"This village will not make it to the end, I'm going with you guys."
"You have a car? We can go with you."
"No, but I have this," Dan said.
He proceeds to walk ahead, and into a wider room. On his right is a door, which he entered after offering us to have a seat on the sofas. It was so messy in the living room. Black soots, oily spills, and pieces of trash are anywhere. The couches and chairs have burst out cotton and torn off paddings, implying it's old age.
"So this is what people do when their parents are out, yeah?" Vo teased.
"I'm making weapons. You may use it, Dave. And, that stick? We can make it fancier." He pointed at Vo's piece of wood.
"I just like making stuff. I would imagine if this pandemic goes insane. I thought I read too many conspiracy theories, but now, you see it with your very eyes." He adds once more.
"Same here. Last time, I made a blowgun." I said. The sight of his handmade stuff isn't weird to my eyes. If I knew that things will go unpleasant, I would have brought one for self-defense.
"That is a good thing. Let me show you, Dave."
Dan headed to his workshop, and I followed shortly after. There are piles of crafts and creations made out of scratch, but most of them are still unfinished. He collected a lot of scrap materials as well. Spear, arrow, improvised airgun, and a recurve bow can be seen scattered around the concrete floor.
"Dave!" He called.
"These masks will protect you from the aerosols. Just like COVID times, right?" He gave me a look at his hand-made mask. "Cut the bottle in half, diagonally, remove this part, cut the bottle mouth, get N-95 layer, sew it to a piece of cloth mask, and attach them to the bottleneck. And boom!"
Next, he borrowed Vo's wooden club. He went to his workshop, taking with him a motor gear, around ten centimeters in diameter. He split the wood at the top and inserted the gear in. Then he ties it up with a metal wire, tightly. To add up the destructive effect, he hammered some nails in. Now it looks like a club-ax.
"That one's the example. We can make more for twelve guys. Let's do it."
We are making weapons, and I take a spear for this. The knife blade can be used as the head. Dan has a wooden pole, and I'm using it to make the handle. He's got a lot of materials, making it easier to construct the nastiest arsenal of handheld weapons.
The spear is done, and I laid it on the sofa. I asked him for permission to go upstairs and sat on a small wooden chair right next to a window that is placed high enough for me to have a clear sight of the sky. I noticed that it's not raining anymore.
There are several rooms on the second floor. They weren't shut and locked, but I'm not going in without his permission. I will wait. The excess tension started to wear out, leaving behind thoughts of Annent. It was a quick death for him, but all of it was preventable. It should've never happened.
Serx showed up on the staircase.
"Three. Three, Dave."
I know he meant the infected guys from our escape group. Two of them are people I might have never known. And the other one ...
"We could never know who's going to be the next." He sat on the wooden railing bordering the stairs, "If it's me, then-"
"No. Just, no. Someone who knows how our immune system works would agree that people could be immune. Certain people. I believed that. And I still need a guy who always pretend to ignore all my weird thoughts and play normal." I said, trying to cut his pessimistic line.
"Okay, guys, come up." Dan intones, "Can you open that door, Dave? It's not locked."
All of us went into the room. There lies a mattress and several boxes of stuff, an usual bedroom. A shelf of books were posted in the corner. But aside from them, there is something distinctive about this room. It's a desk, full of several papers with drawings and writings.
"For you guys who like to watch global news, this may be good. We all know that in 2020, civil war happened again for a year."
"Republican vs democrats?" Serx said.
"Hmm, it's more like a military coup to me. All the news said that only two sides are fighting each other until a ballistic missile struck them. But I believe more things are happening here than just what the news said. Let me show you." Dan said, going to pick up his phone. All the guys moved into that room.
"This account named EEEggg_. I think they know what the truth is behind that event. There are three sides instead of two."
"Still believing conspiracies? Guess I'm going to head out." A guy beside Anton stands up and turns away.
"No no no, this is logical. My guess is this missile contained the COVID-23. Let's just call it that. Why? Good questions. It's mentioned here, that it's, simply, to end the war. The third party wants to end this, by causing a common problem to distract the whole US from the war. It's successful, I can say. The war ended, but it creates a problem for the entire world, too." Dan narrated. It was dark at 10 p.m., and sleepiness started to cloud my brain.
"And they're called the Adjusters. They are actually from both sides that go on a peace deal."
"So, have the US know this?" Serx asked.
"No. The distraction worked quite well." Dan answered. "This account refers to a lot of pages, you may open it on your phones. And not a lot of people believe it, so that's not a concern. But I, I surely believe that."
"Okay, it's fifteen minutes and you still have not provided any proof. I have several questions. Was that missile containing the virus, and does the third one exist?" The same guy that hates this conversation asks.
"Look here. The first cases emerged in this place." He pointed on the digital map on his phone, "the radius of 66 kilometers from the point where the warhead hit. And it's just one of them. There are three warheads in the previous Minuteman III, so there could be three or four in the fourth version. Two warheads explode, and the rest of them gasses out the most insane biological weapon in the history of mankind. I don't know much, though, but the military faction would've thought that it was the official government who launched it, and vice versa. Eventually, they just give in and stop the war." Dan explains furthermore.
The guy looks more agreed now.
"Where do they get the virus? Did they modify the COVID-19 into this much terrifying version? Or there are some viruses we have never known." Serx asked.
"Maybe they're ophiocordyceps! Now mutating to infect humans." Anton added up to the discussion.
"I guess it's a lab-made virus. The cordyceps infection starts slower than this. Infected would have some kind of fungus protruding on them and several physical changes. But this one, you may not able to tell the difference between infected and non-infected." answered Dan.
"It would be a good idea to go to the safe zone in the northeast, that port city is only forty kilometers from here." Vo said.
"Sorry but there isn't any vehicle here, is there, Dan?" Serx asked undecidedly.
"We walk. Around ten kilometers from here is safe and sound. Not many people live around that place. You will see more pockets of bushes than a village. So, zombies would be less of a threat." Dan opened.
"What? It takes more than twelve hours to go there. Not including the zombies and whatever that may happen along the way," said a guy. He can't believe that Dan wants to walk 25 kilometers from here. Still, for everyone, this is crazy.
"More than ten kilometers, there will be a sub-district. More people and risks of encountering infected are higher. Farther from that, there be a city." Dan continued, unbothered by the complaints.
"If we can go back to the car, we can ride it for several distances. It will shorten the range it takes to reach the zone." Vo said.
"Wait, how about the zombies out there?"
"We have them killed. All of them, I can say. Sorry for disrupting this village's peaceful night."
"It's not a problem. We'll all move out someday. Let's go."
It's two hours from midnight. Everyone went out with their weapons and supplies like a squad of soldiers. Dan gave us a lot of supplies; canned foods, bottled water, tents, and tools to survive. If nothing goes wrong along the way, those are more than enough.
"Dave, Serx, Vo, come with me," Dan calls out. I went back to the house-built chicken coop.
"This is the adjustment protocols." He picked something that looks like a pipe with several wirings on them.
"Shite."
"This bomb is simple. It has an explosive, ignitor, and remote detonator. Oh, I forgot the alarm there. It will emit a loud sound and attract the zombies. You press the button, it goes, boom. Take one, guys."
We go back to the vehicle that was left around a hundred meters away from Dan's house.
"Only four liters at our disposal, have been running for two hours. Might be able to cover a little distance." Vo says. We have arrived at the van, everyone gets in. I sat beside Serx again.
"Two bars left."
The engine fires up, ready to leave.