10. Goodbye
After more than 30 minutes Clark was done.
“Clark, I need you to help me with something”.
“What do you need?”
“I’m going to eat a core, I need you to kill me if I change”
“Are you crazy?! Why would you put yourself in that kind of danger? There is no need for you to take that kind of risk!”.
“The first few times that I refined corruption I got stronger, I lost weight, I healed faster, and I think my reaction time got better. The las three times I healed and felt refreshed, but I didn’t get that feeling of getting stronger or any type of improvement.”
“I think that getting vital energy is like going to the gym for the first time. At the beginning you can see improvement kind of fast with small and constant effort but later you must push yourself harder if you want to see any improvement. I feel that I’m getting to that point where I need to push myself harder but that means that I need to get bitten and scratched more every fight”.
“Alex, I understand wanting to be stronger specialty whit how dangerous the world is right now, but don’t you think you are being a little hasty. You told me that before this happened you worked in a factory and yet I saw you take down 6 of those things and only got scratched once. You’ll get stronger you only need to have a little bit more patients.”
“They are changing Clark”.
“What, who is changing?”
“The zombies, on the first day all the ones that I saw or fought had one or two claws. The ones that I fought yesterday had five claws in each hand. It could be that they stop changing after that, but what if they don’t, what if they keep changing until they can fly or tear a tank in half with their bear hands”.
“I understand your concern, but you don’t know what is going to happen and even if it does it’ll probably take them many years to reach that kind of change”.
“If we only hoped for the best and don’t prepare for the worst, we are just setting ourselves for failure and that’s only one of the reasons I’m trying to get as strong as possible. What happens when instead of being 6 of them they are like 20, 30 or even a 100, maybe I will never be strong enough to defeat 100 of them at the same time but running 2 miles instead of 1 could be the difference between life and death.”
“……….”
Alex makes his way towards his things, picks up his gun and gives it to Clark.
“….. I still think this is a terrible bad idea”.
Alex just smiles and makes his way towards the bathroom. Alex puts his back against the wall and sits on the shower floor, he is currently only wearing his underwear. Giving Clark a look which he returns with a nod, Alex gives one last look at the core in his hand before he swallows it.
Right after swallowing the core Alex starts to refine, it. For the first few seconds nothing seems to happen suddenly, pain. The pain was so bad that he almost passed out, but Alex managed to get a hold of himself and keep refining the core.
“UGH FUCK’
“Cone one Alex don’t give up!”
Only after 5 minutes did the pain subside a little bit. After 10 minutes the pain becomes manageable but at 20 minutes the pain returns and his muscles are starting to cramp up, but Alex keeps pushing himself, he can feel that he is almost done. At 30 his whole-body cramps up, pain worse than before courses though his hole body but it only lasted for a few seconds before relief replaces pain.
A feeling of power courses through his body.
“HOLYSHIIIIT WHOOOOHOOO THIS FEEL AMAZING!!”
Alex felt so invigorated that he was about to run out of the house and keep going until he couldn’t run anymore but before he could take another step Alex pucks the impurity and his body starts to sweat it. Where before it was a light coat of impurities now Alex looks as if someone had thrown a bucket worth on top of him.
Before Alex can do anything else the pain from the cramps returns, falling to the floor Alex tries to stay still until they go away. Clark helps by turning on the shower, putting it on warm and putting some towels on top of him.
An hour later Alex is still on the floor but thankfully the cramps had already subsided.
“How are you feeling?”
“Better, thanks for those pills but I still don’t want to get up”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“Come on getting some stretches will be good for you”
“uug Find”
With some help from Clark Alex gets up and starts to stretch.
“Was it worth it?”
“I felt as if I got injected with an extra-large shot of adrenaline that was on steroids”
“Huu”
“As for long term gains, I don’t know yet”
“Stan straight”
Alex stood straight but because of the pain he hunched over after a couple of seconds.
“I think you lost some weight, and your muscles look a little bit bigger. If you do that again we need to measure your weight and test your level of fitness, before and after to see if there is any improvement.”
“Tomorrow, I’ll do it tomorrow”.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I don’t know when will the Army finish setting up a refugee camp but it’s probably not going to be anywhere close by. So, I must improve as fast and as much as I can so that the journey there is safer or even manageable”.
“HA HA HA haaaa to be young. I wish I had your enthusiasm. When it’s time to leave I’ll stay behind.”
“WHAT?! What do you mean?”
Clark made his way towards a chair and sat, letting out a deep sight.
“I haven’t been able to contact anyone from my family. Only a fraction of the people that I sent the information responded. The love of my life left, I’m old and tired, and if it gets as bad as you say it’s going to get, you’ll only be wasting food”.
Alex couldn’t argue against that.
“Go get something to eat and rest. I’ll be on my office”
Clark got up and started to walk towards the stairs. Alex just looked at him go.
‘I don’t know him enough to be able to change his mind. I made the same choice, and I only changed it because I had a fighting chance. SIIIGHT’
After another hour of rest Alex felt well enough to make his way out and start looting the surrounding houses. Taking any weapons, ammo, preserved food, medicine and anything useful that he could find.
By the end of the day the truck was almost overflowing. Before eating dinner Alex checked on Clark. He was still in the office looking at the computer.
Alex asked him if he wanted something to eat but Clark said that he wasn’t hungry. Not wanting to waste food Alex didn’t make him anything but left some cookies and water on his desk.
The next day Clark didn’t eat breakfast with him, and the cookies were still in his desk, but he still helped him whit measuring his fitness level. After getting his fitness level Alex went back to the shower with a new core.
When he ate the second core it was a little bit less painful than the first time. When the Extra-large shot of adrenaline in steroids enter his body, instead of getting up and star running, he remained sited and kept refining the energy in his body, by the time the impurities left his body he felt sore and tier like after a good workout, instead of falling to the floor because his whole body cramped up.
After some rest Clark tested his fitness level.
“For what we gather it looks like you made a 15% improvement to your overall physical fitness in only two hours. This numbers shouldn’t be possible, but we have zombies now, so I guess everything is possible.”
“Hahaha That was a very productive 2 hours, but now I’m starving. What do you want to eat?”.
“I’m not hungry so don’t worry about me”.
“Clark please, you have to eat something, you didn’t eat yesterday”.
“You’ll only be wasting food so stop worrying about me”.
“Come on if I die it’s not going to be because I let myself starve. I’m more likely to die surrounded by dozens of zombies.”
“…...fine I’ll eat”
“Great!”
After they finished their meal.
“Hey Clark, there’s something that I mean meaning to ask you, but I didn’t know how to ask, so I’m just going to tell you. What do you want to do with your wife’s corpse?”
For a few minutes Clark didn’t answer.
“Her garden, she loved that garden, please, bury her in her garden”.
“Consider it done”
“Thank you”
After finding a shovel, it only took him 30 minutes to dig a grave. After finishing the grave Alex found some white sheets to cover the body. Deposit the corpse at the bottom of the grave Alex went back to the house to see if Clark wanted to say some parting words. When Alex found him, he was wearing a tracksuit covered in dried blood.
“Alex thank you I really appreciate it”.
“Yeah, sure no problem but why are you wearing that?”
Clark didn’t answer and just made his way towards the garden and Alex followed him. Stopping at the foot of the grave Clark said a few words.
“Dyane My love on that day we both should have die together. You are probably waiting for me on the other side. You don’t have to wait any longer”.
Clark tuns around and address Alex.
“Alex, sorry for the inconvenience, stay as long as you need to.”
“What- “
Before Alex could say anything else Clark took Alex’s gun out of his pockets and shot himself in the head, not giving Alex time to react. Clark body falls on the grave and Alex’s gun fortunately falls on the side of the grave.
Alex is stunned by the sudden development and doesn’t move for a couple of minutes. When he snapped out of it Alex made his way toward where he had left the shovel and started filling the grave. Once done Alex made his way towards Clark’s office, graving his gun on the way. letting out a deep sight when he sat on the chair.
“Bastar could have waited until I left”.
After a long while just staring into space Alex decides to turn on the computer and see if There is any news from the Army or the government.
‘I might be underestimating how bad The Big Knockout affected the Army and the government’
Before Alex could turn on the computer, he noticed something on the side of the monitor.
‘Are these maps? When did he print this? They have addresses and directions.’
After looking over the maps Alex understood what was in those addresses.
‘Survivor groups, I guess that’s where I’m going, I don’t want to be alone when things get worse’.
After comparing the locations, the distance, and reading some notes that Clark left Alex made his decision.
‘There are 5 survivors’ groups in the surrounding area, 2 of them are too deep in the city, I’ll probably need to fight a horde of zombies just to get to them, so they are out. The other 3 are in a church, A hotel and a school.
The pros for the school are the closest, is far enough from a populated area, it has a lot of food for the kids’ lunch and is big. Cons there are a lot of people in the school, without proper logistics being in a big group could be more dangerous in the long run, it’s probably full of kids and I don’t think they are going to be reliable and it’s difficult to defend.
The pros for the hotel are there is a lot of living space, it’s easier to defend, and it should have some food for the guests. The cons are its the farthest.
The pros for the church are its only a little bit farther than the school but in a different direction, it uses to have some help to the less fortunate food give away and other such events, its big but not too big and it’s in a small hill so it should be relatively easy to defend. The cons it’s a little bit close to a residential area.
‘I’ll leave tomorrow for the church’.