"Captain Steven, please shoot those terror birds in the head. Make sure the offensive one dies on the spot then we can get out of here." Zayn gave his orders as he arrived at the overpass.
*Bang* *Bang* *Bam*
The soldiers escorting Zayn shot the zombies as those monsters chased them to the overpass. They left none behind.
"Roger." Steven raised his hand, and the sniper team immediately targeted the big birds.
*Bang!* x5
Five consecutive high-penetrating shots were fired and pierced the terror birds' heads. The sniper team's targets were easy because four birds were already limp on the ground. The last one was pounding another creature.
"Five targets are dead." Steven reported the situation while looking through the binoculars.
"Good. Let's find another spot." Zayn opened his hummer door and asked Angie to come up. He then got into the driver's seat and drove his car away. The other vehicles followed suit in escort formation.
That day, Zayn conducted several formula tests on various variants of mid-range zombies and mutated animals, mostly rank two and three. He had just tested two dozen vials, but the night was about to fall.
"Zayn, we're going to continue this operation again tomorrow. The sun is going down." Steven called out from the top of an amphibious combat vehicle.
"You're right, Captain Steven. Let's find a safe place to rest." Zayn looked up at the sky, then at his row of vials in his small bag.
He had just tested the lower to middle-class formulas, and the potent ones had yet to be used because he couldn't spot any zombies or monsters rank four and above.
Last week, he was always on the run from the ultra-dangerous monsters, but now he wished to meet one to pay for the terror they inflicted on him.
Angie yawned and covered her mouth. She felt sleepy, but she was also hungry.
"You must be hungry. We'll have dinner when we get to safety." Zayn patted Angie's head and got into the car.
It was a villa on top of a hill surrounded by arid forest. A place that was so quiet and lonely, but the feel gave off a sense of security because the place that used to be a crowd was a source of danger.
"I hope this old villa isn't haunted like a horror movie." Rick gulped his saliva with a bit of nervousness.
"You just watch too many horror movies." Tom patted his friend's shoulder.
"But one of those movies has come true, hasn't it? The zombie apocalypse has already happened. Others could follow suit." Rick sighed.
"It's okay. Ghosts aren't zombies or mutated animals. They can still be compromised if we ask them the right way. Except, they're evil ghosts." Zayn took his big backpack from his hummer and went to the entrance of the old villa.
*Knock* *Knock*
Zayn knocked on the door as a sign of guest etiquette, but no one answered as one would expect.
*Creak*
The door suddenly opened as it was unlocked, but no one touched the knob either from inside or outside.
"L- look! I have told you. The door suddenly opened by itself! There must be a ghost there. This old villa is a real location from a horror movie." Rick stammered slightly and paled.
"Unlocked? Maybe the door knob is broken?" Zayn checked the knob, but it still looked good. However, he didn't mind the door suddenly opening.
Zayn scratched his head and stepped inside the villa. For some reason, he felt the need to greet those unseen ones, but he knew they were there. "Greetings, the inhabitants of this place. We are just a group of humanitarian soldiers coming in peace. Allow us to stay overnight here to rest."
"What is he doing?" Steven rubbed his forehead, unsure why Zayn greeted the emptiness. No one occupied that old villa.
"..." Zayn waited for a while and didn't feel any evil aura in his surroundings. So, he thought everything was fine, unlike the one Rick had feared.
"???" Angie was curious and went inside. She looked left and right but couldn't find who Zayn was greeting.
"It's okay, guys. Come on in." Zayn beckoned for everyone to enter the villa.
"Uoh, boss is a boss. Even the ghosts can understand." Rick was amazed and rushed inside.
"..." The other soldiers didn't believe in ghosts. They just shrugged their shoulders and went in with their luggage.
They set up an indoor minicamp in the living room on the second floor and spread out lots of sleeping bags. A small stove was placed in the middle of the room, and they were ready for dinner.
*Slurp*
The other soldiers eat bread, noodles, oats, and hot coffee. However, they found Zayn and Angie only eating bread with jam?
"You want coffee?" Rico offered Zayn a cup of coffee.
"I'm good. Angie will get mad if I smell coffee. Do you have tea or milk?" Zayn glanced at Angie. She distanced herself from the others because she didn't like the smell of coffee.
"We only have coffee and mineral water." Rico checked their drink stock.
"What jam did you use? Butter? Why did you burn it? Wait, is that cheese?" Rick blinked a few times when he saw what Zayn was heating on the small stove melting like cheese.
"Right." Zayn spread another cheese on some more bread, then went next to Angie.
She ate it voraciously as she was hungry and didn't want to share it with anyone. It was their last cheese, after all.
However, she gave one to Zayn because he deserved a share of her favorite food.
"That looks better than this bland bread? Do you have any more cheese, boss? Does it taste good?" Rick wiped his saliva from his mouth.
"Sorry, that's our last stock. We'll have to look for more another time, or, we can make cheese in the base? The farm is getting better, right?" An idea suddenly crossed Zayn's mind.
Angie's favorite food stock was secured for a long time if they had a cheese factory.
"Well, we can try our luck." Rick heaved a subtle sigh. He then dipped his bread into his coffee.
"..." Zayn shrugged his shoulders and drank the mineral water. He then handed it over to Angie before eating his oats.
After the two of them finished dinner, they went to the bathroom to wash their sweaty bodies and brush their teeth.
Around an hour later, Zayn and Angie returned in casual sleepwear, no longer military uniforms.
"Wow, they're truly a happy lovers. They even share a bathroom together." Tom muttered under his breath.
"..." The other soldiers were envious because, apart from Zayn, they were sad single men without a suitable life partner.
Zayn was stuffing his and Angie's sweaty clothes into a bag. Yet, he felt he received a few stares from behind. He looked at the others in confusion. "Hmm? What? Anyway, who will be on the night watch?"
"We're good. There are twenty-four soldiers here and we can take turns on the night watch without any problems. You can rest with your wife, boss." Rico waved his hand.
"Oh, alright then." Zayn felt a little confused. He didn't know to whom Rico referred the subject because he didn't know what it meant, but he thought it was just a new figurative word. The word 'wife' was foreign to him.
Maybe, it could mean 'wild female' and refer to Angie? She was sometimes pretty wild to zombies and the ones who bothered her. Zayn interpreted that in mind and left the matter aside.
He then prepared a spot to rest in the corner of the room, a bit away from the others. He didn't want others to know about his and Angie's unusual sleeping symptoms.
It was a bundle of sleeping bags and blankets. He lay there and wrapped himself in a thermal blanket. At first glance, he was like a cocoon wrapped in aluminum foil.
"!~" Angie got into Zayn's nest, and they went to sleep in each other's embrace. She warmed him, and he cooled her down. It was a perfect exchange for a comfortable sleep.
"And I want a wife too." A soldier complained about his life.