Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

Cyrill tried to fight back Oscar by sending an overhead kick but the moment he heard Tatiana and Mikhail cracking their knuckles, he sprinted as fast as he could towards the other side of the area. He still had some speed considering the circumstances but the rest of us just started laughing when he was out of sight. Borris was still flabbergasted from our actions but he started to follow Cyrill after asking a few more questions regarding their move.

"You really accepting that fucker, eh?" Oscar said as he turned to me.

I nodded a few times, "Yeah, he better get back to before he was using so he'd survive this thing. I'll make him fight every single one of us after taking a free hit from everybody else. It took some time but I couldn't fathom that the world needed to end so he could turn his life around."

"Cheh, as if he's that important."

"You know I'm kidding, right?"

"Ah..."

"His sister, your other cousin... is still missing, right?" Kaley asked.

"Yeah, I thought we'd find her sooner or later but I think she's… gone. There's a small chance that she's still alive but we'll never know until we see it with our own eyes. It's not like we're actively looking for her..."

Joanna could be lying dead in a ditch somewhere or could be another deadhead waiting to be put down. She was the worst of the two because she soaked up most of their mother's bad upbringing. It would take more than a beating to set her straight and the only thing that would take her in was if she was adopted by a group of people that was like herself.

'If that ever happens and she caused harm to my people, I'll gladly put her down even if she was blood.'

After a time, my main group went home when it was noon.

The number of soldiers present in that place couldn't make a herd pose a threat and all that we did was talk to everybody that walked by us. However, I made sure to swipe all of the casings that I could and Jose was helpless to stop me because I was their main source of bullets.

While we were eating, I saw Mauricio walking with a plate of food straight to Oscar's home. The operation on his wife's condition was done a few days before and Catherine was in the process of healing. It would take a few months to heal and Mauricio brought in a lot of supplies just so we could let her live in Oscar's residence. I persuaded him about doing that at first but he deeply insisted.

The person that helped in taking Catherine's vision away from her brought it back by 'giving' her own sight. It would be wrong doing it before but as the times of end continued to pass, a few things have started to become a gray area. Nevertheless, what happened was just payback and it was definitely paid several times over.

The person in question was left alive and sent to the Intercity as per Mauricio's suggestion and hadn't heard from ever since. I thought Mauricio would kill her immediately but he didn't, making her suffering far larger.

Moving on, I discovered that aside from Marisha, Oscar would keep her company and would tell her stories about his past and his family. Matthew and Johnny would share their stories as well when they were drinking, and Catherine appreciated that a whole lot even if some stories were just plain stupid and funny.

It became a bridge to their heads because those three, as Marisha stated, were always keeping their inner, deeper thoughts hidden and Catherine listening to them drinking revealed a whole lot. It would be considered snooping but done for the purpose of understanding them better.

'It's scary in a sense but Marisha is doing some work...'

After a while, I brought my group near the place where Tatiana pointed on the map.

It was on the highway in the City of Malabon but the place she was referring to was the two cemeteries right next to each other. The cemeteries belonged to different barangays, namely Tugatog and Sangangdaan but looking at it at an angle, it was just one big cemetery divided into two because of land restrictions and the small river bisecting them.

From her previous report, the place was infested and the small river bisecting them was filled with the dead or their broken bits and pieces, blocking the water system and joining the two cemeteries into a single facility. Small walls made of flesh were also 'erected' around the whole place so that the dead would be able to get outside, forming a ramp, but the opposite was happening.

Tatiana brought her group several times in this area to thin out the large herd but it seemed like they were neverending. The undead seemed to be attracted into heading into such a place but the reason was unexplainable. Her group would give us drone footage and the like but in this type of thing, I wanted to see it for myself.

"We're here."

We parked inside a church that looked like this spaceship from a space-shooter game from the retro days. We were still at a fair distance away but the smell was horrible the moment the wind blew in our direction. It was like sticking your head inside a rotting corpse and snorting out the rest of its rotting insides.

After clearing the area and securing another exit, we climbed to the highest point of the church to get a better view from above while Mikhail, Chris, and Lois guarded our vehicle. Kaley took position in one of the ledges while Tatiana pointed out the areas they came in contact with.

Tatiana commented as she pointed to the far left, "There's more compared to last time… on that side..."

"The road they came from leads to Monumento, right?" Kaley added.

I just nodded in response and piloted one of our drones.

Getting an aerial view from above, there was a lot of stuff happening in between and I couldn't focus on one single thing. I had to hover the drone in place to see much closer but I would discover more irregularities with their behaviour.

The first thing I saw was the dead going up the 'ramps' made of their brethren to get inside the cemetery but once they did, they would just stare into the distance. After that, they would be approached by their cannibalistic counterparts and feast in their broken down and rotten bodies before leaving them and approaching the river bisecting the two cemeteries.

"Hmm?"

I kept watch on the figure missing its bowels but it kept on filling itself, making the horrible slop it consumed flop to whatever the flooring looked like. The others near it would instead take its mess and place it into their own mouths before heading the same place the others have went through. It was so peculiar seeing it continue without progress but I set my sights on the small river.

From afar, it looked like a snake decomposing and getting eaten by maggots by how the bodies trapped inside were squirming in place. Bitten and discolored hands were reaching out, grabbing what was close and never letting go once they acquired a target. However, what surprised us was when the ones eating their own approached the edge.

I thought they were gonna vomit out what they had eaten but they just let themselves fall, being a voluntary vitim.

'What the fuck...'

The trapped bodies grew lively as they engorged in a not so fresh type of meat and it only took a few moments before the ones that fell stopped moving. Their claw-like fingers dug through their victim's heads and scooped whatever they could while the others ripped their stomachs out, revealing everything. Blood, bile, nasty viscous fluids, and etc. gushed out, acting as the sauce for their meal.

They got devoured in a matter of minutes and it was gruesome to watch. Lois flew his drone as well and I was sure that they were seeing the same thing from below. No one was speaking through the radio for a while and our eyes were stuck with watching them eat each other. However, drawing my drone back for a few feet revealed something peculiar.

I was staring at the screen in silence but this particular spot in the river seemed to be… breathing.

It was like the slow up and down of a person's body while it was resting and it was different from how the ones on the surface were squirming in place while waiting for a handout. It was more subtle and barely noticeable but looking at it for too long revealed that strange behavior.

Kaley and Tatiana noticed my expression as they checked on me but once they looked at the feed, they had the same thought.

They said at the same time,

"There's something underneath, right?"

"There's something underneath, correct?"