Chapter 420
𝑵𝓞𝓋𝔢𝒍𝑛𝔢xt.𝕔𝒐𝑚
Chapter 420: 420
It took a few minutes as the soldiers approached my other team members but I was now with Kaley, Tatiana, Cynthia, Jared, Lois, Mikhail, and Lawrence. I wanted to bring Mark and Dong with me but I let them help with the group outside with Marvin and Ashley along with the other soldiers.
My group left our plinking stuff at one of our vehicles but Kaley and I still had our Taurus TX22s on our person.
“Bro, we’re gonna check everything, right?” Jared commented.
“Hmm? Of course.” I replied.
“You think we’d find more guns in that Police Station and that City Jail?” Jared asked.
“We might since we already found a few from the dead bodies we hauled earlier. Those places would be the obvious place to store what they have compared to the other buildings here. I’m not too keen on finding more guns but I was hoping for a little more ammo. We might check some of the vehicles they got parked near it as well if we could take them home.” I explained.
We started from the left side of this area first because it was the City Hall in question. It had five floors in total but it was not as spacious as the City Hall we have in our own city. It had more compact rooms built for purpose, not aesthetics. It was still crawling with some manner of the undead so we proceeded carefully.
Broken pieces of glass were all over the entrance and that was one more thing to look out for.
“Okay, we’ll go in pairs and we clear each room and the ones roaming in the hallways. We loot the place after we’re done with the dead, okay?” I said to my group as I paired with Kaley.
The two of us went directly to the second floor with our weapons drawn. Kaley had her rifle up while I had my katana and my Maxim 9 at the ready. Our weapon lights were turned on for more visibility and the movement of shadows confirmed a few were quite close.
The first one we saw after a corner was one that had its jaw completely removed. Its bloated tongue was hanging out with what was left with its mouth and its shoulder was now a housing complex for a few dozen maggots.
I sent a bullet right between its eyes and it flopped right when it hit the floor. Its head hit a broken glass partition and it made quite a bit of noise. We saw more shadows approaching from the other side and Kaley and I instinctively reached out for our Taurus TX22s.
The rotting and discolored bodies came walking in an erratic pattern. I looked down at their lower body and discovered that they were missing a chunk from where their body should hold them up or a bone was broken at an awkward angle making its movements unnatural.
We had no time to dwell much on it so we fired when we had the shot. Our bullets punched a hole in each of their heads and the seven bodies that followed were now part of the bodies meant to be burned outside.
Walking a few steps forward and looking at the small offices, some of them were already repurposed to act as a room for one or two families. A few blankets were getting held up by thicker wires and most of the electronic devices were just collecting dust on one corner. Bags and suitcases were also present in these repurposed rooms and I was hoping we could find more than their belongings inside of them. A few food items were also present but it wasn’t enough to go around for everybody. Some of them were also about to expire and some cans had the labels ripped off making their lunch a mystery.
The rest of the offices on this floor was about the same though we found a few cubicles were the people inside took their own lives along with their children.
Their bodies were in all sorts of decay but Kaley and I made sure that they wouldn’t rise up even if they were not moving when we came upon them. We simply pushed our blades a few inches inside their eye sockets to get the job done. We gave them a short moment of silence before we proceeded to the next floor.
Mikhail and Cynthia caught up to us and they told me the others already headed to the 4th and 5th floor.
“You guys doing okay?” Kaley asked them.
“So far, so good. Sir Mikhail’s been doing much of the work while I just watch out for anything.” Cynthia replied.
“It’s fine, the big guys should always be in front.” Mikhail chuckled.
“Okay, the server room is always located in the central area of the centermost floor so we’ll prioritize that over anything else. Watch out for shooting through the rooms because we might accidentally render the drives useless.” I explained.
“Is that some rule or something? Placing them in the centermost area?” Cynthia asked.
“No, one of the purposes is having the wires going through each room be at more or less the same length so a few issues would be avoided. Also…” I explained a few things.
“Boss, there’s some movement in that direction.” Mikhail pointed at a room with translucent glass partitions.
We ended the short conversation and we drew our weapons. Mikhail was always lugging around his PKM but he would switch to his AK-47 in tight and enclosed spaces. To be extra sure we wouldn’t accidentally shoot up the server room, Mikhail and I kited them near the staircase to where we are and we used our melee weapons. Using the katana with both hands not only made it easy to cut one in half given the extra power, but I could also maneuver my blade because of the extra leverage offered by how I grip the handle.
However, to conserve my strength for things that may or may not happen, I settled for aiming at either their eye sockets, ears, or their mouths while thrusting upwards to use less energy. Kaley was doing the same thing as me but Cynthia’s rapier was most suited for the job.
We didn’t encounter much inside because I’ve already lured most of them to fall to their deaths when I drove the drone earlier. The ones that were left were either too slow to move or couldn’t move at all. Our magazines weren’t switched to fresh ones because we barely even used them.
I was now getting the drives on the server room when I heard Tatiana’s voice.
“You guys done here?” Tatiana was not with Lawrence.
“Almost, where’s Lawrence? Did you see Jared and Lois?” I replied.
“Oh, Lawrence joined the two. We’re done with the floors above so they’re hanging around on the roof. They said they’re gonna check on some of the tents erected to see if they could scrounge on some stuff. Oh yeah, we found a few handguns and all of them were in Jared’s pack. The bullets were placed in mine, the same thing with a few important things we found on the other floors. There are also a few spent casings and shells on the floor and Lois collected them for you.” Tatiana said as I picked up my radio.
–
*bzzt*
“Jared, dismantle the useable tents and bring back anything you could.”
*bzzt*
–
*bzzt*
“Heh, already did bro. We also found a few long rifles here and a few loose rounds. Hope we found more in the Police Station.”
*bzzt*
–
*bzzt*
“From the looks of things we might.”
*bzzt*
–
I placed the drives we collected in a suitcase after packing them securely and I ordered some of my people below to start looting this place. As we were unloading some of them to our vehicles, a small herd started approaching the street we were in and good thing I made everyone gather to one spot. Well, Max and a few others were still on the roof of the love hotel but they helped in taking down a few biters. The few dozen that approached us turned to more ‘firewood’ and my group headed for the City Library next.
What we discovered inside was worse than the family who opted out.
My group members were all wearing solemn and somber expressions all throughout the floors because in this library, let’s just say that we needed to aim a little lower. Some of them seemed old enough to be in middle school but the majority of them weren’t even eligible to ride a relatively safe attraction in a carnival.
I only made the drone drive inside the City Hall and not in the other buildings next to it so I wasn’t aware of the walking bodies inside this library. A wall was full of their drawings and the one most affected by what happened to them was Cynthia.
She froze the moment she saw them and tears welled on her eyes the moment their bodies hit the floor. I wasn’t sure if she encountered a dead kid or two while in guard duty but the sheer number of them in this place was enough to make people have trouble sleeping at night.
“No one could be ready for this shit.” I thought to myself.
We just did what we have to and made it quick at least.
When the people outside saw the bodies we were dragging outside, their expressions were the same bitter expression everyone in my group was wearing. But still, the job had to be completed no matter what.
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