After I woke up I noticed a message from Wan. He had delivered the footage of the incident and all of the data we collected to Agent Harkness, and the agent had dropped off our reward. I said goodbye to Bob, who I had left sitting on my kitchen table, and drove over to Wan’s to pick up the reward. The streets seemed empty, with few people driving cars. While the government hadn’t ordered a quarantine as the outbreak was essentially airborne at this point, and everyone was already exposed, most people stayed inside anyway. This lead to the city looking more like a ghost town than a city of millions. Most of the people I did see on the streets were carrying guns to defend themselves against all of the crime that was happening. The state was a constitutional carry state before, so there wouldn’t have been an issue with them carrying even before all of this, but with all of the riots and reports of zombies, the police wouldn’t have cared even without that or the executive order from last night stopping them.
When I got to Wan’s he gave me three bags of cash, with twenty five thousand dollars in each, and a small case. There was a letter on top of the case. “Since you like to play super hero, I thought this might interest you.” Inside the case was a needle and a small vial with “J-17” on the label. I used Appraisal on the vial.
“Apparently, he gave us super-soldier serum.” I told Wan, and he nodded.
“You can keep it. I prefer training myself, and you are the one that needs it the most.”
I thanked him and put the case away, as well as the three bags of money. Saying goodbye, I messaged Father Smith and Paul to meet me at the church for their reward.
There I gave them their envelopes. Father Smith said he would use the money to buy emergency supplies for the church to give away. Paul said that he would use it to stock up on supplies for the apocalypse. “It’s only a matter of time before we get there, and we don’t have much time left.”
I agreed. “I should probably do the same. I should also get a gun, just for appearances. I don’t really need one, but most people seem to be carrying for self defense now.” Paul agreed, but The Father said he didn’t want to carry one on principle. With a bit of persuading, though, we convinced him to carry just in case he ran into a zombie. Of course, he would be carrying concealed so that he didn’t alarm others, but Paul gave us both a 9mm for that purpose. Apparently he had two on him already, and just needed to go back to his truck to grab his 1911s to be armed again. At least he wasn’t carrying the M60 in public. That might cause some concern. “Here” I said, handing him an extra $1000. “For the gun.” He nodded and stuffed in in his bag, then said “goodbye” and left.
I offered the Father a ride to the store to buy supplies and he countered with using a cargo van that the church owned. I had gotten a PriceCo membership a few years ago to try and save money by buying in bulk, though I rarely used it. Now I would be loading the van up.
When we got there I noticed it was way different than what you would expect. The front was barricaded with shopping carts, there was a line to get in, and a giant sign that said “CASH ONLY”. The assistant manager was sitting in front of the door with a shotgun. Apparently, they weren’t taking any chances with looters or shoplifters. When we got to the front of the line I talked with the guy. “Having trouble?” I asked.
“Only if you choose to start any.” the man responded. I nodded and continued inside.
Most places were having trouble getting anyone to come to work, but this place didn’t seem to have a problem finding employees. There were several lines of customers, and, other than the fact that the cashiers were all armed, it appeared to just be a normal busy day.
We grabbed two carts each and headed for the food section. There we loaded the carts up with goods. I filled one of my carts with large bags of rice and flour, and the other with boxes of emergency food. The Father loaded one of his with gallon sized canned goods and one with rice and flour, as they would be going to the church’s soup kitchen. We paid, the prices being drastically inflated, and loaded the van, then returned several more times to get more food until the van was filled. In all, I spent about $2200 and he spent at least $20000.
Back at the church, I helped him unload and put all of my stuff in my car. We promised to keep in touch with each other and I left, making sure to fill up the tank on the way home as I didn’t know if the gas would continue to run.
Once home I spent the next hour carrying all of my groceries up the stairs and stacking them in the kitchen. I doubt many people had enough room to store all of that stuff, so it didn’t matter that I had bags of rice propped against a kitchen wall.
Once I had eaten something I locked up and looked at the case the FBI had given me. If I used it I would physically improve, but I didn’t know if there were any side effects. So I asked Vera.
‘Niirik is fairly safe for humans to use. It will cause some discomfort and pain as your muscles are forced to change, but other than that it should be safe. The vitamins in the shot aren’t really necessary, as the System has balanced the nutrients in your body, but I suspect they were put there in case this was used on someone who isn’t connected, to prevent malnutrition issues.’
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“Fine.” I said, rolling up my sleeve. I was out of excuses now. If I wanted to help people as much as possible, I would need to get stronger. I loaded the syringe following a Yourtube tutorial and injected myself.
Everything seemed to slow down and a few seconds later my muscles started to spasm. I collapsed on the floor and started twitching. For whatever reason I couldn’t control my muscles. I stayed like that for several minutes before the spasms stopped and I could stand up again.
I felt strange, like I had more energy than before. I felt my arms and noticed that the muscles there were significantly more defined than before. Yeah. This would help.
Now, with more strength and energy than before, I would be able to help even more people. I put on my costume and climbed out the window, heading out to stop more crime.
Two days later, on Christmas day, the city announced that the city would be digging mass graves in the parks and paying people $50 per corpse to bring them in. The number of deaths in the city had increased to over 20% of the population, so they were having to take drastic measures to keep the city from being covered in rotting corpses.
I was sitting in my apartment watching YourTube survival videos after a morning of stopping looters when there was a knock on the door. Answering it, I saw that it was my neighbor, Keith, and two other guys I didn’t recognize. “Can I help you?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said with a bit of a southern accent. “I was wondering if you would be willing to help us out. We figured we would check the apartments in this building for bodies and haul them in for the reward. I borrowed a horse trailer from my cousin’s farm outside of town and have it hooked behind my truck, so we should be able to load up enough to make it worthwhile.”
I sighed. It definitely wasn’t what I wanted to be doing today, but it needed to be done. I didn’t want to live in a building full of corpses and I was sure no one else did either. “Fine. Let me grab my stuff.” I went back inside and grabbed my jacket and 9mm, as well as $1000 cash, and locked up. Smelling paint, I looked at my door only to notice that Keith had stenciled “This apartment is owned.” on the door. “What’s that for?” I asked.
“To keep looters from looting the place. They’d have to be stupid to break into an owned place to loot it when there are so many unowned places around that they can loot without getting shot.”
I shrugged. “Fair enough. So, where to?” We knocked on all of the other doors of the building to check to see if the place was empty. At about half of the places someone answered and I shook their hand to cure them. The other half of the time we broke in, with me picking the locks in case the person inside was just sick and unable to answer. In the half of those cases where we found a sick person I cured them and promised that we would help them out later if they started feeling better. Of course, Keith didn’t know that I could cure people, and just assumed I was trying to comfort them in their last moments.
We ended up grabbing about two dozen corpses from the various apartments, marking any abandoned apartment or apartment with a dead owner with a stenciled skull on the door. This would remind us of which ones could be looted in the future if we needed supplies.
After our apartment was cleared, we checked several others in the area and, after the horse trailer was full, we climbed in the back of the truck and drove to the nearest park. There was police tape around the park and an officer was checking any corpses that were brought in for signs of foul play before letting people through. Apparently, they wanted to take precautions against people murdering each other to get the reward, though at only $50 it wasn’t enough for any sane person to risk a murder. We pulled up and, after the cop looked over the trailer, they told us we would have to unload it on our own and instructed us to pull in. We drove past a backhoe to the smoking pit that was dug there. There a National Guard rookie greeted us and told us that they were just there to count how many we had brought in.
As Keith went to the back of the trailer to open it I heard several people start shouting. The cops, National Guard and construction workers nearby grabbed their guns and fired into the pit. A few seconds later the firing stopped. “Damn zombies.” I heard the backhoe operator say as he went back over to the machine and lit up another cigarette, swinging his AR-15 over his shoulder.
“So, I take it that’s why you’re burning the bodies?” I asked the cop and they nodded.
“Every few minutes a few of the bodies starts moving and we have to shoot it to keep it from escaping. So we started burning them. Hurry up and throw yours in so we can burn it again.” He motioned to two construction workers who were hauling over a hose from a diesel tank.
“Right.” I said, and went over to help Keith unload.
Fifteen minutes later I closed up the trailer as Keith went to get our money. The men were already spraying fuel on the pile we had made. I saw motion in the middle of the pile and drew my pistol. Just as the head of an elderly woman popped out I fired, destroying it. “Damn. Mrs. Jenkins just reanimated.” I remembered seeing the eighty year old cat lady from the apartment next door several times, though I never really talked to her. Now she was at the bottom of a pile of corpses with a bullet in her head, all because some stupid pharmaceutical company wanted to create a drug to cure all disease.
I finished locking the trailer and walked over to where Keith was. He handed me a stack of hundreds. “There’s your cut. Twelve hundred. We got forty-eight hundred from ninety six bodies.”
I nodded and shoved the money in my pocket. “So, are we making another run?”
As we left I noticed a familiar truck pull up and Father Smith and Paul stepped out. I motioned for Keith to pull over and got out to talk to them. Apparently the Father had just finished up a special Mass and was here to pray over the mass graves, as there was no way to tell who among the dead were Catholic. Paul was just traveling with him. I said goodbye and the Father want over to the pit. Paul volunteered to help the police move bodies that were being brought in to the pit.
For the next few days we spent our time picking up corpses and hauling them back to the pits. The death rate had picked up and soon the vast majority of people in the city would end up in one of the pits. This resulted in us hauling back over a thousand corpses.
Things finally started dying down New Years Eve night, when a special message was sent out by the Vice President. The President had died a few days earlier, and she had taken the position. The city had set up screens at every park and government building to let the people there watch what was happening, and now it was proving its usefulness. “My fellow Americans, it is with great sadness that I must inform you of the results of this outbreak. The CDC has finished gathering the data from across the nation, and the results are tragic. Around 90% of the population has died in most cities, with only a few having a smaller death rate. This has resulted in a breakdown of all government functions and massive economic problems. As of now, we will be working to scale back all government departments to only cover the minimum of services needed in this tough time. The military will be deployed to oversee the transition and to make sure that the arrival of zombies doesn’t result in even more deaths. As of now I am declaring Martial Law.”
There were surprised sounds around us as the people reacted to the message. The new President continued as they chatted noisily for the next few seconds. I tried to ignore the people around me until a few seconds later the television turned off. Several of the lights around the sight also went out. “Dang it.” I said and pulled out my phone. It wouldn’t turn on, however. ‘Vera, what’s happening?’ I asked.
‘Most complicated electronic devices just stopped working. It appears that the drastic increase in the ambient nanite levels of the world caused electrical imbalances in these devices, essentially putting power across circuits in the device that weren’t meant to have those voltages across them. As a result, the more complex a device, the more likely it was to be broken. Thankfully those devices that were off should be fine.’