Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

The only preparation we had to do with our meals was just to take them out in their containers because we already have pre-made lunches made by Aunt Sharon. She made crispy pork tonkatsu this time but she added cheese inside that would melt once sliced with a spoon. Aside from that, we had a side of vegetables cut into small pieces and as always, it was eaten over rice.

"Let's go first!" Tatiana brought our share and she went down to one of the rooms below.

We had to eat in batches because we needed to enter one of the rooms to avoid the horrible smell coming from the dead below. It was one thing to have a delicious meal but in some cases, we still need our noses to be able to enjoy them. The funny thing that we could always take away from our packed lunches was that Tatiana's container was always almost double ours.

We had to eat faster than normal because the rest were waiting for us but 15 minutes was enough time.

"Hah~ I wish we always have homecooked meals in the army~" Tatiana commented, removing her plate carrier for a moment.

"Hah! Homecooked meals or not you're always wharfing them down!" Mikhail started laughing.

"Oscar used to tell me stories that even their cook when he was deployed sucked ass. When I was in Bootcamp for 6 months, I was always the designated cook and I always- ALWAYS had to improvise. I essentially lorded over them with the food I'm cooking." I added a few stories of my own.

"Never heard of that yet! One time, dad wanted me to catch my own food, but I wasn't particularly good at that time, so I had to eat fruits and nuts I could scrounge up. I was so happy the first time I landed a shot on a small squirrel. I cleaned it up good, salted it, and roasted it over the fire..." Kaley started reminiscing.

"Hah! You? Cleaning it?! I had to clean it for you 'cause you were crying at that time!" Matthew exclaimed.

"I don't know! I was so~ hungry! You were smoking that boar right at camp too!" Kaley started getting into Matthew's face.

"Heh, that's the only way you'd learn. Look at where it got you, I bet you could shoot farther than your old record. Even Marisha and Olivia wanted to have some pointers now that being able to handle a gun is mandatory these times." Matthew had the face saying 'I told you so.' while looking at Kaley.

"I wish I could hunt for once…" Cynthia commented.

"Hmm, if those animals managed to find a proper hiding spot or outlast this thing, it wouldn't be as long." Matthew replied.

"Weird we haven't encountered zombie animals yet, right?" Cynthia added.

"Hmm, kinda impossible unless it mutates to something that could make them rise up. From the ones we've seen, they always die from a bite and never rise up. They could never be carriers unless a fucktard decides to eat one without checking if it had a bite or not. Well, time will tell unless it's programmed not to affect them. In which case, if that statement is true, the one who made this just wanted to get rid of us all." I guessed.

The group I was eating with nodded a few times then we finally cleaned up and then switched with the others on the roof.

"I'll keep watch with Ibarra below while you guys start shooting. We should start putting down bodies now because we took until noon before clearing this place." Matthew said to us right after the others went down.

"Didn't you guys already put a lot of barricades?" Lois asked.

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean it'll hold forever." Matthew replied.

The two eventually excused themselves then we started shooting our guns while the others were still eating. However, while most of my team were starting to make zigzagging funnels, Kaley and I camped at a different area to block off the entrance of the DDR Camp right next to us. It didn't have to be perfect but the blockade we would be making should be enough to keep everything outside from coming in.

We were just setting up the stage once Honassan and Avalos come so all they have to do was some precision flying.

Building a proper wall of bodies needed a few things: precise shooting, patience, creativity, and a little bit of spatial judgment. The initial step was to form the shape you wanted but how the bodies would drop would depend on a few things like the type of bullets used or even where was the deadhead mostly leaning on. The following step would be to slowly build it up as desired but there were more things to look out for.

Once we fired the first shot, the deadheads still moving would get attracted to the source so they would be moving towards us. We needed to take into account their movements and made sure to retain the shape we intended to make earlier or else it would be just a mound of dead people with holes in their heads. Aside from that, to make it higher we needed to make a small ramp of the dead and wait for others to slowly step on the others lying dead.

It would be borderline psychotic to calculate everything that would happen so we just took a bit of time to make a blockade that looked like a pyramid cut in half diagonally from above. It wasn't as steep as we wanted but the height we made it to would make a normal deadhead struggle to get over it unless a feral comes by. While we were keeping busy, the other half of our group also came by after eating and started helping the rest.

Suppressed gunshots, clinking of brass, and the casual conversation continued to be heard in between breaks while reloading magazines.

'I just need more pilots so we could take over that place by dropping in at a few select places...' I thought to myself.

"Should we start clearing the ones we could see inside?" Kaley asked.

"Hmm? No, I have other plans for that DDR Camp. Let's just help with making more funnels." I replied.

"What? Did you cook up a plan already?" Kaley asked.

"Yeah, it involves saving up a few thousand bullets in the process too. Well, we'll still use bullets but not as much compared to when we cleared Malabon." I replied.

We continued to make more funnels but Jared and Lois soon asked me if they could fly our drones once more to the latched specials with hanging tongues at the bottom of the train station. After a quick reminder that those tongues would attack when provoked, they captured more footage that was valuable for knowing more from them.

A few minutes continued to pass when the two suddenly got agitated from hovering the drones around the train station.

"BRO, BRO, BRO, LOOK! FUCKING LOOK!" Lois exclaimed.

The two caught our attention and everyone stopped what they were doing as they huddled close to me, looking at the tablet Lois handed me.

"That's a feral, right?!" Max exclaimed.

"Ferals, with an 's'. That's around five that got caught." Tatiana added.

"They… they're fighting..." Cynthia commented.

Looking through the skin, a small pack of ferals came running under the train station and one of them suddenly got grabbed by several tongues hanging about. As soon as that happened, the other four started pulling, clawing, or even biting off the tongues in question but several more tongues rolled from above.

The beings congealed together below the train station was actually winning over the ferals that the group unanimously deemed the most dangerous as of now. However, two ferals managed to escape but one of them seemed to be badly injured. It was starting to wobble as it vomited out the tongue it bit off but its partner didn't care and ran back the way it came from.

It took a few moments before the injured feral started leaking out different substances from all of its orifices.

'The fuck is going on now?!' I shouted in my head.

We couldn't see everything clearly from the drone that was hovering from a safe distance but the ferals that were caught earlier were eventually thrown down the same way the deadheads we saw in the footage we caught from before. They were just smashed violently and was lying on the pavement for a while then the injured feral followed suit.

It dropped on the floor but it started to twitch a few times like a bug sprayed with insecticide. I thought it would do more but it slowly stopped moving and it wasn't picked up by the tongues for a second time.

The only difference was that the ferals that were caught eventually stood upright and started pacing in different directions as slow as they could. They seemed to have lost everything that made them dangerous and they were just following the orders of the ones that turned them hollow. It was an odd sight though because the way their bodies changed from turning into a feral made even walking normally so much awkward for them.

'The more we discover what they could do, the more we know less of them… As far as I know, they're being given one final instruction before they drop down dead… We still need to check the bodies we marked before though because they did nothing yesterday...' I thought to myself, looking at the live feed.