Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

Hearing a snippet of what happened to Bogdan when he was still a kid made everyone who heard it give out sullen expressions. A few obviously got pissed off though most of them still couldn't believe that could happen to a person.

Kaley asked, "H-How about his parents? His relatives? Didn't anyone even try to look for him?"

Artem answered after puffing another smoke, "They're kids- or should I say teens who went to a place that's prohibited from entering. Coming out to look for him in those fields is a death sentence. Plus, rules were different back then, especially in our area. He's lucky to have been found and brought back to their residence."

"W-Who found him then?"

"The soldiers patrolling the place, obviously. They came at the right time when they did their rounds and they found him covered in his own piss and shit. His parents were given a huge fine instead of jailing them and if I remember correctly, they almost lost their house. His dad sold his car and he spent every single day doing overtime doing construction just to pay it."

"That's awful..."

"Well, what could he do? The only way he knows how to help was to get signed in the military when he's of age. The guy spent every single day with munitions and especially explosives when he's free. His dad probably teaching him how to use a few of them helped because his dad's main job was blowing up rocks and creating tunnels using them."

I faintly smiled, "So that's why he'd always tell me he's the demolition man."

"Hah! Da, da… that's right."

After a short while, we continued hauling all of the bodies we took down outside while setting aside a few specials to be stored. While this was happening, Jared got a little too trigger happy with his new battle rifle. He was usually in charge of taking down specials from afar but the back and forth we were hearing from him and Lois told me that he was taking down anything that moved from a distance.

I would've stopped him then and there but I'd let him enjoy it for a little more.

'Enjoy the little things as always...'

-

*bzzt*

"Dude, are they close yet?"

*bzzt*

-

*bzzt*

[Nah, bro. I took them down. Three ferals hiding inside the trains, five slurpers on top of the train station, Twelve sprinters from the love hotel, and possibly seven irregulars biting the shit out of this stop sign.]

*bzzt*

-

*bzzt*

"I meant the clearing group outside."

*bzzt*

-

*bzzt*

[Ah… yeah, yeah… they're close… I think Oscar is over there too. I think I see his SUV with the XM214 at the front. Yup… that's definitely him with the shotty… Oh! Wait a- *PSSHEW*]

*bzzt*

-

*bzzt*

"Dude?"

*bzzt*

-

*bzzt*

[JAREEEEEEED~!!! YOU MOTHERFUCKING ASSHOLE WITH THAT MOTHERFUCKING SCAR IN THE THAT MOTHERFUCKING ROOFTOP!!! DID YOU THINK I CAN'T MOTHERFUCKING HANDLE THIS MOTHERFUCKING BITCH WITH A MOTHERFUCKING FLAT NOSE?! FUCKKKK!!! ALL THESE MOTHERFUCKING SHIT IS ON ME!!!]

*bzzt*

-

*bzzt*

[I-I thought- *PSSHEW*]

*bzzt*

-

*bzzt*

[WHAT THE FUCK?! YOU DID IT AGA- YOU THOUGHT WHAT?! HUH?!]

*bzzt*

-

*bzzt*

[If you'd stop being slow...]

*bzzt*

-

*bzzt*

[THE FUCK DID YOU SAY TO ME, YOU LITTL- YOU FUCKING SHIT!!! HEY YOU, GIVE ME THAT FUCKI- STOP SHOOTING MY TARGETS!!!]

*bzzt*

-

Chaos ensued for a few seconds and everyone had to turn the volume of their radios down to a few levels. With that said, we never did hear Jared stop firing at the dead below. Lois tried to keep up with him but he definitely had the disadvantage with the farther targets. A .308 round fired from Jared's SCAR could be effective at twice the range compared to a .300 AAC Blackout from Lois's Rattler.

Lois's advantage was his gun could run better suppressed but that was not the thing they were competing for. He had a bit of an edge with Jared in terms of speed but his older brother was in a fucking frenzy right now. I could somehow identify each shot by sound and Jared was definitely firing more and nailing more than him.

'Only a matter of time until he asks for another upgrade… maybe his older brother's Sig 716 or the ACR he's so fucking fond of...'

Time continued to pass but clearing the sea of dead bodies in Monumento wasn't a job for a single day. With that said, we reached the actual monument and we were a fourth of the way in with regards to the main roads that were blocked. The issue of several train cars getting derailed and crashing down was still a headache and we would need a few vehicles or power tools suited for that kind of job.

The priority was clearing the road that would loop us back to the barangays of Karuhatan and Marulas so that we wouldn't have existing deadends to traverse the roads we were mainly using. With the other two that were left, it would be a toss coin but I would be leaning towards clearing the road that would lead to Manila. For the same reason as earlier, clearing that part of the road would allow another route to reach Iskoh and vice versa.

The last road would obviously lead to Quezon city but that place was something I wasn't ready to tackle yet. We could clear the dead and leave the train cars on their side of the road but traveling to a new place without settling everything down in my place first was something I'm against. The number of people we were making connections and taking in was expanding rapidly, and I would prefer to get a lead on them before discovering others.

We were tying up a few loose ends before Oscar approached me.

"Hey, kid. Why don't we just clear one side of the road to the left tomorrow? We're not following traffic rules anymore and the train cars on that corner could easily be pushed to open up two lanes. If it's too difficult, we could just detach each train car one by one and I think a blowtorch would work nicely if it wouldn't budge. What do you think?"

Bogdan cackled from the helicopter wearing his pseudo-straitjacket, "HAH! IT AIN'T A PROBLEM IF IT'S LIQUID!"

Oscar cackled as well, "HAH! I LIKE YOU, BROTHA! COME WITH ME TOMORROW AND YOU'LL HAVE A BETTER TIME THAN THIS KID!"

"NO! NAH! NYET! THAT'S A NEGATORY! THE KID AND I ARE BROTHERS NOW! I CAN'T JU-"

"I'LL GIVE YOU A CHINA LAKE!"

"WELL HELLO~ THERE BUDDY!"

"JUST A BUDDY?!"

"I AIN'T EASILY SWAYED YOU KN-"

"DID I FORGET ABOUT THE MILKOR MGL?!"

"WHAT THE FUCK WOULD I DO WITH A-"

"A FUCKING RG-6 THEN!"

"WELL HELLO~ BROTHA!"

"THAT'S WHAT I'M FUCKING TALKING ABOUT!"

Artem and I just looked at each other and said, "The fuck did just happen?!"

Kaley interjected, "I'm more interested as to why they're shouting when they're just a few feet apart..."

Oscar just took an elite member from under our noses and the demolition man actually boarded Oscar's SUV and drove in the sunset with them. My group just stared in disbelief and the flight back home was so fucking silent. Even with the fuck ton of items we uncovered in the basement and the first floor of that mall, it was much difficult that we lost a core member, especially from Artem's own squad.

'The old man will be in good hands though, heh. As long as- nevermind… too much chaos for a day...'

It took a while to get the items we collected to their proper storage areas but another fucking shock came when Unc Zeidrick, Russel, and the rest came back from their fishing trip. Everyone else's jaw had dropped but the father-and-son duo was laughing maniacally when they opened up the would-be freezers they brought back. What they caught were dark-silvery, slimy, squiggly, and five inches long creatures swimming inside the Colemans.

Eels. Only fucking eels. Freezers and freezers of fucking eels.

We were expecting a variety of fish with two to five species at least but what we got were fucking eels that would last us a fucking while.

"Unc..."

"Hmm?"

"I thought you'd try to catch some more Ahi?"

"Ah… bad day. We only caught a couple and we ate them."

"How about some crabs?"

"Bad day the other day. We ate them too."

"How about some Marlin?"

"Bad day too."

"You ate them as well?"

"Ah, no. We didn't catch that fucking- anyway, we got eels? They're cool, right? I remember that sauce you made when you grill them. Could you make some tomorrow?"

"Sure… at least we could farm them. Well, we would need to transfer over a few from the other side of the fish ponds we got."

"Then that's the plan! I know this is a good idea!"

"Yeah..."

After an hour more, several tables with wooden pegs were strewn around the DDR Camp. Representatives from all of our outposts were present and they were sporting a look of 'payback', to give a simple word for it.