Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

We continued to semi-rush each door that we kicked open and the doors that were a bit 'fortified' ate 1-ounce slugs.

As soon as they were forced open, we were either met with more stranded deadheads, a blockade of tables and chairs, or a treasure trove of medication. I was slowly shading out the areas we cleared from the map I roughly sketched inside my head, and we were making decent headway.

Natasha signaled as she raised her foot to kick another door down, "Ready--"

I placed my hand over her shoulder and pulled her back, "Wait..."

"Hmm?"

"Just wait..."

Natasha and Tatiana gave me puzzled looks but I was looking at the slit below the door. We would've broken into this room already but I noticed a lot more shadows moving behind than normal. With that said, we couldn't see through the room's window either since the blinds were covering the glass panels fully.

Our heads eventually landed on a chair and it didn't take long before I threw it straight at the window.

As soon as it made contact, the glass panels broke into pieces and it passing through the room made us get a short picture inside when the blinds got parted momentarily.

Close to a dozen toddlers were feasting on a rotting corpse of a dead nurse.

Their bodies were chewed up and their torsos were disemboweled but I have no fucking idea how many times their 'food' went into their mouth, passed through what was left of their stomach, and then their mouths again.

One of them was even wearing a bib but it was way past eating purees or more non-solids.

The place we were in was so silent at that moment but someone had to do it.

I pulled my pistol once more and aimed at their little heads from the window. I had smaller targets as usual but once I pulled the trigger, they would just turn into a statistic. Young, old, male, female, and etc., a deadhead is a deadhead.

It was the only thing we could do and I thought the first two I killed earlier were the last ones right until this moment. The two were just watching me solemnly but Natasha couldn't help but look away when I finally pulled the trigger and their little bodies stopped moving.

I took a deep breath before making sure I took care of all of them. After that, I bust open the door to check the bathroom.

It was surprisingly empty and we eventually moved on room by room.

After a short while, more glass walls were reported to be broken and only the eighth floor had them all mostly intact. That meant that our people below would have a small bump of bodies to put down because some of them would just fall to their deaths. They'd be extremely lucky if they fell on top of a vehicle or something else that could cushion their fall because landing on hard concrete was fucking ugly.

We eventually looped around after 20 minutes or so and I was told that Artem's team already went up the next floor. However, the bit of news we received from the people below made us make the people we left on the first floor take a generous amount of steps away from the stairs themselves.

This order was also given to Kristoff and Bogdan because they were watching the stairs on our floors.

It was because we were told that the deadheads trying to throw themselves off the last floor had turned around and disappeared from view, and that meant they were about to descend the lower floors.

The only thing we didn't take into account was the method they would use to descend. We only thought that they'd just slowly walk down the stairs or clumsily fell down but they stuck to their guns.

As far as the staircase could allow, they just swan-dived like there's no tomorrow but their bodies almost always banged on the safety rails. We could fucking hear the crunch a few floors above and the staircase just became a fucked-up dice tower. The place they would land now was completely random and we would have to double-check the floors we have been through before.

We were relatively safe in our position but we were unable to advance to the higher floors. We would need to wait until the eighth floor ran out of bodies to throw at us or else we'd risk being body-slammed from several floors above.

This was when Kristoff decided to head to a safety glass where an emergency fire axe was located. He broke the glass with the stock of his rifle and eventually pulled the axe off its mount.

He then approached the elevators and jammed the axe in between the two metal doors.

"This will work, right?"

Natasha shook her head, "You ask this now?"

"I mean, let me push it a bit--"

As soon as Kristoff applied more pressure, copious amounts of viscous fluid started to seep out of the small gap from the elevator doors. Everyone else instinctively took a step back but something emerged from the other side.

"The fuck?"

It was a discolored finger that had almost all of its skin peeled off like a sleeve, but it continue to push itself forward. Once it got its whole hand across, another set emerged a few centimeters lower and it started to grab onto the elevator door. However, no one here was stupid enough to wait for the whole scene to unfold because Kristoff pulled off the axe he lodged in the elevator and skimmed it downwards.

Part of someone's hand fell by our feet along with a few more digits but more hands started to make the gap bigger and bigger. Even if their flesh got peeled off, they tried so hard to get away from their cramped space into something more breathable.

With that said, Kristoff kept repeating the same motion over and over until we had a fucking finger collection. Letting whatever was behind those doors to pass through easily was a bad idea and we would do anything to keep their battle power as low as possible. At some point, Tatiana used her sword to stab inside the thin gap but she immediately pulled away when she felt that her sword was about to snap in two.

Tatiana inspected her sword before looking at me, "Whatever's inside there is definitely packed."

"Then get ready."

It didn't take long before the elevator doors were wide enough to make whatever's behind them pass through but we never thought that they'd be so fucking wet and slimy.

The smell was just so fucking abhorrent but that what caught our attention was how their fluids were almost congealed to the point we could mistake them for soup left in the fridge for too long. Some bits even took shape of the elevator shaft and If I was given some time, I could arrange them back like a puzzle. However, the same rule applied to these guys.

A deadhead is a deadhead.

They were so encumbered by their own selves, we were more afraid of them when we had no clue about their abilities. They couldn't even attack properly and we just sunk our weapons in their heads without issue. Even if we wanted to watch our for their congealed blood getting on us, we were properly covered and we had the reach advantage.

Taking all of them out made waiting for the 'dice tower' to calm down easier but nevertheless, we cleared everything that filled up that shaft until our current floor. To thoroughly flush them out, the elevator door from the first floor needed to be wedged open because the goop was acting as a liquid barrier and somewhat a camouflage.

It wouldn't be trouble for our people below but I still relayed the information about what we encountered.

After a short while, the contents of the elevator shaft lessened and lessened, and the outpour from above stopped. We took down anything we encountered on our way up and we easily reached the last floor with everyone.

"We'll take the left."

"We'll have the right then."

We split up once more to clear the last floor together and we were faster than when we cleared the floors below us. It was like we were checking if we missed anything because most of the deadheads we had to take care of on this floor already signed their death warrant once they jumped down the stairs.

The only thing I did that confused the hell out of the people below was I asked my group to help me smash a glass wall on this floor. Even a drone flew up high to check on us and Jared's voice on the radio was fucking priceless.

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*bzzt*

[Really, bro?]

*bzzt*

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*bzzt*

"We still got to chuck their bodies down but yeah, it'll look nicer if every floor had a glass wall broken into pieces."

*bzzt*

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