Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

The group gave a mix of worry and solemnness with their expressions because even if we have the tools to defend ourselves, if, by some chance, the group was actually big and just biding their time, we would've been plunged into a very difficult predicament because we would be severely outnumbered.

Just by crossing the bridge earlier, we would've had the chance to get to the City of Malabon by using the backroads if we wanted but we decided to continue driving straight by using the main highway. Doing that made the trip much quicker but it made thoroughly checking around a street block for our objectives slightly neglected because we still haven't encountered a pile-up.

"I should start grabbing footage, right? I'm gonna send a drone now, bro." Jared said to me.

"Wait a sec, let me park by that Daddy John's Pizza first so we'd have a few options to drive through." I replied.

I turned the Raptor around and even made sure to reverse into a street corner so we wouldn't be easily spotted when a group came looking for us on the main highway. Our drones could reach a few kilometers so backing away a few meters wasn't much of an issue. The only hiccup that we have with the drones was that we resorted to just using one at a time instead of a couple at a time.

It was because we needed more people on their rifles and we already used most of the charge left of the first drone when Jared scouted around the Barangay of Malabon for encampments.

"Okay, dude. Try and hover around the train cars first before trying to drive around the train station." I suggested.

"Sure, I kinda want to see if there are zombies trapped inside the train cars when it came crashing down. Chances are high that they've mutated because of the time ever since they turned, right?" Jared replied.

"That could be the case, yes." I nodded.

"We'll crack open the heads of the ones that are trickling in to check if they're the same as the ones we were looking for." Tatiana interjected.

"Yeah, go ahead and move a little forward with Mikhail. Kaley and Ibarra are enough here to stay with us." I replied.

The rest of my group were standing guard while I was right next to Jared, looking at the display, to have an extra pair of eyes to look for points of interest.

The display on the tablet showed an aerial view of Monumento first.

Several malls were by the side of the highway the more the drone moved forward. Various vehicles were around the Bonifacio monument but their owners or passengers were either still inside or currently roaming the streets. We could barely see the pavement because of how densely packed they were in that area and it extends several street blocks all around.

Furthermore, the train station several meters right above the ground still had several train cars left grossly lined up one after the other but the ones closest to the edge gave a clue about how the accident below happened.

The last train car by the edge of the station was like a sausage used to hammed in a nail to a floorboard.

Its windows had shattered, the metal frames were bent and ruptured to different pieces, and the others behind it were almost in the same state. It seemed that when the train cars that crashed below reached this station, several trains followed and continuous impacts from crashing into one another pushed it off the edge, crushing several vehicles, turning people into meat paste, and damaging the Bonifacio Monument.

The only thing that could make me form a large operation to clean this place up aside from putting down a lot of the dead was the several malls and medium-sized shops that were scattered all throughout the area.

Looking at the state they were in, even clearing a single mall would yield a lot of supplies. The only reason that they couldn't be looted was the huge number of the dead gathered in this area. It would take a lot of time and resources to clear them all and it wasn't even the main objective about why we came here today.

"The battery is about to run out, bro." Jared said to me.

"Yeah, bring it back while I drive the other one to the side first. We don't need to clear this crash site at the moment because we could still drive around the back roads. It might also reveal the ones we were looking for if I also check around the path to the City of Malabon." I replied as I took out the last one.

"We should've brought the solar chargers for the drones Darelle and his group uses. They're making much headway in scouting areas because they have a lot of drones to go around and the means to charge them." Jared added.

"Yeah, that's a great idea. We just aren't using the drones as much compared to them and their goals were mainly for scouting. If I'm not worried about the threats that accompany driving straight to this place, they would've already reached this area and brought back a lot of footage." I replied.

"Where are they now though? Shouldn't bringing them with us yield better results then?" Kaley asked.

"Hmm? They went East from our barangay towards the Barangay of Lingunan instead of going South and West like us and the other groups. They wanted to map out the current state of our city as a whole and they've been heading to other places we haven't been to yet. They're mostly safe barangays, unlike the ones we've been heading into most of the time despite us always taking the easy route." I explained.

As soon as we finished speaking, I drove my drone to check for the paths available to us on the back roads.

I wasn't even driving for a while when I already discovered three 'walls' blocking off three streets completely with their bodies. My face showed surprise and Kaley discovered what I saw through the display.

"We're getting hotter, guys." I muttered.

"Bro..." Jared trailed.

"Hmm?" I turned to look at him but he was glued to the feed coming from his drone.

Jared wasn't controlling it to head back but it was just staying in place, just hovering right below the elevated platforms of the train station. Even Ibarra's attention was caught by what they were seeing and I decided to let Kaley hold my drone for the moment to check on him. However, she decided to look at Jared's feed as well after making our drone hover in place.

"This is it, right?" Jared said, looking at the screen with a different expression.

"Those… those aren't wires..." Ibarra added.

"Wires aren't as thick or… fleshy like that..." Kaley muttered.

Mikhail and Tatiana must've noticed our expressions and came back to check on us because I saw them looking through the display as well. Once they did for a while, they were also giving looks of confusion as to what those dangling bits were.

Everyone was looking at it but I first made Jared turn the drone back because it was about to run out of battery. After that, Kaley gave Jared the controller she was holding so that he could drive it back to the same spot the other drone was on earlier.

We saw it once more from a different angle and at something with better lighting. However, we weren't even sure if those were the ones we were looking for or if there were something new entirely.

It didn't take long before a deadhead wandered into that area.

One of the few undead trying to cross the street happened to turn because of a noise and was now headed to where those whip-like and flesh-like wires dangling from under the train station.

It was instant.

The deadhead was pulled up above when the dangling bits moved on their own.

I had to steal the controller from Jared because he was stunned like the rest of my group. But after I did, I made the drone go closer so we could see what's below the train station from up above.

We got a better look but it confused us even more.

It threw the one it pulled up earlier violently into a car below and it managed to attract more and more deadheads towards it. As soon as it happened, more whip-like and flesh-like bits started appearing one after the other from above and they collectively pulled up a deadhead one after the other. I was sure that I counted a few dozen getting pulled up but there were five to eight bodies that stayed in that… that… mash-up.

The rest of my group couldn't describe them properly because they were all just 'pieces' stuck and congealed to each other but the only thing we had a guess for were the dangling bits that were mistaken for wires earlier.

"A-Aren't they... tongues?" Kaley muttered.