237 The ballsy woman in charge
“Good job, everyone!” Mathew called out as soon as one of the survivors locked the gate behind him. And then, to Mathew’s surprise, they actually came in with what looked like the long benches from the gym area of the school before probing the gate up with them adding additional although unnecessary security to the potential weak point.
What they failed to consider, though, was that the physical features of the fence itself had absolutely nothing to do with how the school was defended.
Sure, the barrier was anchored on the fence and as such, breaking it open would cause either a section of said barrier or the entire thing to fall and collapse.
‘Or maybe someone saw us both locking and unlocking the gate from the outside?’ Mathew then thought.
In this scenario, adding more security made total sense. Yet, it was only assuming that they were worried about humans attacking the place, as no zombie could push its hand through the barrier to unlock it.
‘Well, as long as they feel better with this added security, I have nothing to complain about,’ Mathew thought, only rolling his eyes over what he considered an unnecessary effort and feature.
“We have gathered a total of four hundred and twenty-two cores,” Mathew’s junior approached his side while looking at the notebook that he covered with all sorts of data. “Do you want us to move it to the top floor?” he then asked, eager to prove his usefulness.
“That would be much appreciated, thanks,” Mathew replied, nodding his head to show gratitude. “Guys, once we deal with the stuff at hand, I will be sure to bring out some sweets and drinks for everyone to enjoy!” Mathew then called out to everyone. “After a hard and dangerous job like this, you guys deserve this kind of reward!”
“Yeah!” the crowd cheered up, raising their hands to the sky.
‘Just like I thought,’ Mathew smiled a little when he saw the reaction of mostly underage kids to the prospects of getting something to get themselves drunk with. ‘Well, they worked hard yesterday and then during the night, so I might cut them some slack,’ he thought, dropping the topic before it could become a moral problem in his mind.
“Are you done yet?” Nadia asked, approaching Mathew from behind.
She had some sort of cloth in her hands that she used to wipe most of the blood from her face.
“Let me guess, you want to get yourself cleaned out, right?” Mathew asked, aware of how awful it was to have blood all over himself. “Just make sure to wipe all the points of contact before getting to the merchant up top,” he then requested only to walk through the open area between the school’s compound and the fence to where the workers dropped off the three survivors from the police vans.
“Sir!” a worker whose job was to take care of those people for the time being shot up to his legs when he saw Mathew approaching with Nadia and then Leila following closely after. “They are asleep as of now!” he then reported, stretching his chest out and barely managing to stop his hand from raising to his forehead in some sort of personal salute.
“Which one do you think has the highest rank?” Mathew then asked, ignoring the quirks of the worker and looking down at the trio of pitiful survivors.
They were all filthy. The blood they got splattered with when one of the women cut off her hand roughly at the height of the middle of her forearm now dried out and only added to the filth of their dried-out sweat, piss and shit.
Such was the reality for a group of three people stuck without food and water in a closed-off cage. And while Mathew recalls seeing some signs that they attempted to keep their shit away from where they were, once they lost the energy to move around, it didn’t matter anymore, turning their efforts futile.
“It’s the handicapped one, sir,” the worker pointed out at the woman’s chest. “I used to play around with clothes a lot so I can tell there used to be more stuff seemed to her chest than to the uniforms of others.”
“I wonder if that’s true…” Mathew muttered, squatting by the three sleeping not-beauties before shaking his head. He then closed his eyes and waited for a while before finally sensing a familiar presence. ‘Can you confirm that?’
Norbert was one of the very few people in the entire school population that didn’t participate in the operation down on the ground. Or rather, he did, but from the safety of the top floor of the school.
His task was simple. It was to monitor the situation all around and be ready to send a messenger, another of the two people that remained in school, to warn everyone in case something bad were to happen. And now, Mathew saw no point in forcing him to make the journey down, especially with how everyone would soon occupy the logistic bottleneck of the shaft leading to the top floor.
‘That guy is right,’ Norbert then replied, speaking directly to Mathew’s mind. ‘It might take you by a surprise…’ the police officer’s ghost hesitated for a moment only to reveal a truth Mathew truly didn’t expect.
‘But she was the one in charge of the entire operation when we came here.’
“Do you really believe I could be bigoted enough to assume only a man could take charge?” Mathew then muttered under his nose as he shook his head while still keeping his eyes closed. “Even with my girls proving to be more capable at various tasks than I am?”
‘No. I assumed you wouldn’t believe the leader of the entire police unit would be not only one of the few survivors but also the only one to survive despite being bitten,’ Norbert explained the logic behind his thoughts.
‘It’s the opposite,’ Mathew revealed how he himself perceived the situation. ‘She’s young. She doesn’t seem to be some kind of martial artist monster either,’ he pointed out only for a small smirk to dance over his lips. ‘Which means, her balls had to be big enough for big and scary people like Daniel to respect her authority,’ he pointed out only to open his eyes and nod his chin toward the stump of the woman’s arm. “And you can see that she had balls by the sheer fact she was decisive enough to cut the bitten part so quick, the virus didn’t get to spread throughout her system,” he said out loud so that Norbert could perceive his words despite Mathew opening his eyes.
“And that sadly means, we have no other choice but to wake her up,” he then added only to turn his head towards the temporary caretaker of the survivors before giving him a meaningful glance.
“I don’t like where this is going,” Nadia muttered while crossing her arms on her chest. “You are thinking about adding her to the harem, don’t you?” she suggested.
“I’m thinking of ways that could make a proper adult like her listen to what she’s bound to consider as mere kids,” Mathew countered only for a wicked smile to flash on his lips for a second. “And restoring her arm… It does sound pretty good for bait, doesn’t it?”