Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

As soon as I gave Oscar the signal, I immediately took cover with my group and some soldiers from the DDR Camp that we formed a partnership with earlier.

A small beep sounded first and then I heard Oscar shouting in the radio:

"PROJECT NUGGETS MADAFAKA!!!"

A faint smile formed on my face from his remark then it happened.

*BOOOOOOOOOM*

*BOOOOM*

*CRASH*

*BOOOOOOM*

*BOOOM*

*CRASH*

*BOOOOOOOOOM*

Several explosions erupted where the effigies are located. Bright flashes of light one after the other shone outside and then the ground trembled for each explosion that happened. Some of the glass windows which are near to the entrance to Woodlands shattered from the impact the plastic explosives that Oscar and I planted inside the effigies. A few more were set in different locations just in case but I'm sure that most of them are in the center of the blast. A few moments later, some of the people in the nearby building brought out the huge flashlights I gave them for visibility on the damage done below. A drone was also seen flying in the distance to be another set of eyes on the situation.

I looked at the damage it caused and the effigies are blown to bits same with the people near them. A few craters are made where you could see several unrecognizable parts of either human or zombies are strewn about which looks like a fucked-up version of chili. I'm not sure if I could correctly identify which part belongs to who on the mess below since everything is either a part of something or a part of something. A few small explosions erupted as well due to the gasoline tanks of some of their vehicles catching fire. Most of the vehicles they also brought were destroyed and the songs coming from their speakers stopped. Only the motorcycles on the outer proximity remained intact with a few smaller cars but they got stained with debris and flesh.

Everything is destroyed, however, some of the people which are a bit farther than the blast still survived but in dire conditions. All you could hear is their screams of agony and them cursing their 'Father' for why they are suffering this fate.

"FATHER!!! WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN US?!"

"FATHER!!!"

"FUCK YOU~!!!"

"FUCK! FUCK! FUCK~!"

"MY LEG~! MY LEG~!"

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH~!!!"

"FATHER~! WHY~!"

"NOOOOOO~!"

"WITNESS ME~!!!"

"FATHER~! HELP US~!"

Several people from my side and the DDR Camp came out from the nearby buildings and they started on shooting the ones that are starting to move away from the blast. Oscar came in with his SUV while Tatiana came with her HUMVEE. They made sure that each person who survived is taken care of but a few will be left alive for a thorough interrogation later. I could hear the commands from the soldier's radio too and I'm listening intently on how they operate and work with each other.

*BOOOM*

*psshew*

*BANG*

*BOOM*

*BANG*

*psshew*

I broke a few pieces of glass from the window closest to me and I sniped each one that have slipped past them that have started on limping away. I could hear Ken's voice from my earpiece pointing to where a few have went to. Jared and Kaley were with me and they did the same. The soldiers with us were surprised that we were not hesitating to shoot the people outside that we casually set a trap on. All of the members of the cult didn't expect the trap we placed and they were caught off-guard from a few pieces of C4 we planted earlier inside the effigies that they were worshipping.

I went down with the group I'm with and I drew my katana to double check each body not moving if they somehow survived the blast and was just only unconscious or courageously playing dead.

"Uh... sir. Why are you checking each body again?" one of the soldiers asked.

"Hmm? It's Rule #2 – Double Tap." I replied quickly.

Surprisingly, he got my reference and he started to chuckle with Jared and Kaley.

"Oh, you know that film?" I asked.

"Yes sir. I remember that film from a few years ago. I'm more surprised your group sir are moving like us, some even better." he said while looking at Kaley and Jared.

"Well Jared is actually military but hasn't graduated yet officially. Kaley on the other hand is a special case. She knows how to shoot before but she got really better at an alarming rate when it started. I've been training a few of them when we hunkered down and I guess the situation made them learn faster than normal." I replied.

"Well our teacher is a crazy fuck and I guess that helped us." Jared said while Kaley is smiling.

"Oh, I see, hahaha. This thing here is a mess though. We waited all night for them to finally appear." he replied.

"It's almost midnight and I thought they wouldn't come. I thought we would have to wait for a few more days for them to appear and luckily they came quicker than expected." I replied.

"This is a change of pace though, watching the road every single night can be quite boring. We eliminated a threat and we solved a problem for our camp. Oh, excuse me sir my CO is calling for us." he replied and he broke off.

Earlier this morning, after I told my plan with Damian and the rest, I went to the DDR Camp here to form a partnership. I solved some of their problems while they solved a few of mine. One of their problems is the discord with some of the people inside their camps because of the lack of food. The helicopters that comes in every single day is getting infrequent and that made them start to scavenge on food as well to remove some of the unrest.

From the past week in the DDR Camp, I've learned that they started to distribute their food equally to everyone when their numbers got to an optimum size. I convinced some of them to manage their people well since manpower can be a valuable resource especially in these times. Some of their people are still being given special treatment due to 'special' services but that is their problem to solve themselves.

What I proposed to them is that after we reclaim Woodlands, we'll send people over there, same as them, for security and we would close off some of the streets which is not from the highway so we could have a huge place to ourselves where our people could travel safely between places. Since Woodlands have huge plot of lands, farms would be built inside and the some needing places to lay their heads on will also be accommodated there. Crops harvested from that place would be shared by everyone and we would trade goods of equal value for the resources we already have on each place.

A few more things were discussed but we focused at the task in front of us for now.

It only took us a bit of time clearing every single body up and extinguishing the small fires that was caused by the explosions earlier and the gas still burning from the gasoline tanks of some of the vehicles. A small group is at our left and right flanks to take care of any zombies that would come because of the noise the explosions produced.

We piled the bodies one after the other and we started a controlled fire to burn every single leg, head, arm, torso, and other body part we could see on the ground along with a few bodies which are partly intact. The smell of burnt flesh permeated our noses and we could feel the heat of the fire with our bodies since the fire we made to burn them all is quite large.

The large gate to Woodlands was secured first and the people we captured has been given medical attention just enough so they would be able to talk later. They were taken to the DDR Camp guarded by some of the soldiers inside while I tasked a few of my people to spend a night to guard inside Woodlands. We've split the guns and ammo we recovered in half with the soldiers in the DDR Camp since they helped us in taking care of this cult.

Their CO finally approached us and he made a small salute.

"Anything else we could do sir?" he asked.

"None at the moment, no. Thanks for the help though. I'll contact you again tomorrow." I replied.

"Do you need help with guarding that place? I could station a few of my squad here as well if you wanted to." he asked.

"We're good for now. It's just a single gate. You have two entrances to cover at your place and the prisoners you have to watch as well. We'd talk about this tomorrow on the rotation of guards. We'll just take the first watch here, thanks." I replied.

He made another salute with the other guards and when they finally left, Oscar and I slowly formed a small smile with our faces and the people from my group did so as well. It seemed that my habits have slowly rubbed off on my group.

Instinctively, we all opened a small bag and started on picking up the casings littered on the ground.

"Those fucking idiots! Don't they know that Brass is worth more than Gold now?! HAHAHAHA~!!! They didn't even wanted the melee weapons here! HAHAHAHAHA~!!!" Oscar exclaimed.

"They could have more ammo than us though?" Jared chimed.

Oscar and I looked at each other first but we started on laughing even harder.

"More than us? You must be kidding, right?!" we both said at the same time.

"..." our group.

However, the casings we found only numbered a few dozen since most of what killed the mob were the explosives we used. However, the hidden quest rewards weren't the brass casings below. It's the other stuff inside some of the vehicles that are intact and the whole of Woodlands' houses available for looting. Aside from that, we gained a bit of good notoriety and some sort of respect from the soldiers.

"Finders Keepers." I said as we went inside the gate.