“Fuck the Hasmat protocols! We’re doing ZOMCO now. Does everyone know the rules?”
Ulrich is the first to respond.
“Go for the head, always double tap, never remove your armor, don’t engage in melee, don’t get bitten.”
Soto nods approvingly. “Now cover all the entrances, we need to clear this building! Ulrich, you’re with me. Sulieman, Vasquez, you’re going to barricade all windows and doors. Hagen, set up a perimeter up front. We’re turning this into a fort!”
There’s a resounding oorah from the marines, and the ones he had given orders begin to do as told.
Soto and Ulrich are the first to step out of the restricted space of the lavatory, and they’re immediately met by more mutilated walking dead. All around them are soldiers and what looks like officials, and they exclusively seem to be Gajun.
“Conserve ammo! Kill shots only!”
Ulrich doesn’t even speak as he fires two shots into the skull of three different zombies.
“I’ve played enough L4D96 to know what I’m doing, sir!”
Soto snickers. He figured that was the case.
“Ground floor first. We clear the path for the others.”
Ulrich nods, and downs a few more undead Gajun.
“Hell, I should keep a score.”
Soto didn’t really approve of the statement. They were in the middle of a real goddamn zombie apocalypse. This wasn’t some game or a book to read on the porch during a quaint summer day.
But Ulrich was good at what he was doing, so Soto didn’t comment.
Soto notices that plenty of the zombies seem to have burn-wounds and pieces of their body completely burnt away by what he would guess is plasma fire.
Though all injuries seem located in their center of mass, and none of the ones shot in the head were getting up.
It seems some parts of zombie lore were true, but Soto had no wish to find out what else was.
But for now he felt safe in his power armor. After all, they couldn’t bite through that, could they?
And these zombies moved sluggishly, just as zombies had in movies before the infected-craze of the 21st century.
His HUD started to display a ammo low warning.
The assault rifle railguns’ stopping power was most impressive, but the limited ammo capacity would probably be the bane of Soto’s existence.
After all, 30 bullets wasn’t too impressive, especially if the zombie disease had spread around the planet.
They would need to find alternative weapons sooner rather than later.
Where the hell were all the zombies coming from? They hadn’t even seen any signs of life when they came here, and people don’t appear out of thin air.
He hoped that was a trait shared by the zombies.
“Reloading!”
He pulled out the metal mag in which the tungsten rounds were stored. Two rods left.
Well, no wasting ammo.
He puts the mostly-empty magazine into the dump-bag on his back, but as Soto grabs a new magazine from the zip-bag on his thigh, he is knocked over.
A zombie came crashing through a door, which Soto assumed lead to the stairwell, and was now on top of him. The creature was larger than the ordinary undead, and seemed to have large, worm-like parasites feeding into the chest of it.
And it was faster and stronger than any Gajun Soto had ever seen.
It opens it’s maw, and bites for Soto’s head, but Soto manages to jam his arm in between himself and the mutant beast.
Several of the worm-like things, that Soto now can see is some kind of tentacles, latch onto him.
But beyond a mounting pressure in his arm, the creature seems to do no damage to him.
The power-armor provides enough protection.
He wrestles with the undead brute for a moment, but then the back part of the creature’s skull vaporizes into fine pink mist.
The creature slumps, and twitches somewhat as Soto pushes it off of him.
Ulrich is standing there with his gun, and grabs Soto’s arm, pulling him onto his feet.
“Did you get bitten?”
Soto shakes his head.
“It tried, but it couldn’t get through my armor.”
He looks at the arm, and there are clear marks where the beast bit into the armor.
This was fucking unbelievable! It was a Gajun! How could it possess such strength? Well, it was a mutated zombie Gajun, so it might have to do with the infection.
“The fucker was strong as all hell. We need to be careful, if we get overrun there’s no guarantee that they can’t tear us open like fucking cans.”
Honestly, Soto wasn’t too fond of the mental image of being turned into a can of peaches, and he intended to do all he could to stay off the dinner table.
“Come on, let’s clean up this mess!”
He locks a new magazine into his gun, and they push on.
“That’s the last of them. Hagen! Time to set up the perimeter!”
In the main office room, Sulieman and Vasquez are flipping over desks and mounting them over the various windows of the room, and the door is already barred with a chair, ensuring that nothing can come in from outside while still being easily removed should they need to use the door to escape.
Soto is very well aware that the flimsy fortification won’t hold off another one of the big fuckers, should one appear.
Hagen walks past, hauling her phasegun with both arms.
The heavy weapons specialist sets up just inside the front door, behind a flipped-over lobby counter, and Soto can hear the faint hum of the formidable weapon being armed.
“Sir! I found something upstairs!”
Ulrich comes thundering down the stairs.
“I found the records room!”
<14×72-3, galactic standard time> “The number of mysterious disappearances has increased today as the entire village of Galto vanished, leaving no traces beyond a few shattered doors and bloodstains, suggesting the violent nature of this attack. Guardian officials are still scratching their heads as the number of missing colonists are now numbering over a thousand.
“Where are they? What happened to them? These are the question that the leaders in the colonial capital are now asking.
“Communication with the outside is still offline, and many are praying to the golden goddess of fortune that Senate vessels will come and assist us, but so far our system-wide sweeps have showed no ships in proximity to our world.
“This is Gyqul with the CNN, and we’ll be back as the situation develops.”
<11×73-3×12, galactic standard time> “We interrupt your normally scheduled weekend entertainment with breaking news! Missing people have been spotted wandering the woods in the direction of the colony capital! People are rejoicing as family members thought lost are now returning to civilization after having been gone for more than a week! Several of the formerly-missing are reported to have grave injuries, and rescue personnel has been rushed to the scene.
“Now over to Halynn, reporting from the scene.”
The hologram switches from the male Gajun news anchor to what is obviously a female, her body more slimmed than that of her counterpart. She is somewhat huddled up from what seems to be a rather stiff wind, and is holding a microphone.
“Thank you, Gyqul.
“As you can see, hundreds of people are now exiting the woods, and we have thousands of people waiting to look for family and friends that went missing out in the villages. I’m sure this will be a very touching moment for all of us, and we can only hope that everyone is returned safely to their families.”
The camera moves to a group of Gajun, that to Soto are obviously infected by the zombie disease, shambling out of the wood to be met by the waiting citizens.
As worried families and medical personnel rushes towards the oncoming horde, Soto can’t help but cringe. He knows what’s going to happen next.
A older Gajun female rushes over and embraces a younger specimen, that Soto assumes to be her daughter, and the younger female bites into the older Gajun’s neck. This is a scene repeating itself all over the picture, as rescue personnel and worried families are feasted upon by their once-friends and families.
“Oh gods! Are you seeing this in the studio?! They’re eating them! Run, back to the van! Run!”
The camera is obviously discarded at the scene, and keeps pointing at the massacre as chaos grasps the Gajun at the scene.
It’s bloody, and they see as infected shamble further into the city, leaving behind corpses left where they dropped.
The scene goes back to the news anchor, who stares, wide-eyed and slack-jawed at the scene that just happened. He looks up at the camera, and it is visible that all blood has drained from his face.
When he speaks, it’s in the form of a coarse whimper
“Oh gods..”
<12×73-3×12, galactic standard time>
Emergency service broadcast:
Lock your doors, and block all windows and do not open them for anybody.
The dead are walking. If you suspect anyone to be infected, call the Guardian hot line and quarantine the person.
<14×73-3×12, galactic standard time>
The Gajun news anchor is back on screen.
“As of one hour ago, the guardian defenses around city hall were overrun, and reports state that all contact with the colony mayor have been lost.
“I Don’t know if anyone is still out there, but if you are, don’t stay in the city. If you can, run as far as you can. Don’t take your cars, all roads are blocked and the dead are everywhere.
“Run while there’s still a chance.
“It’s too late for me, I can hear them scratching at the studio door-”
There’s a loud crash, and the man turns to the side.
“Oh gods! Stay away from me! Stay away!”
Just as a infected enters the screen, the anchor pulls out a handgun.
At first he aims it at the zombie, and shoots it twice in the gut.
It seems to not even stagger it.
He lifts the gun to his head, and pulls the trigger.
Soto turns off the video.
“…..”
He can hear Sulieman swallow.
“When was this?”
Soto takes a deep breath.
“five days ago.
“It took them three hours to destroy a city of millions. Just imagine what this could do to the galaxy.”
The room went completely silent.