Chapter 10: The Road Ahead

“Sir, they’re back.” stated Davis

The door opened, letting Cody, Dan, and Megan inside the building. Davis simply observed them as they walked past him solemnly. He looked at their backs, and saw Landford simply standing at the door and slowly walked further into the room.

“Sir! Sergeant Cody and details reporting!”

Cody and Landford exchanged salutes and stood there in silence for a couple seconds before Cody could say something.

“Sir… we completed the mission however Corporal Ivan has gone missing during the mission.”

“Ok, details.”

Cody explained the situation about how they successfully went within the area completing their job and the events that occurred with Megan and Ivan.

“Hmm, it's fine. Ivan is capable of handling himself. Our only decision as of now is to stay put for a few days to await his arrival. Command post should be fine with a short delay as long as we keep communications up between us and them.” answered Landford.

“Umm, Sir… what.. what should I do?” said Megan

“Well as you’re a civilian involved within the crisis, it would be our duty to protect the civilians that we see here…. is what I would like to say. However our top priority is to finish a mission that we were handled. Therefore you have two choices… “

“What.. what are the choices?”

“Either you follow us into the base of operation, however you’ll have to take care of yourself or you are to leave this group and head towards the base of evacuation when the time is done.”

Landford handed Megan a map, he quickly drew a circle of the evacuation point.

Megan looked at the map and her eyes shook a little. She closed her eyes for a bit and opened them again.

“This was the place… we were headed to.” she whispered

“Anyways you can either make a choice now, or later.”

“I’ll make a choice now… I’ll go with you guys, I have pistol training and close combat training.”

“Do you still have your ID?” asked Landford

Megan brought out her wallet with her hand as she was taking out the wallet. The letter fell out and landed on the ground in a folded manner. Seeing how Megan simply stood there frozen, Landford grabbed the letter from the ground and asked “May I?”

She simply nodded. Landford quickly went through the contents of the letter, eyes unchanging.

“Do you think you’ll still be able to fight… Don’t expect us to cover you all the time, our lives here are already at stake. Every single person’s lives within this squad is important…. Will you become another asset to our team?” Landford asked

“ ….. Yes I will become another asset to your team. Complete the mission, and get rid of this hell of a place.”

Landford simply stared into her eyes for a couple of seconds. Her eyes, unwavering and were fueled by determination. Landford closed his own eyes, only to open them once again to reevaluate the girl’s eyes once again.

“Alright, get your instructions from Sergeant Cody and operate at your own caution. Sergeant Cody.”

“Yes sir.”

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Get her another bowie knife, teach her how to use it, clean, and operate it safely within these couple of days. Also ascertain that her training with handguns are sufficient.”

“Yes sir.” replied Cody

As the group walked back out of the room, Davis looked back at Cody’s eyes, and observed Megan. Whom simply started to walk towards a corner of the room and sat down against the corner wall. Cody walked towards Davis and peeked out of the window as he reached his destination and looked back at Davis.

“How’s the situation.” asked Davis

********

“Hey… Wakey wakey.”

Ivan slowly woke back up, his eyes slowly focused onto a shiny object. One side jagged… with… small mountains. Ivan’s eyes quickly readjusted as he noticed it was a dagger dangling in front of him aimlessly. “What?” As Ivan tried to move his body his entire body shook with pain as the pain subsided he noticed that there were ropes that tied him to a gym bench. “Oh crap…” whispered Ivan

“Hey, Cripple woke up.”

As Ivan looked at the source of the voice he noticed he was inside some sort of warehouse, there was the stereotypical poker table and two girls on the couch across from him. It was the little girl called Mary, who was innocently poking at the bandages on him…

Ivan quickly remembered the last couple of word that they said. “Yay! Do we get to eat now?”

“Err…. what now little girl?” said Ivan.

Mary simply looked at him with starry eyes, and poked into his wounds a tad more. Ivan cringed a little, while Mary was simply poking his bandages. The other girl had called over one of the poker players.

“Well well well, what are military personnel doing in a dying town like this? Name’s Dash by the way, former military member, former bodyguard, now vagrant leader of the Special Ops of Hell’s gate.

Ivan looked up at Dash, seeing his outfit he wore kevlar armor. While seeing that he had his shin and arm guards back at the poker table. Heavily armed, nicely prepared. The warehouse had little lighting, he couldn't tell whether it was day or night. But he could tell that the area was prepared for any situation whether it be a giant zerker to crash down the walls or multiple waves of potential looters. Ivan decided to choose a stereotypical question that occurs in every horror situation.

“... WHERE IS SHE?”

“What? “ Dash was confused

“Oh sorry, wrong line…. Where is this place? Where am I?”

“Heh, you have some humor, soldier. Anyways this place is the place where the hoarders of society call… Home…consider yourself lucky to see this place. Since after seeing you annihilate that zerker, let alone with a hoard of zombies pouring into the store, and even leaving the place like a badass. Sadly you didn’t have an amazing explosion effect occur from behind. Or neither did you manage to kill the zerker, but the most important thing is… you survived that. Now I call that guts, no plan just guts and instincts. The military sure did improve miraculously, *hehe…*”

“Err, thanks for the praise.. but seriously what’s the true purpose of taking me here, former militant?”

“Well, I thought I’d want to know a little intel and the situation of what’s happening on the outside world.” asked Dash

“Mission is confidential, even I don’t know anything about it.” stated Ivan

“Well ya, you’re clueless as a dead pawn. It’s the mission pills that they usually give out during the missions.” stated Dash

“What?” as Ivan realized Dash’s intention. He felt Mary's hands slapped onto both of his cheeks and looked into the eyes of the little girl. In actuality she wasn’t an average child… she wasn’t a child at all… simply shorter than average and had the luck of appearing younger than her age. Mary’s small body lapped around Ivan’s bounded body. The other girl was next to the girl and stretched her plastic gloves, preparing for examination.

“Say ahh…” said the 2nd lady

Her hands quickly infiltrated into his mouth, a faint smell of lightly pressed old books entered his nose. (This girl likes to read?) He felt the fingers lightly tapping into his teeths, and pinching into the deeper end of his mouth. The fingers simply found nothing within the area. (So she didn’t find it heh…) The girl left Ivan’s mouth and quickly passed a trash can from dash,throwing off the gloves, Ivan looked back at Dash. (So… what now Mr. Veteran?)

“Hmm seems like Amy couldn’t find the pills that're usually located within the mouth.” muttered Dash.

“Where is it located, soldier?”

“I don’t even know… to be honest they probably did it in my sleep…”

“That’s stupid, where would you look for it if the leader died?”

“Except he isn’t dead.”

“Well I’ll find it eventually, what's your mission soldier? “

“Confidential.” stated Ivan

“Hmmph, you’re so lucky I don’t have any sadist people within my group… though Mary could may-.

“I’m not a sadist! Nor can I act like a sadist.” denied Mary

Ivan looked at Dash momentarily, Dash simply shrugged it off and cut off the ropes binding Ivan to the gym bench.

“Are you letting me go?” asked Ivan

“Nope…. you’re under watch… good luck getting by Simon” said Dash

Dash pointed to Simon, bald and fitted with a serious demeanor. A flash suddenly shined upon Ivan’s eyes as Simon made a demonstration with a special type of knife as he handled it skillfully.

“A karambit”

“Yeah… first mate Simon, close combat specialist. Weapon of choice, tearing out the muscles. This crew is outfitted to kill humans… and of course we have some zombie repellent cases as well. Heh, now tell me the situation outside.”

“Well I can definitely tell you that, we’ve created multiple excavation points for the civilians, I suggest you get going. I’m sure the pamphlets have been flying around. We’ve managed to quarantine this entire place, the fences leading to the outside are heavily armed. Only way out would be air transport.”

“With the dead rising and their rapid evolution, we have no chance of making it out of here. I’d simply wait for the military to get here and rescue our asses. Any other bright ideas, soldier?... Alright, feel free to ask Amy anything you need, do anything you want here. Except leaving this place. Certainly there will be times where we will be leaving as well, however I’m sure Simon can take you out single handedly... soldier.”

Dash and Mary left the scene leaving only Amy and Simon to watch over him as he simply sat on the gym bench. He looked at Amy, noticing her fingers and hands seemed rough. Seems to be a close combat specialist as well, it seems Dash intentionally left Amy as someone to take care of this soldier as a poker to find out whether or not he’ll attempt to use Amy as a hostage of some sort. However it seems like Dash is completely confident in Amy’s ability to handle herself.

Ivan held within a very comfortable warehouse… however his team was waiting for him. He was sure of it, he knew that within a few days time he had to get out of this place. To regroup with his fellow allies, however he knew that if he were to leave. Dash would undoubtedly follow him to the source as well, he would either have to compromise with Dash or kill them all to keep the mission safe, regardless if he didn’t know anything about it.

Ivan slowly stood up and looked straight out the poker table to Amy.

“Can I have something to eat?”

Amy simply looked at him in astonishment.