Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

In a few minutes, we positioned our vehicles in a way to occupy a small part of the concrete walls—making it our safe zone of sorts—but we did have my Raptor in between everything and hugging said wall so we could bypass the walls of flesh that would probably need something close to an hour to clear off.

At the same time, this formation allowed the cadets to be at the truckbed for reload duty while everyone else not in charge of jumping down and invading the dead’s space would be in charge of maintaining our safe zone and keeping the live ones away.

Well, JP’s Raycolt seemed to be doing that job for us just fine but Tatiana, Quinn, and Isaac were ready to follow after me the moment I jumped.

And so I did.

The moment my boots hit the floor, Kaley and Jose made my job easier for me as they gave me a ton of space by shooting down the undead that weren’t in my peripheral vision. Though the ones that were in it had already fallen down with a fucked up little bowl made with their bloody rotting dome.

With that said, the undead had definitely noticed their intruders as their heads turned in our direction, but I had already advanced several feet and was cutting down their allies one by one.

In any case, I figured that Quinn was a little closer to me because literal heads flying like it was a normal thing was probably her handiwork.

But yeah, I could hear the sound of blades cutting through flesh and bone but the oh-so-familiar tap dancing could be heard from the distance.

It was the telltale signs that a group of sprinters were making their way towards us but Kaley and Jose didn’t waste time to thin them out as much as possible. However, from their vantage point, the waiting sheds and a few stalls would be blocking their view, so I jumped back a few steps and drew my pistol before I aimed at the lanky bodies running like an infamous pirate who defeated his ex-wife in court before pulling the trigger.

In regards to these sprinters, the initial shock of seeing them coming at you with speed could instill fear and make anyone else freeze from doing anything but the way its movement pattern was so predictable—they literally run straight at ya, unless there were irregulars in the mix—it was just a matter of properly lining our sights to the heads of the targets before pulling the trigger.

We didn’t have to predict where they’d turn abruptly compared to the damn annoying ferals so I easily put three down before I holstered my pistol and beheaded the last one Kaley left for me. But before it hit the floor, I flicked my wrist and made another bloody bowl from its head as my blade easily cut through it.

But yeah, we were quickly piling bodies left and right so Isaac took it upon himself to make the cadets do the dirty work.

“EI~! CAN’T YOU SEE WE’RE RUNNING OUT OF SPACE?! PEE-PEE AND POO-POO, JUMP DOWN AND CLEAR THE FLOOR!”

“T-That’s us, right?”

“Yeah—”

Quinn abruptly turned her head after cleaving two deadheads in half before shouting at the top of her lungs, “JUMP DOWN OR I’LL DRAG BOTH OF YA!”

“Y-YES, MA’AM!”

“HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII~!!!”

“You guys are so useless!”

To my surprise, it looked like Megan was the first one to jump down with thick gloves on but to make things a little easier for the group, I began to advance a little forward while Kaley and Jose tried aiming for the dead that were a little further in.

It was to somehow draw their attention to different points because if every single one of them swarmed us by the entrance we made for ourselves, we’d have to climb back to start over or it was a definite game over.

In conjunction, Quinn did the same thing but in a more barbarous manner while Tatiana and Isaac fanned inside to make sure that the cadets were well taken care of. But yeah, I made sure I was only a few feet away from Quinn though I yelled at the other two to slowly whittle away the dead that was close to the flesh wall so that they’d have fewer blindspots to guard from and a more central area to gather the corpses.

On my side of things, I was trying to put one down with a single stroke but with the majority of them had their chewed-up arms stretched out, they’d need two to three slashes in total for my own safety.

I’d usually need one stroke to lop off their arm, sidestep, and then go for the kill, but with the way they were side by side, I’d have to be a little extra careful about the direction I’m going. However, a sudden thrust with the right opening and distance would always drop them while leaving a coin hole that could fit a few quarters in their foreheads though Quinn would just eviscerate everything in her path.

It’s one of the reasons I was a few feet away from her because her huge poleaxe/halberd hybrid needed some space to swing around and it would be difficult to fight side by side compared to when I’d do it with Tatiana.

In any case, her kill count at the moment was bigger than mine but her energy expenditure was also more than double mine. With her frame, her weapons of choice, and the way she was moving would definitely make any regular person fatigued or exhausted, and even though she looked like she could go on for hours, a little tweak here and there would do wonders.

It’s just a matter of having a safe space to teach her stuff and most importantly, if she didn’t turn any time that we were alone to jump on me, I could’ve started going on with this idea much sooner.

“MOVE!”

“What—”

“FUCK IT!”

Before I had the chance to react, Quinn’s muscles bulged before she swung in a wide arc and bisected every deadhead in the immediate vicinity and then some. All I could do was jump back to keep myself intact but I still felt a violent breeze after it was over.

However, amidst the sounds of metal tearing through flesh and suppressed gunshots, Jose let loose a 40mm Low-Velocity, High-Explosive Shell from the M203 attached under his rifle, causing a row of small connected shops to collapse onto itself.

And following after, Kaley’s firing rhythm suddenly changed—and if it did, it usually meant that there was something over there that we should be wary about, but that something didn’t expect an explosive shell to greet it this mid-morning.

But yeah, that something definitely had some friends on the inside and this something—well, parts of it that remained intact—was eventually revealed after the smoke cleared.

It was this… u-umm… Buddha-like blob without its head and the main upper parts of its body but what’s left of it and its collapsed lower half seemed to have something inside of them that a certain angry chef would definitely be angry for.

I had only caught a glimpse because I still had dregs to take care of, but those thick fucking intestines squiggling around like they shouldn’t were probably either from the victims it ate or the ones that got stuck inside its huge frame. Trust me, it was bigger than those influencers who demanded free seats in an airplane and I was pretty surprised I didn’t spot them when they were that fucking huge.

It’s like the most fucked up version of a kangaroo’s pouch where instead of its young being the only one that could come and go, it was like an open house of sorts where a maximum of six to eight people could come and check out the place.

In any case, it seemed to be dead aside from its tenants but Kaley and Jose now had another thing to keep an eye on instead of us.

We were still in the driveway and the parking area of sorts so as long as we didn’t try to get inside the main area of the public market, we’d be relatively okay because I fucking doubt their legs would be able to support their body.

It’s just that there was this deep growling/croaking sound coming from the inside and it was making everyone else a little uneasy.

However, there was always a modern solution for modern problems but if this solution was presented before the world ended, we’d be charged with several felonies or something similar.

Yeah… it was arson.

Before I even had the chance to give an order, Brix, one of Jesus’ crew members jumped down with two jerry cans and a satchel of plastic bottles filled to the fucking brim with the same shit, and he made his way toward me with this eerie grin:

“Got a match, bro?”𝗈𝗏𝐥xt.𝓬𝞸𝕞