It sounded like two— no, three floors high but some of them sounded like they were thrown down rather than dropped freely.

At this point, I quickly made quick work of the ones I could see but I did throw in a third grenade when I heard loud thumping that seemed to be getting closer and closer. The thumping sound immediately stopped but the random noises that were making me feel uneasy were still present.

It had this remix of someone stirring mac and cheese with a fork, someone getting locked inside of a freezer, someone slurping a bowl of ramen, random deadhead chatter, gennies still cranking but at a much slower tempo, etc.

With that said, this beat-up door was the only thing separating me from the hundreds of deadheads waiting to pounce on me, but it became a battle of attrition of sorts challenging as to which side would carelessly walk into each other’s territory.