Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

We only stayed in that place for 30 minutes before we decided it was high time to get back on the road. Prior to leaving, we finished checking our equipment, supplies, and our vehicles to make sure they were well accounted for and in great working condition. Fuel tanks were refilled, mags were reloaded, blades were wiped down, vehicles were checked, and the supplies and loot were evenly distributed.

"Hey, what did you see from scouting ahead with the drones?" I asked as I tapped Jared who was securing the drone in its proper container.

"Lots more in the places we discussed earlier, especially in the public market." Jared replied.

"How about the school?"

"The elementary school or the high school?"

"Both."

"Hmm~ It looks like what's left of a DDR Camp, both places. It's been overrun but a lot of dead bodies were piled in random places. Seems like the ones running that place held it as much as they could before bolting out or getting eaten alive."

"Yeah? The equipment though? Is there still a lot to take?"

"That's a negative on the 'a lot' bro, I just saw one jeep and it didn't even have a .50 cal on it. I spotted a few dead soldiers roaming inside and some of them also didn't have a lot of equipment on hand. It could be what I said earlier or other people got to them."

"Beggars can't be choosers then..."

"Pssh! Bro, I think we shouldn't consider ourselves 'beggars' from the amount of shit we took from the places we've been through."

"Hmm? Do you think we got a lot already? Well, we do… for a small city at least. Don't forget our endgame."

"Ah, that's true, that's true."

"You guys gonna keep talking? Everyone's waiting on you two." Kaley tapped both of our shoulders.

I looked at everyone already inside their vehicles first before I scratched my head and threw the keys of my Raptor to Ibarra.

"Drive."

"Where to?"

"The schools just a few blocks away."

The schools we were aiming for were owned and operated by the same person but they were built in a way that the elementary students would be separated from the high school students. The paint job and the way each structure was built were nearly identical and the only thing that set apart the high school from the elementary school was the lack of faculties to play sports in. They had to walk and cross the road towards the elementary school just to conduct their PE classes.

'It just looks so different now...' I thought to myself.

This time, as we arrived in front of the two schools, I noticed that there was an attempt to close off the roads separating them to merge the schools into one big camp for people to evacuate into and be protected by soldiers. However, this place failed to do its job and a lot of lives were lost. I was already trying to spot a few clues that led to the demise of this place and a few obvious ones like poor carpentry skills and the non-existence of elevated platforms popped up.

It could be said that it wouldn't matter as much knowing how things occurred in the first place because it was almost always the obvious reasons but, if the reason was somehow not the obvious one, it would be a great oversight on my part. It could be tedious to check everything just to get the same result but it could be a blessing that we already know what happened instead of it being an unknown.

"Both entrances that covered the roads are broken into, yes?" I looked back at Jared.

"Yeah, we could drive straight and reach the public market this way bro." Jared replied, showing me a part of the footage he took.

While Artem and Jay were establishing a larger perimeter around us, I looked to my right and rows of houses were right by a dead-end. As I turned my head to the other side, the road that could lead us to a few eateries only had a few deadheads trying to approach us. After that, I looked back at the stretch of road that could lead us to the public market.

I discovered that most of the fortification done in the schools was mostly on the outside and the inside was almost left as they were.

"I guess we could do that..." I trailed.

"Do what?" Kaley asked.

"This." I gathered the ones close to me as I explained a simple plan.

"That easy, huh?" Ibarra nodded a few times as he heard it.

"Tell the rest, we'll start in 5 minutes." I said to my group.

"I thought we'd be clearing everything?" Kaley asked.

"I wanted to but we're just taking too long. We could do this any other time but I guess we needed to prioritize."

After a short while, I was with Tatiana, Mikhail, Ibarra, Artem, and Katya. The rest were left in the same place we were in, parked in a certain way, while we started to walk forward. At the same time, a few alarms were set off at the opposite corners of the schools to attract the dead away from the stretch of road we were on.

"Remember, no guns until it's really necessary. We just need to reach the halfway point amd we're good. The alarm could distract the ones that heard it but the ones that spot us would come to us regardless of what they hear." I reminded them.

They just nodded a few times as we continued to advance silently.

There were deadheads in front of us and we took care of them extra quietly. We would only hear their snarls for a bit before we step in and sink our blades through their heads. Even I wouldn't pull my blade out as fast as I could to follow up with another strike for another one because I would lay their body softly and retreat before attacking a new one. Our breathing was also controlled and our strikes just had the right amount of force but Mikhail and Katya were having a little bit of trouble.

In anime terms, Mikhail and Katya would usually be the ones yelling out the names of their techniques before executing them. It was a normal thing even for a few in real life disciplines to shout before an attack because it had its own different purposes. However, the funny thing was hearing their rapid exhalation through their nose instead of their usual grunts and shouts. They were almost straining to the point it was comical because they were so used to striking with force, requiring a habitual yell.

In the end, they got tasked with pulling the bodies to the side while the four of us continued to strike down the ones in front silently.

Being in close proximity with Artem made me learn a few things about the way he fights and surprisingly, I believe that he had no particular training with European swords as Tatiana did for herself. However, he was great at reading their erratic patterns and it would sometimes feel like the dead were just aiming their heads right at the tip of his blade. There seemed to be no rush in his movement but he could raise his own tempo just as easy as bringing it back to his normal state.

'His positioning too… that's some great movement techniques… I'm sure he trained in something… I'm definitely intrigued.' I thought to myself.

We have advanced a quarter of the way and I got to see more of the situation inside. It was because the inner 'walls' weren't made with bricks stacked on top of one another but just bars and bars of decorated steel, lined a few inches apart vertically. A few spots had missing pieces of the dead hanging about while certain spots had trapped deadheads getting ripped apart just by trying to make itself go through the gaps.

The deadhead's discolored and almost leathery skin was getting pulled apart, spilling over their disgusting insides all over the steel bars and the flooring beneath them. Despite that, a few deadheads that were close to them were feasting on what they could reach, actually allowing the ones that were stuck to advance a little bit further.

"I'll take care of it." Tatiana mentioned, shoving the tip of her sword right in their oozing earlobe.

The ones feasting on the deadheads Tatiana killed were so busy eating their brethren, we decided to continue advancing forward. The initial goal was to reach both gates, securing them with chains and a lock, then making a funnel to take care of the deadheads located in the public market first.

We could as easily clear this place with the team I brought but time wasn't in our hands. We weren't even halfway to get to where the president and the rest were currently located.

"I'll be back." I said with an accent like the cyborg that came from the future.