Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

My group at the back saw everything go down and they were wearing a mix of expressions like myself. However, it was not the time to dwell on such things so I aimed at which I deemed more dangerous. I flipped the magnifier in position and I aimed at the sprinters running wild at the big ones while the torsos were attacking them. The little fuckers grabbed the sprinter's skin and tried to take off as much flesh as they could, trying to bring them down off of the big ones.

I exhaled and aimed at the sprinter where five half-bods were hanging on it. It was waving its body wild, trying to throw them off but I already squeezed the trigger. It took two shots because it bobbed its head luckily the first time.

The sprinter's punctured body fell limp and the small ones let go of it and aimed for the next target.

My group was basically free from the threat the moment the sprinters showed up and attacked the big ones but I still made Kaley, Mikhail, and Lois aim for the armed torsos. I even ordered Lawrence to not aim for the big ones in case they were the trigger for the little ones retreating. I'm half-sure that if Lawrence took down one, the attacks of the little ones might split between us and the sprinters.

We were free-shooting but the big ones decided to attack the sprinters.

One of them managed to grab a sprinter and it slammed it on the pavement, not minding the half-bods in a handstand near the point of impact.

It was like the green dude that waved around the adoptive brother of a blonde hunk wielding a selective hammer. The only thing missing was the high-pitched exhale after the thrashing was finished.

After the big one was done, half the body of the sprinter was mangled.

The bloated one ripped off one of the sprinter's legs then its jaw dislodged. It just shoved in its throat the leg it acquired almost like an endless vat. It swallowed it whole without much of an issue initially but it got stuck when it reached the ankle.

"BlLCkkCHH!! KcHC!!! KcHhhCK!!!" It retched as it can't push it even more.

That was when it pulled the leg out covered with its grimy and bloody insides where a gooey substance was dripping off of it. It grabbed the other end of the leg and it snapped it like a twig, making the discolored skin rupture and flap. The jagged bone coming out near the kneecaps were barely visible. After that, it just pushed it back on its mouth without issue.

"Don't fucking play with your fucking fast food..." I muttered inwardly and I shot down the one hanging from its shoulder.

The other sprinters were behind the big ones so I decided to shoot the small ones still piling over one another. Their backs were turned against us and it made for easy pickings without tension. If we missed and just scraped their heads, a small piece of their scalp would fly through the air, and then it would plop on the ground.

Our vehicles were still planted in the intersection and the engines were still running.

We had to achieve the correct balance in taking the undead out surgically. If we wiped off the sprinters, the big ones and the skittles would attack us again but if we killed the big ones first, there's no telling what would happen specifically but the sprinters would turn to us eventually. The best bet was to clear the half-bods while keeping a close eye on the two specials.

Kaley's AR-15 ran out of ammo but she pressed the mag release and let it fall on the truck bed. She shoved another magazine in the mag well and smacked the bolt release. She started shooting the clump of torsos once more.

"Lois! Reload the 5.56s first!" I shouted as he was reloading the mags for the .22s.

I was pleasantly surprised that he took the role of being support even if he wanted to win so much. I even threw the mags I've used and he caught them with his right hand.

"There's no more on this side!" Jared exclaimed as he jumped behind Lois.

Jared ducked down and started reloading his own mags with .308s.

One of the big fucks started using the dismembered sprinter it ripped apart earlier as a club and it swung it wildly against the sprinters coming at it. Its abdomen was getting ripped apart more and more and its insides with the parts it ate earlier were beginning to spill out violently. A sprinter got its hand stuck on the abdomen of the fat one then its upper body was smacked to the ground violently by a single slap.

I was observing everything that was happening while thinning the numbers of the small ones. The mess from that part of the road would make it untraversable unless we cleared it properly. It was now a tad difficult to identify which ones were the dead ones from the undead torsos.

I decided to even their playing field by taking down two fat fucks.

However, the moment I killed the first one from the two, it seemed that the small ones started to not care as much for the big ones. Almost a dozen broke off in different directions and Lawrence killed the ones approaching us. A couple even started hand-walking normally and lost their earlier aggression. More broke away the moment I sent a bullet to the second one's head. Even some of them that were attacking the sprinters stopped altogether.

"Hmm." I thought to myself.

"Bro!" Lois shouted as he threw me a filled magazine.

I caught it with my left hand and placed it in the pockets of my plate carrier. He threw another one after that but Kaley caught it. I still have 12 rounds inside my current magazine so I continued shooting. We wasted more bullets because we were trying to shoot the fucked up ornaments hanging from the big ones. The big ones were thrashing around, trying to attack the sprinters but the sprinters that were left were more agile. They would step back to avoid a blow but their bodies were mangled now because of the small ones swarming over them.

A head of a sprinter got blown off by Jared to even the playing field once more after Lawrence killed a fat one. The torsos were now a little bit more than a couple of dozen left and we decided to end the sprinters first.

I sent three bullets that hit its neck, its earlobe, and its temple. It was down for the count and Kaley killed the last one. As I guessed, the armed torsos and the big ones turned to us like nothing happened. However, when Jared and Lois killed the last couple of big ones, the remaining torsos went still for a moment before scattering into different directions.

We shot down most of them but a few managed to escape. We could chase after them but we needed to turn the vehicles around the street corners. It was because the road we were in was littered with decaying bodies, mostly upper ones.

"It's over?" Lois asked.

"Yeah..." I nodded, looking around.

Before we did anything else, we reloaded all our magazines though we were running a bit low on the .308 department. It was because Lawrence participated in the shooting match while using .308 rounds with his AWP. Jared and Lawrence decided to share the remaining bullets evenly but Lois was smiling. It was because he only used a magazine worth of .300 AAC Blackout cartridges since he mostly used his Ruger 10/22. He was happily reloading the magazines with a smile while Mikhail borrowed a few 60-round extended mags from Tatiana's pile.

After that, I made Lois fly the drone upwards in case a few were hiding in corners. He was keeping watch on the tablet while Jared was keeping an eye out. I documented the ones we encountered and I pulled out my phone.

When I turned on the camera, I cut open their bellies to see what was inside. We discovered that the big ones were just shoving up legs inside themselves and they were running out of storage. We found pieces of ankles, thighs, feet, and anything leg related. They weren't even chewed up, they were all shoved inside. It was all the same for the dozen big ones we shot down. Looking further from the trail they came from, a few parts must've fallen off their stomachs because of how much they were trying to stuff inside.

"They ate too much and it ruptured their stomachs, making them run on a limb." I chuckled inwardly

There were a few things on my mind and one of them was whether or not they could control those armed torsos. The other one was why did they start attacking each other and why did the big ones only ate legs.

"Aren't they kinda the same as what we encountered in the public market?" Kaley asked.

"Well, if we're comparing sizes, yes. They do have minions but it was surprising they weren't in a nest of their own. They were actually roaming around and in such huge numbers to boot." I replied.

"Oh, like their colony or something? The minions we encountered before were gathering food for them though." Kaley nodded.

"Well, this time, the minions were the food, I think." I speculated.

"What are you guys talking about?" Lawrence asked and Mikhail was curious as well.

Kaley and I told the story while we made a controlled fire to burn them all. We didn't burn them in one pile because we might take down the whole neighborhood in the process. We were still a ways away from the border to the City of Malabon and to the City of Navotas and we already spent a lot of time because of this fucked up herd.

"Hmm, we encountered something similar to that in our island group. They just wouldn't leave their nest so we managed to kill them all without issue." Lawrence nodded after hearing our story.

We walked back to the Raptor and Jared was in deep thought.

"Something on your mind?" I asked.

"I'm just thinking about those torsos we encountered..." Jared trailed.

"Yeah? What about them? You noticed something else?" I grew curious.

"Were they all in a dance troupe? Those handstands were- Ow! I'm joking!" Kaley attacked him.

I was shaking my head while Lois and Mikhail were already losing their shit at the thought of it.

"Following your train of thought, then the sprinters used to be what?" Tatiana chimed.

"Track and Field… runner ups..." Jared was heaving laughing.

"..." Tatiana and Kaley.