Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

Our little band of survivors was quite close to the intersection where the main entrance and the road where I took down a thousand deadheads last time, and it allowed me to catch some footage from the big screen.

It showed that one bloater on the other side of the ring had broken through their formation—though it was now on its stomach—but it now had fresh meat from the menu.

The person it was feasting on was crushed under its sheer weight and no one from their own circle could save him because the deadheads had already poured over them and caused some sort of stampede.

From our side, we could see the number of deadheads moving onto their side because it had a leak but there were still more coming from the road toward the stage. Almost all of them didn't know where to go because they hit a dead-end, and since our group was much, much closer, they opted to attack us instead.

I would've preferred to help the group in trouble but right now, our hands were also tied.

Furthermore, there was something not quite right about this wave we were about to take on so I stopped going on the extreme offensive. At this point, I sheathed my wakizashi but the look on everyone's face when I turned tail and ran after killing a dozen or so deadheads was fucking priceless.

Quinn was the first one to react, "WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING—"

"KNIFE!"

"WHAT—"

"NOT YOU, MAR— THE FUCK WAS YOUR NAME?! FUCK IT, KNIFE BOY! LEMME BORROW TWO! AH! MARTIN, RIGHT?! QUICK! JUST THROW IT OVERHEAD!"

"O-Okay!"

I was still running at a moderate speed when Martin threw a couple of his knives over my head and I couldn't help but smile when he threw the first one at the exact spot while he threw the other a little forward to time my movement. I caught both of them like a fucking runningback—truth be told, my nose got a little pointier doing this—but I didn't expect Martin to throw another one.

"HERE'S ONE MORE!"

"Wha—"

I wasn't ready to catch another one as I was going inside the gentle curve but Martin made it so that it would bounce off of the poles where one of the cameras was mounted.

To catch that fucking curveball, I had to cut to the outer curve and somehow 50/50 it so it wouldn't cut straight to my hand but as luck would have it, it directly swam down the perforated bowel of a deadhead I cut in half and it now had this nice coating of bile and blood.

If I didn't mention the smell for the nth time this time around, imagine what it would be like touching it and having the most fuck up shit stay in your hands.

At this point, my clothes already had specks of everything that came out of them so I just pulled it out by using my index finger and my thumb before I threw it at one of the bloaters my group left alive.

I aimed it at the one that fell on its back and had its whole lower stomach ripped open because the top of its head was just the one closest to me. Almost immediately, its slow waddling to try and get up instantly stopped while the other three were still trying to turn their huge bodies towards me.

The reason I asked for two throwing knives was to space out the bloaters by killing the ones in the middle of the four that were left, but since I was granted another one, this cleanup process would be smoother as I thought.

It only took a second before the knives in my hand whiffed through the air and sunk into the other two bloater's faces, and I quickly ran forward to take care of the last one.

With my katana in hand, I weaved to its side before carving off its left knee cap and slashing its shoulder off—and since it wasn't like a flamingo—its weight just made the last leg it was standing on shatter and collapse on itself, and it was easy enough to take care of a target that had no defenses.

At this point, I could already see a few people that bailed on the one that got caught on their side but their face was a little too distraught about losing someone in their own group.

Everyone here had lost someone and dealt with a number of deadheads at one point and this panicked look they were wearing was kinda over the top. However, once I saw the fucking thing that was chasing after them, I had to blink twice blankly to see if I was hallucinating but lo and behold, this was the rarest of sprinters—a sprinting bloater.

The motherfucker was too fucking quick and agile for its own good because not only it was crashing to anything that it ran through, but its own body was also getting scratched up and losing chunks due to the damage it was taking.

Well, part of the reason it was losing chunks out of its own body was that a few tears on itself had turned into huge lacerations due to the way it was moving.

It was like holding some jiggly cake or jello up in the air and waving it around, sooner or later, what's left of it would be less than half of what it was.

However, that wasn't the only reason everyone was trying to get away from it.

Due to its size and what's left of whatever the fuck it was, it looked like Pudge and Gluttony had a love child and the end product was like the most fucked up iron maiden made with rotting flesh and bones. Furthermore, some of its bones that were sticking out didn't even belong to itself because it was from the deadheads it ate for dinner.

Not only did it serve as satiation for its hunger, but it also served as another layer of defense.

Right now, it was more dangerous than facing a wild boar head-on because it had more "tusks" to pin us down, and we'll be the freshest kebab right after.

With that said, one of the unspoken rules to survive in the apocalypse was that it was always okay to run when in danger or when faced with an unknown, but gathering as much information while trying to stay alive was also a must.

Despite that, we all know that every deadhead's weakness—except for the hollowed ones—was its head, but the problem right now was how to get access to it.

I easily used the earlier bloaters' size against them but this one was a little complicated.

It was like its body wasn't weighing it down at all and it was agile enough to do a complete turn and smack down anything that tried to slip past it.

At this point, the other participants ran past me as they tried to get away but I was still watching this deadhead's movements.

It was moving like a bull where someone was riding its back and that "someone" was a human cactus or a human torch that was continuously giving it grief. It was thrashing all around the play area and it seemed that it had no target in mind. However, it only took a second before it saw me and tried to go for a slam.

'Heh, let's try it then…'

Much to everyone's surprise, I didn't meet it with the edge of my blade but I just jumped to the side and continued to cut in tight directions as I was watching it move.

I still had my weapon drawn for the remnants that would try to interfere but it was easy enough to cut them down and dodge this huge slab of meat that wanted to take a bite out of me.

In a sense, I was like a matador playing with a bull while flailing a red piece of cloth but that piece of cloth was my flesh and bones.

As I kept ducking, diving, dipping, and dodging its body with a huge allowance, I noticed that it had begun to slow down by a considerable amount, and I wasn't exerting myself as much as I was earlier.

Despite that, the fucker still looked terrifying as fuck but I was starting to face more and more interruptions that came from the other side of the circle. I even drew my wakizashi to use as some sort of stick to push them away before I dealt the killing blow because even if I could do it as easily as snapping my fingers, my focus still needed to be on this special bloater/sprinter.

Well, I still needed to do both at the same time so I just ran around killing some dregs before continuing to watch how it would fare in the long run, but long story short, all I could say was that its 'mind' was still willing but its flesh was weak.