ID + 60 Days

Tala looked at it. Not feeling fear. Not even disgust. Not anymore.

By her estimate, it stopped being human sometime between seven and ten days ago. Its eyes were all bulged out, red capillaries all popped up and were visible with the white translucent membrane growing over the eye cornea. That white membrane was to grow thicker swiftly and in a few days, not even blood vessels would be visible.

Ears would grow too, become pointy, and the skin would turn pale. All the hair on the body would shed and fall off. The worst would be the stench, already bad. But it was to get worse, almost intolerable.

A thick glass of a pharmacy display window separated them by millimeters as the zombie pressed its head against the glass, and extended its hand up as it unsuccessfully tried to reach the upper ventilation window that was partially opened.

Tala thought about closing it. But why bother? The opening was so small even a cat could not get through it. And besides, she was not going to stay there any longer.

The zombie made a screeching noise, smelling Tala’s presence, the little air escaping through the upper window obviously enough to carry her scent. It opened its mouth showing bloodied teeth in a disastrous state of decay, pressing them against the fogging window glass.

But Tala’s heart did not pulse higher. Not even a bit.

She just sighed and shook her head. Not even feeling enough to call it disdain.

She could outrun it, outjump it, fight it, and kill it in a dozen different manners. Just like with all the zombies she ever heard of, it was the blow to the head that did the trick and proved most useful.

She could capture it, enclose it in a cage, and study it to see how long it could live without food and water. That idea had occurred to her and she thought that should be put on her ‘to-do list’ rather soon.

Heck, she could capture a few of them, group them together and study them, see how they behaved with each other, what made them tick, what made them quiet, and what made them yelp those inhuman, monstrous shrieks.

Yeah, she could do a lot of things. The only thing she could not do was let it sink its disgustingly dirty and bloodied teeth into her flesh. Not even a bit.

If that were to happen, the system could not help save her. It could not even identify the cause, the bio-material that was transforming humans and their DNA into something else.

Fifty-some days ago, when she first ran into the monsters, when she asked her system to explain the source of the infection, to analyze the blood of the infected creatures, the only thing it displayed in the green letters in front of her eyes was,

[Unknown Substance Detected]

But that was just not good enough for Tala, so she looked for further explanation, for any kind of explanation she could get.

What she got was,

[Your insight into the material is limited to your Class 2.]

"So, then, what good are you, sys? Or should I just call you a dumb-ass?"

Her system decided not to answer her provocation, offering her a moment to calm down.

It took Tala a few breaths before she could form the only question remaining to be asked.

"Can you at least give me anything you can about this 'unknown substance', anything at all?"

[The sample of the blood contains an unidentifiable foreign substance. Its high propagation and multiplication ability implies bio-engineered or alien origin.

Thus, it can be best concluded to be a swiftly progressive and corruptive foreign virus with yet unknown consequences and abilities.

Recommendation: Avoid contact at all cost.]

She did not need to be told that. "No shit. And I thought I was going to let it bite me and see how that feels. Like I've never watched any zombie shows."

So, Tala figured she needed to learn all she could about the virus herself. And she studied it all she could, watched it long enough to know what it did to people.

First, it was the rash. And then, nothing else would happen, allowing the virus to be inside of the host without anyone knowing.

But swiftly, mostly within the first forty hours, infected said they felt an insatiable desire to bite and taste human blood. To feed on raw flesh. Desire swiftly intensified, becoming an overpowering urge, a need that could not be ignored. Most infected could not help themselves and would bite others within seventy-two hours of being infected.

For some, it took longer.

Berny lasted five days from being bitten to admitting it, then asking them to lock him up since he was not sure if he could control himself any longer.

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He was a good guy. Tala hated when she had to put a long spear between his teeth and drive it all the way through his head.

After seventy-two hours, their eyes would start to change. And they would start to stink.

The strangest thing might have been that they did not even need to die to transform, although infected people who died from body injuries like gunshot wounds to their chests came back as zombies. As long as their brains were left intact.

She knew of nobody who was bit and did not turn. Some turned really fast. Once a guy got bit and turned in less than an hour.

How did it all come to this? She did not know. She promised to find the answers. To Berny, to Mickey, to all the others. But… that was just a silly promise because the more she saw of this infected inferno and accepted that she lived in a really-screwed-up zombie apocalypse, the more she doubted she would ever be able to fulfill that promise.

She looked past the zombie, looked down and up the street. Sometimes she saw a dark shape among them, driving them, screeching at them as if directing their hordes. She called them demons. Nobody ever saw demons but her. And sometimes she wondered if they were real.

But then… she knew she needed to trust her own eyes. Not like anyone else was like her anyway, so not that their opinion and knowledge really mattered.

So, she ignored the screeching zombie and looked for its dark master, always completely veiled in a dark robe that hid its face and the rest of the body. She never yet had a chance to fight one of them. Once she summoned the courage to charge the group of zombies circled around their dark demon, but the demon swiftly departed and the zombies charged her.

“Sneaky bastards they are. Who knows, maybe they are the reason for this apocalypse?” she wondered, her eyes scouting as far as she could see.

The big city of San Diego was veiled in smoke from still-burning buildings with all the firefighters gone, dead, or converted. No point in fighting fires when your own government has already given up on you.

An eerie silence. Gunshots and heavy firing of the US Army and National Guards had died down during the last two days. Once it became obvious that the city outbreak could not be controlled, the military pulled out.

The radio said that the whole city was under quarantine and that nobody was allowed to leave its borders. Not until they could find a way to detect this virus, or whatever it was, and be able to separate the infected from those who were not.

On TV, they showed the tall walls of barbed wire and tank stoppers being placed along the highways and outside city limits. Hard and cold faces of people guarding the border, instructed to shoot anyone who tried to approach the fence. On sight. No warnings required.

Many did. Their victims all lay dead, scattered around for ravens, coyotes, and vultures to feed on.

Tala did not think containing the infection would work and doubted that the virus would be so easily managed and restrained to only this place. She feared it already had departed the city and had probably traveled around the world. So it really bothered her none that she was confined inside the city.

“Not like anywhere else is going to be any better, maybe even worse,” she thought.

Governments fearing the spread of the virus were on the brink of putting back travel restrictions, but after COVID, nobody was very pleased about that possibility. So, everything was put on hold to see what was to happen to San Diego, California.

Except, there was no more San Diego. Only a skeleton of a city with hordes of zombies hunting the remaining survivors.

Tala called on her system and looked at her stats, still having to use verbal commands since the Telepathic Control option was still not available to her.

Green letters of the system's message again flashed transparently in the corner of her vision.

[Agent Name: Tala Hayashi

Code: 12kfwl30lWO

Title: The Provider Apprentice

Rank: 4 Stars

Class: 2

Level: 9

Mental Attributes

Physical Attributes

Standings

Special Abilities

Options and Settings]

Still stuck at Class 2. But she hoped that was to change soon. Whatever she could earn on this mission might be finally enough to nudge her up to Class 3. That would be exciting as, after twenty days since she progressed, she was getting bored of the limited options of Class 2.

“Sys, give me my physical attributes, please.”

[Strength 15/20

Speed 16/20

Endurance 12/20

Dexterity 20/20]

Below it was the familiar message of,

[In-depth analysis of the stated statistics as well as additional statistics will be provided as you progress in Class and Level]

“Yeah, I’m tired of seeing that message, can you just take it off and keep it off in the future? I know that by now, thank you,” she said, half annoyed for reading the same message for like a hundredth time.

“How about my Health Standing?”

[General Health: 18/20]

“Energies?”

[RR Energy*: 120/200 - 60 percent full

SR Energy*: 180/200 - 90 percent full

Healing Energy: Unavailable

Mana Energy: Unavailable]

Healing and Mana energy sounded so interesting, but there was no way of her knowing how to get it and how high she needed to go once it became available. If only she could talk to Howey again.

But, better not to think of Howey now, she thought, sighed, and turned her eyes back to the pharmacy she raided, looking if there was anything else worth taking.

“Tala, do you copy?” the voice on her handheld radio came alive and brought her back.

“Yes, I copy, Drew, loud and clear” she answered.

“Good,” the guy answered with relief, but then swiftly added. “Did you get the medicine?”

“I did. I found plenty," she said looking at her almost fully packed rucksack. "Took me three hours to find the right pharmacy. It was ransacked already, but there was a hidden cold storage in the backroom. A gold mine. So, I think it should be good enough for a while. At least a few months.”

“Great,” Drew said and Tala could feel the huge wave of relief in his voice.

It was great news and Tala was glad to give him.

Drew. A skinny thirty-some-old ex-office worker with no known skills other than to talk to people. Talked them to sleep. Did it more than once to Tala herself. So, that’s what they let him do, just talk. Someone said that in a shithole of a time like this, the importance of good communication could not be underestimated, and Tala agreed.

“Do you need help coming back?” he asked.

“Yeah, and who is going to help me? You ready to come out?” she asked, but before Drew could offer any ideas that were certain to follow, she swiftly added. “No, let me just do this on my own. I said I would and I will, okay?”

“Okay… just… Don’t wait for the night. You know they get more active then. So, you only have an hour left.”

Hearing her talk, the zombie became even more agitated and started to bang her head against the pharmacy’s front window, making it tremble. The glass held, but it was just a matter of time before others would come to join it, and before the window would eventually crack and crash.

“I guess I better hurry home then,” she said and shut her receiver.

She walked to the door, but before she opened it, she noticed a dozen zombies suddenly dragging their feet toward her, two even breaking into a run.

“I guess I’ll have to go to the back,” Tala muttered to herself and scurried toward the back door, tightening the harnesses of the almost fully packed rucksack she swung over her back.

She pulled the back door and swung it open violently, and without any more hesitation, ran out.