They went toward the building, even if it was night-time already, with the fire raging everywhere, it seemed like it was noon.
Approaching the building, they could see dozens of corpses. Some shot to death, others burned to crisp. While Nicolas was handling Stacy, the two other were looting discretely whatever looked like a weapon.
After walking to the right side of the building that looks like the office part, they found an entrance that was closed. Banging at the door and shouting did not help, nobody opened.
"Guys, if you could see what I see, I am sure you would want to open fast, like very fast! I see at least a dozen people entering the base perimeter. And looking at the way they walk and some missing limbs, I bet they are not friendly foes!" Jesper was standing at the corner of the building. He was starting to regret coming here. Sure they were looting guns like they were loaves of bread in a bakery, but the zombies were becoming quite abundant too, too much for his taste!
Not waiting for a clean solution, Baptiste decisively shot at the window next to the door. They broke into the building, and upon entering they could see blood everywhere.
"Oh God, what happened here?" Stacy was terrified.
The three French were speechless, was she not supposed to be some badass coast guard policewoman? She has only been crying, shaking and screaming since they met! After so many things happen already why was she not a bit more stable?
If she knew the three men's thoughts, she would probably die from anger, are they not the abnormal ones here? Behaving like some heroes in a survival video game?
"Where is the armoury?" Nicolas asked.
"We have two, one upstairs in this building, and one at the building closer to the boats' dock on the ground floor. But I think the latter was blown up," she answered.
"Ok, lead the way to the armoury upstairs, we need to gather some firepower first to face this situation!" Nicolas said it in such a 'normal way' that when it came from his mouth, it sounded the right thing to do. And she did it! She started to climb the stairs, not even questioning the foreigner civilian!
After a couple of minutes of walking stealthily, they arrived at the corner of a corridor. Three zombies were facing a reinforced door.
"This is the armoury" Stacy pointed at the undead group.
"Since we can access the armoury, no need to be polite!" Nicolas wanted to release some steam! He was already checking the ammo in his guns.
He then jumped into the corridor, pointing two guns at the group of three zombies.
"BANG! BANG! BANG!..." He emptied his charger on the un-living targets.
A bleak silence followed, the targets were looking like Swiss cheese, brain matter and blood splashed everywhere.
"Don't you think this is stupid? What if other comes now?" asked Jesper.
Nicolas shrugged his shoulder.
Stacy's face became white as a sheet of paper, then without a word, she went to the side of the door and presented her handprint to a scanner, the door opened.
"Don't move!" a deep voice came from inside.
"Wait! Jimmy, it's me, Stacy lah!"
"Oh God, Stacy! You're fine?"
"Yes!"
The four people went inside the room and closed the door behind them.
The room was big, at least 30 square metres, racks, benches and boxes were filling the room.
There, two policemen were standing, both holding a machine gun. Another one was dead on the floor, full of holes.
The men called Jimmy said in a hurry pointing at the dead men, "He attacked us first, this is legitim defence!"
Nicolas not even surprised, "no need to justify yourself, zombies are not human anymore."
"Zombies? So these are zombies?" the second policemen asked stunned.
"Correct, I can testify myself," said Stacy.
The two policemen seemed to relax a lot. They were currently thinking if they had to shut the incoming witness from their crime. Even if it was legitim defence, their ex-colleague was not using a gun when he attacked them, so regarding the law, they would have been at fault here. But since he was a zombie, that was not a problem anymore.
"Wait! Zombies you say?!?"
"You can take a look outside, they are plenty more!" Jesper added, thinking it would be fun to scare them a bit.
"What do you mean plenty more?" asked the older policeman.
"Terry, can we keep questions for later? We need to gear up and leave the place, building is on fire and lots of those crazy things are all around the place." Stacy was already heading to the racks to supply herself. Seeing all those arms and protective equipment, she started to feel safer.
"Ok?" Terry was not sure what to do, he was the oldest here, but it seems things were out of his control.
"If you don't mind, we would also like to take a few weapons," Nicolas asked politely, Stacy did not care, but these two new guys were probably less accommodating.
"No can do! You're civilians, this is military weapons! we can't give you any!" said Jimmy.
'Of course, at least one of them needed to be self-righteous and could not adapt to the situation!' Thought Nicolas facepalming himself internally.
"Sir, you have to understand that we are in a critical situation, they are not books or procedures for it. If we don't have the proper means to defend ourselves, even if you protect us, we may risk our life there!" Nicolas did not want to miss the opportunity to pick up a maximum of supplies. He added, "and we can help you transport all of these for you to use later! The building is burning up, if we don't move out those very fast, they will probably be lost forever!" Nicolas was very satisfied with his coaxing and pleading.
"Leave the kids with the task to transport a few of the supplies, we won't be able to take everything anyway, they are enough stuff for a few units here." Understanding that everything he knew was not relevant, Terry was more flexible and he understood that improvising a bit would not be armful.
"But sir!" Jimmy was not convinced, he has been educated to follow rules and law strictly, adapting was not easy.
"Common Jimmy, chill a bit lah!" Stacy came to him and gave him a friendly slap in the back while handing over a couple of grenades.
"Whatever!" Jimmy liked Stacy a lot, so did not want to argue with her.
After a while, they were all wearing a military outfit and each had a backpack full of firearms and ammo.
Nicolas, Jesper and Baptiste focused their looting on the same automatic rifle model, same handgun model, a lot of ammo for the two, a few grenades, and one long-range rifle to have options. The goal was to maximize the compatibility between the ammo and weapons since they could not bring everything, they needed to play smart.
"So what do we.." "BOOM!" Jimmy was cut short, the building trembled after the explosion.
"No need to plan! We just leave the building right away!" urged Jesper.
"And then what?" Jimmy did not like the newcomer to order them around.
"Maybe we can try to leave by boat?" Nicolas tentatively said.
"Good idea, I lead the group, Stacy you flank, Jimmy you close the march. And you three, I don't know if you can use your guns, so try not to play the heroes and let us do our job, only at last resort you can shoot. Ok lah?" Terry paused and they nodded. Seeing the seriousness of these foreigners, he came closer to Jesper, "here is the safety by the way" he pointed to the automatic rifle side.
Then, they went into formation and opened the door. The corridor was devoid of new zombies.
They went the same way they came in, looking for the exit that was further away from the fire. Along the way, they shot a few zombies. For the trained soldiers this was easy, those people that have turned were moving too slowly and were very predictable.
Once they were out of the building, part of the group was feeling much better, and a few sights of relief could be heard.
"This is not the time to relax!" said Terry sternly, we have a hundred metres separating us from the boat, and they don't seem the easiest! He then raised his weapon and shot a zombie approaching straight to the head.
They engaged to the side of the building toward the sea. The scene on the other side was breathtaking, the building had partially collapsed and a dozen of the zombies were on the dock roaming heedlessly. They could see a few boats quickly leaving the area a few hundred metres away.
"We'll shoot them from here!" said Terry solemnly.