Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

The three left with wicked grins as Aya took all of our used plates politely. I was twirling the keys around by using the keychains and I was thinking of going either in the City of Malabon or driving past the City of Valenzuela's City Hall where we cleared a lot of the dead before.

"The City of Malabon is the obvious choice though..." I was in deep thought.

The points to think about was if we tried to drive past the City Hall, pretty much everything beyond that point was unexplored territory. We would be opening a brand new can of worms while in the instance of probing at the City of Malabon, we already uncovered a few things and we have an inkling of what to expect.

From the past days that my group and I were busy, a separate group was busy hauling off the vehicles that blocked the bridge to get to the City of Malabon. It took some time but they prioritized to simply allow a single lane to be cleared first instead of methodically removing each one of them.

The vehicles were distributed in our home base, Borris and Cyrill's hideout, and our new outpost which was the combined church and PNHS. Different things were done to them but it was a report for another time.

Clearing a single lane allowed us to slowly probe the other side of the bridge but that also allowed them to probe our side as well, both human and undead. So far, from the reports that they've given, only the undead have passed through with no signs of the people Cyrill told me last time. Anything could've happened to them at this point but we needed to keep our eyes open because they could be lurking in the shadows in that city or at the other city from the other side.

I've thought about it and I would bring my group to scratch the surface of the City of Malabon. Not only it was the shortest route to open up a way towards the City of Manila where Iskoh was, but I could also check on our other outpost and take Lawrence with us for the duration of the scouting mission.

Since my group was now a little shorthanded, I also decided to bring with us someone that was starting to request to be transferred from usually watching the walls and other stuff, Cynthia.

"You're finally- I mean- you're really taking me?" Cynthia was ecstatic.

"Yeah, I'll be taking you off your usual routine since I've been hearing nothing but good things about you not just from Allan and Jenny but also from the other soldiers as well. You also learned a bit of mechanic work and applying first aid, right? Let's just say you're on the dream team temporarily. However, don't think we're just going for a stroll. Scout work is different from watch duty, yeah?" I said as she nodded a few times.

We finished our coffee first before we got ready.

We brought our usual supplies though the ammo cans we brought had a few magazines worth of .300 AAC Blackout cartridges. It was because I asked Cynthia to change the barrel of her takedown AR from 5.56 to .300 AAC Blackout. Not only that, but we also brought extra .308s, slugs, 9mm, and 7.62s as well as a staggering amount of .22 LRs for killing the normal ones.

However, the thing that got me excited was the modified Raptors in front of us. They were almost identical and the only thing different from the two was the paint job and the license plates. Raphael's Raptor had his name on it while the new one we acquired before had mine. Aside from having the same exterior modifications like his Raptor, the inside was also reinforced with a roll cage and the compartments were modified to my personal specifications.

Let's just say everything was secured but at the same time accessible. We only took my Raptor for now because taking them all would be a waste for the number of people I would be bringing with me.

However, before we drove out, Russel boarded our Raptor with his Maverick 88.

"Hey." Russel casually greeted us.

"Hey yourself, aren't you supposed to be in Mark's group today?" I said as I stepped on the brakes.

"What? No, I'm not. They told me I'm with you for today."

"And who told you that?" Jared chimed.

"Dong, obviously." Russel replied quickly.

"What?" Jared was confused.

"What?" Russel replied.

"I'm gonna smack you in the head if you don't tell me the truth. Mark and Dong lead different groups but they're not in charge of changing the other group's team composition." I said.

Everyone inside was now looking at him.

"Umm… I- ah- you see. I… I- umm..." Russell started to stutter.

"Get out or I'll drive you straight to your dad." I was already annoyed.

"C'mon! I could do the heavy lifting! Mikhail's not here, right?! You need some extra hands! I already brought a few pairs of gloves!"

"I could bring Bing instead though."

"What?! Bing is busy with making the net with Jay. I'm the next candidate in line, right? Bro? Jared?"

"Yeah, we really could use an extra pair bro, worst comes to worst, we'll just shoot him in the leg and rope him in the back for insubordination. We have a lot of .22 LRs so a few of them wouldn't kill him, hopefully." Jared was smirking.

"Yeah! Just shoot me! Wait- did you say hopefully? Nevermind, just take me, please?"

I gave a long exhale and said, "Fine, but you need to tell me why you skipped with Mark."

I just finished my sentence and Russel already gave away the answer when he got red when he saw Cynthia looking at him. Everyone immediately understood his intentions though Jared and I commended him silently because he went for the one with the most dangerous background unknowingly.

"H-Hi C-Cynthia… glad to see you're here as w-well… I'll try and t-teach you what I know because I've been outside a f-few times already." Russel was already sweating buckets.

"Hi… sure, thanks." Cynthia's face warped to something I couldn't explain.

"S-So… a-are you seeing someone? Ahaha..." Russel immediately blurted out.

"Oh, you're not my type, sorry." Cynthia said without any emotion.

"O-Okay… c-cool..." Russel's soul almost left his body.

"..." everyone else.

We drove for a few minutes and it was the most silent drive we did just to reach Lawrence. He rode at the back and he was left confused as to why Russel was not moving an inch.

The presence of the dead here was still somewhat existent but all of them were now coming from one side. I was just driving forwards while the bodies in front were falling one by one. Jared and Lawrence were making quick work of them but I could feel Kaley trying to hold herself back. She just softly caressed her rifle while an invisible aura was almost leaking out of her.

"We need to get to the bridge fast..." I thought to myself.

We slowly crept to our destination and the number of the dead we were encountering was slowly increasing. However, I trusted that Jared and Lawrence would take care of it, even the specials, so I started to drive a little faster.

It took a while before we reached the bridge and it seemed that the people tasked to move the vehicles someplace else were not present.

"They helped with reinforcing the back of the church so they stopped hauling them for a few days. They'll get back to it once the hard part is finished." Lawrence said from behind.

I took a deep breath before I drove my Raptor across the bridge. I used a portion of my head to recall the roads we could take just in case we couldn't use this bridge and two were immediately registered. We passed by an auto detailing shop and a medium-sized boutique then we were greeted by the undead.

They weren't holding welcome banners or anything but they definitely caught our attention.

A good portion of the deadheads was dragging their bodies across the asphalt while their guts were leaving a chunky stain from where they came from. Their upper body was severed from their lower counterpart though there were varying degrees in how it happened. It couldn't be the other way around because of how our bodies were formed.

Some had the portion of their ribcage crushed, making a few sharp bones sticking out from their chest. The first ones we saw were almost disemboweled but the unlucky ones got their intestines still stuck in the middle of something, making it one of the most fucked up leashes known to me. It was something to keep someone up at night but the normal ones feeding on them were having the time of their lives.

The ones dragging their bodies were easy pickings because the flesh on their backs was being gorged upon. Even their skin was getting ripped off and it was almost flapping to the side of their torsos. The ones feasting upon them were crouched down, clawing out a portion of their meal that would fill their bellies that weren't even functioning anymore.

It was too early to watch this kind of thing so we decided to cut the segment short.

We drove to the source from where they were coming from and we discovered that something happened in this angled street corner with various construction signs and equipment toppled over.

"So, it's an accident?" Cynthia asked.