Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

With each second or two, I'd catch a short break by seeing a head peek at an off-angle but I'd quickly make it hit the floor before it can do whatever it was trying to accomplish. Just with the number of deadheads on the other side of the door, I assumed not all of them were being manipulated one way or another but the fewer deadheads we'd face the better.

'Let's see who runs out of patience—'

"Hey! What are you doing all the way here?"

"I thought we're supposed to keep a fair distance!"

I still had my rifle at the ready but I almost jumped out of my skin when Kaley and Jose came up from behind. Funnily enough, it also gave them a fright but I quickly shook my head before I looked through the same spot that has gone quiet for several seconds.

Kaley slowly nudged me, "I called Tatiana, Isaac is bringing over one of our drones and he can actually fly one. Wanna send one in first before trying anything else?"

Jose added, "We gotta do something different, if worse comes to worst, either those barricades fall or they're all just regrouping silently to surprise where the actual barricade is that shabby door. I know that you can outshoot anyone but we need more barrels facing that door if we're gonna try and make a stand here."

I nodded pensively, "That makes a lot of sense, we actually have the "high ground" but we shouldn't be aggressive even if we could afford it. I was this close to kicking that door open and going crazy."

Kaley shook her head, "Don't worry too much about the other entrances though, last I've heard… They were welding thick sheets of metal to the entrances, even the sounds coming from behind were getting dull. I doubt the infected could figure that their efforts will be for nothing but we just have to be patient. Dave's also making several people encircle this place so we could wait it out and figure the next steps…"

Hearing that, a little bit of tension had left my shoulders so I made Kaley and Jose walk back a few paces with me as we slowly rejoined Quinn and the others.

It didn't take long before Isaac came running down while shakily holding my drone in his hands so I took it from him and decided to fly it myself. Kaley and Jose had once again pointed their rifles at the gaps provided for them but Isaac still looked like a wet shaking puppy that fell on a vat of water on a cold winter night.

'Well, it has 'that' in it…'

So I gave him the family special.

"Turn around."

"H-Huh?"

"Turn around," I repeated myself as I widened my eyes.

"O-OkaYYYYYYYYYYY~!!! FUCK! WHAT WAS THAT FOR?!"

I just slammed my palms across his back and I let out a short chuckle, "Better?"

"W-WHAT?!"

"I'd rather you be mad than shaking. Also, hands off your pistol before you shoot anyone here."

"..."

With that said, Isaac calmed down a little while I slowly made my drone hover in the air before sending it inside with a burst of speed. The goal wasn't to scour the place for as much information as we could but to have several glimpses in a few seconds because we could always replay the footage and we'd have a higher chance for our drone to come back in one piece.

As I did, I was paying attention not only to the drone's positioning but to the sounds I was hearing from its microphone.

I spent maybe 10— no, 20 seconds inside before I turned the drone around and tried to send it back to me but I had another fright when I discovered that more than a dozen slurpers/stitchers were hanging by their tongues and had stuck themselves—with a few pieces of deadheads they had on them—right on the wall past the shabby door I was just looking through earlier.

'The fuck—'

I almost bumped the drone when it was just coming back to me and I sure as hell was relieved that I didn't go in guns blazing. If I did, I'd be the one on the receiving end in one of those 'educational' animations I used to watch and it wouldn't be as pleasurable as it was portrayed.

Since I wasn't the only one who saw the damn feed, it made everyone take a few steps up the staircase but those motherfuckers that were lying in wait knew that the jig was up.

One after the other, several deadheads just straight-up sprinted and bolted straight through the door, and Kaley and Jose only managed to pick off a few before one of them slammed with all of its momenta, throwing its bloody juices to the other side while decimating its frail body. However, it made the shabby door blocking it violently shake and jiggle, chipping off whatever was left of its HP closer to 0.

And right after that, a few more tried to bust down the door but several tongue-tentacles slithered from above and tried to sneak in, but my drone had already flown past them before turning abruptly and dive-bombing the spot where the majority of them had clustered together.

The drone in question had a small explosive charge in it—which was one of the reasons Isaac was shaking when he delivered it to me, and it definitely obtained the ability to send several nukes because it had more than a 30-kill streak after exploding at the cluster of slurpers, also liberating the regular deadheads from their control.

And funnily enough, the shockwave from the explosion was the one that made the door come loose and slowly swing open but it opened up a lot more angles for us to abuse.

Disregarding the pulp and the mix of burnt and juicy rotting meat by the door, we had an easier time picking off the regular deadheads from the distance but it still wasn't the time to relax. We weren't exactly sure that we took care of all of them because if we really need to make sure that the ringleaders were accounted for and if it was safe, we still needed to go inside and verify.

It's just that we needed to thin down their numbers as much as possible before doing anything because the gen room was larger than I thought and we probably have just taken care of a fifth or optimistically speaking, a third of the population.

Kaley exclaimed, "MAGS!"

I was slightly confused because we're using different caliber rifles, "We don't—"

She suddenly reached in and pulled out one of my extra mags for our Maxim 9s, "I'm talking about this one, you doofus!"

Looking at Kaley's chest rig, she had already gone through three magazines for her rifle chambered in .308s but she switched to her secondary to kinda "save up" the bigger bullets for the bigger surprises. At this range, a 9mm was enough and even a .22 LR could do wonders in bullet economy.

Knowing that, I sent Isaac back to the surface to fetch more magazines from our vehicle—including a couple for Jose's M16 and my custom BCM rifle. Like Quinn and Dave, Isaac had no way of helping us three with our current task but the other two were busy relaying orders while keeping close in case of emergencies.

Dave had his punk'd 870 at the ready while Quinn had her Deagle tightly tucked behind her belt, and a 1-ounce slug and a .50 AE bullet were fucking devastating on close range. Sure, they weren't helping us at the current moment but I'll make sure that Quinn will reimburse me for the bullets we used because as stated by one of her crew members, they weren't that good at shooting over long distances.

That means that their rifle rounds were probably collecting dust and I had free reign over them.

But after a short while, the zerg rush of sorts eventually slowed down, and listening to the reports from Quinn and Dave's radios, the thumping behind the barricades had also lessened.

That could only mean that we have probably taken down another third of the deadheads that managed to get out of their "sure-fire" way to keep them in place because if we take into account the ones that were still on the generators—due to the cranking sounds still present—it'd probably check out. However, I still would advise against going inside and finishing the current mishap because I still had one more drone to scout the inside, but this time, on a much slower approach.

With that said, Isaac eventually arrived with one of our bags that had an assortment of magazines with loose ammo—including the last drone we brought for our trip.

It's just that he was shaking even more than the last time he came down, and he was keeping safe distance when I was trying to give him another family special.

"What's wrong?"

"You— You didn't tell me that there was an explosive charge in there!"

"You didn't know?"

"YOU— I DIDN'T KNOW!"

"Huh."