"Why did we come here? Don't you two have a place?" the muscular guy asked. He and the glasses guy were the leaders of the other group we encountered on the way.
"What a stupid question. Who is dumb enough to lead an unknown group to their base?" the glasses guy retorted.
We separated them from their group and took them to the kitchen for interrogation. Roger, Jana, and some of our soldiers were there with them.
"You two have two choices," Roger said, holding up two fingers. "Either you make this easier for all of us, or harder. It's your choice."
"Heh, it seems like-" the glasses guy started to say, but Roger cut him off with a punch to the face.
"You can only talk when we ask you," he said. The glasses guy's nose was broken and bleeding, but no one bothered to stop it.
They both realized that this was serious and not a joke. Their lives were on the line. "What are your names?" Roger asked, sitting on a chair in front of them.
"My name is Kurt," the glasses guy answered.
"My name is Edward," the muscle guy said.
"Where did you two come from?"
"I'm from the nearby village," Kurt said.
"Same here," Edward said.
"Where is your base?" Roger asked, showing them a map on the table.
Kurt smiled. "Kill me. Like hell I would betray my comrades like that."
Roger sighed. "It seems like you care about your comrades a lot, huh?" He then signaled to one of his men, who dragged in another guy from the kitchen door.
"Now tell me, or I'll blow this guy's head off," Roger said, pointing a pistol at him. The guy they brought in had his mouth covered by a cloth and his hands and feet tied. He was shaking and pleading with his eyes.
"You think we're bluffing?" Roger said and reloaded his pistol. He started counting down. "Three, two, one-" He pulled the trigger and Kurt shouted "Stop!" just in time for Roger to point the pistol away. The bullet hit the wall, juat an inch on his head leaving a hole. The pistol had a silencer, but the sound was still loud enough to make everyone flinch. The guy they shot peed his pants and his feet shaking to the point that he couldn't balance himself and fell on the ground.
Kurt felt a surge of fear as he looked into Roger's cold eyes. He knew this man was not someone to mess with. "I'll tell you," Kurt said, then Roger gestured his hand to his men to remove Kurt's handcuffs. Roger then made a major mistake as he place his pistol on the table. Kurt saw this opportunity as soon as his cuffs got off he immediately pick up the pistol and pointed at Roger and quickly stands up.
"You little shit, now hands up!" he yelled. Roger didn't seem bothered at all. Kurt was desperate
While Roger is casually toking out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one up. "You fuckers! You think I'm fucking joking?" Kurt shouted again, firing a shot at the ceiling.
The bullet made a hole, proving that the gun was loaded. But everyone else in the room remained calm, which made Kurt suspicious. The guards didn't even flinch. Frustrated, Kurt grabbed the soldier next to him and held him as a hostage.
"Let us go or I'll blow his brains out!" he yelled, pointing the gun at the soldier's head he took hostage. But they didn't seem to care. They just looked at him with amusement and indifference. Jana, was confused and nervous. She didn't know what Roger and his men were planning. But they remained silent and watch them silently.
"You're not taking me seriously!" Kurt shouted again, losing his patience. He aimed the pistol at Roger and pulled the trigger. But nothing happened. He looked at the gun in disbelief. "W-what?" he muttered, then tried to shoot again. Still nothing. He pressed the trigger repeatedly, but the gun was empty.
Roger smiled wickedly and his men burst into laughter. "No! This can't be happening!" Kurt realized that he had been tricked. So were the others. They had swapped places with the real captives and given Kurt a useless weapon.
"HAHAHAHA!!!!" Roger roared with laughter. "Pay up, you suckers, he really wasted the only bullet left in the magazine! HAHAHAHAHA!" He and his men had made a bet on how long it would take for Kurt to find out. They were having fun at his expense.
Kurt felt humiliated and enraged. He had always been a ruthless and cunning leader, always exploiting others for his own benefit. Now, he was the one being played. He had never felt so embarrassed in his life. "Oh, you can do whatever you want with him," Roger said casually, and the fake hostage freed himself and threw Kurt on the table. He started to punch him in the face until he lost consciousness.
"Ohhh, anyways," Roger said, turning to the other two captives. He and his men took off their cuffs and dragged them to a chair. "Now tell me where your bases are and everything we have to know, unless you want to end up like him," Roger said, pointing at Kurt's bloody and bruised face.
They both nodded in fear and complied with his demands.
Roger and Jana entered the room where the survivor was lying on a bed, hooked to a monitor. "How is she?" Jana asked me with concern. "She's okay now, everything is stable and she should be okay after some rest. How about you guys? How was your integration?" I asked them, curious about their mission.
"It went smoothly as planned," Roger said, handing me a map. I opened it and saw a lot of information on it. It showed the location of their base, the other places that had survivors, and something that caught my eye.
The trade market. "What's this trade market?" I asked, pointing at a large circle on the map.
"It seems that the survivors have set up a market with walls where they can trade with each other. It is being led by a government official and has some military power. They have created not only a safe base for themselves, but also a place to trade with supplies, guns, ammo, and slaves," Roger explained, his voice turning grim.
"Slaves? You mean, human slaves?" I asked, shocked. Jana and Roger nodded. "Damn, what has the world come to that even slavery has come back?" I sighed, feeling disgusted.
"Fck it, anyways. don't kill those people" I said pointing at the people we captured that was in the living room with the soldiers "we can still use them. They are just innocent people that followed the wrong group. Rex and Roger, you two will either make their group surrender, or kill them all," I said with a smile, trying to lighten the mood.
Rex, who was beside me, nodded, as did Roger. They both gathered their men and headed to their base with some of the captives. They would try to make them surrender peacefully, but if they resisted, they would have no choice but to kill them and take everything they had.
"You're quite cruel, aren't you?" Jana said, looking at me with a mix of admiration and fear.
"You're just saying that now after everything I did?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.
She then giggled, "Oh yeah, my bad," she said, trying to act casual. "Where... am I?" The survivor said, her voice weak. She had opened her eyes and was looking around, confused.
"You're in a safe place now. We found you injured, but you're going to be fine," I reassured the survivor, approaching her bedside.
The survivor nodded slowly, recalling the events. And then she asked, "What about the others?" I shake my head telling her they were dead. She sighed, "Dammit, if only we weren't got attacked by those damn zombies!" She said in anger
"Oh? Zombies? Weren't you a military? How come the military lose to the zombies when they have the best equipment out there?" Jana asked
"We know that, but… those zombies aren't normal" she replied
"What do you mean not normal?" I asked
"Compared to the zombies in the past, they are much faster, much agile, much powerful!" She said terrified just by remembering it.
"Did the zombies evolved?" Jana asked
"Something like that, in the horde, only a few of them were like them, like a hundred. But that didn't stopped them from destroying our base" she said
"Can you tell me where your base is?" I asked showing her the map. And it was a bit far away from them. About 50 km.
"Were you the only group that escaped?" I asked
"No, there were some others as well, we got scattered. We didn't know that the pilot got bitten, not only that but the helicopter got damaged by a friendly fire!" She said angrily
"Owww… shit!" I exclaimed. "What's wrong Souta?" Jana asked
"You said that a horde attacked you right!? And since you escaped using a helicopter and crushed here…"
"Oww, Shit" Jana exclaimed knowing what exactly that is.
"Meaning we lured the horde here!??" She said shocked that they didn't know that.
"Oh fck!" I exclaimed and immediately told my men, "Let's get to the base immediately!" I shouted, "Tell the people in the base about this" I said to my soldiers and they said "Yes sir!"
"We still have the time to escape!" The woman said
"Escape to where? They will just come back and besides, we're too big to escaped that horde" I said
"Jana, what will you do now?" I asked her
"I— don't know. Our base is too weak to handle another horde" she said panicking
"How about we join force? Until the horde is gone?" I suggested
"I'll take that offer" she said, thankful.
I drove the car as fast as I could, hoping to reach the base before the horde of zombies did. I glanced at the survivor sitting on the back sit, who looked pale and exhausted. She had barely escaped from her base, which was overrun by the undead now she's barely alive from the helicopter crush. I wanted to know more about the threat we were facing, so I asked her, "Hey, what are those zombies like?"
She shuddered as she recalled the horror. "They look like normal zombies, but they are much faster. They can run up to 40 kilometers per hour, which makes it hard to aim for their heads. They are also more aggressive and intelligent. They can coordinate their attacks and avoid traps," she said.
I felt a chill run down my spine. "You had walls, right? And explosives as well. How come you still lost?" I asked, hoping to learn from their mistakes.
She sighed. "Because the general got bitten. He was leading the defense, but he didn't tell anyone. He turned into one of them and attacked the soldiers. Some of them got infected and managed to get inside the base, causing chaos. Their infection is much worse than the normal zombies. They turn in less than an hour," she said.
"Dammit, we're fcked. How many are in that horde?" I asked, feeling hopeless.
"Too many to count. Thousands, probably. And the evolved ones are only hundreds, but they are the most dangerous. We have enough ammo and explosives but panic got the soldiers breaking our formation and let the zombies destroyed the walls, you should just use explosives and it will wipe them up" she said.
I clenched my fists. "Easy for you to say, but we don't have that much of a good equipment either. But we'll make it work. I won't let that past happen again. I won't let anyone die," I said, remembering the people I had lost to the zombies