***
A few minutes later, the group that stayed behind are waiting for the military trucks to arrive. Those who remained behind are the survivors from Curtea de Argeș, Mihaela and Ron, and four other soldiers. Mihaela finished treating the injured people, those being a soldier and Ron.
"Thank you." says Ron in broken Romanian language. "You did good."
"Thanks." responds Mihaela in Romanian language.
Ron is looking at the road the three people have taken to travel to the community.
"Do you think they'll come back?" asks Ron in English language.
"I hope so." responds Mihaela, who knows a bit of English thanks to Netflix shows she used to watch in college days.
"Yeah… Hope the community is really nice and welcomed to us."
"They will." says Mihaela to Ron.
A soldier, who was dragging corpses of the attacker with another soldiers, put them in a pile, then stabbed their heads to cancel the zombie transformation of those who weren't hit in the head with bullets, is walking toward where Mihaela and Ron are. The soldier, is asking Mihaela if she is speaking Romanian, then Mihaela responded with yes.
"I heard you were talking to the guy in English. Thought you are an American or British as him." says the Romanian soldier.
"I see." says Mihaela, she looks over to the pile of corpses. "Are these dead for sure?"
"Yes. Yes, they are dead." respond the soldier who is having his face covered by a ski mask. "I've checked them and stopped their transformation. We did solve a problem, now we have to wait and see if a wave of zombies will come after the sound."
"Hopefully not." says Mihaela in Romanian language. "But they can hear the gunshots from here?"
"Honey. These things are evolving almost every day. Yesterday, I faced a zombie who was throwing cars. Killed half of my squad in Pitesti. Brave and strong men. Wiped by a few cars who were thrown by a beast without a mind."
"I kinda experimented something similar today. So, I know your feeling."
"What do you mean?" asks the soldier out of curiosity to the nurse.
"There was a muscular zombie, who has thrown a corpse of a zombie, into an old lady. The corpse who hit her, broke several bones and almost killed her instantly. She died because of blood loss cause and also bones who were literally leaving the body."
"Damn…" says the soldier who could imagine such a scenario. "These things keep evolving every day."
"What are we going to do?"
"What do you mean?"
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"Do you really think we can stand a chance to fight off these creatures? Not considering that we can neutralize all of them."
"Yes. We can." says the soldier to Mihaela. "We are having people from different parts of the world who are constantly building bases for survivors. Sending strong men to zones to clean them up. And gathering data to create a cure to stop all of this infection. We may not be able to stop the zombies once and for all, but we can still fight back and create a better land for us, humans."
The two are looking at each other for a moment. Mihaela, who heard what the soldier was telling her, made her feel a bit perplexed by all of this. If it is true this group is working on finding a cure and creating a multitude of military base, this means humanity will probably one day, achieve peace like it was before the Z Virus spread.
The soldier, is leaving Mihaela, doing her business with other injured people, he continues to do his job as keeping on guard. When the soldier left, Mihaela is looking at Ron, then she translates the things that soldier said to her earlier. When Ron got everything, a smile appears on his face, signifying that he is feeling thankful, he said to Mihaela in a broken Romanian.
"We are safe. That is what matters."
***
A few moments later, the group of three people, are at about three kilometres of walking to the community. All three of them are feeling tired from walking and fighting the zombies who were on the road. as the group continues to walk further, they do arrive at an abandoned gas station. All of the three survivors, have decided on unison to check the gas station quick.
They are searching the place for any valuable supplies for their trip or any anything valuable.
Inside this place, the soldier, Gancea and Daniel, are looking around the small store. They found there a lot of items who were taken from shelves, like chips, biscuits, drinks and cans, most of them who are still available to eat. The three survivors are feeling a little creped by this because it is unusual to find a store like this to have these many items in it, still intact and untouched by humans.
"Do you think someone is living here?" asks Daniel to the soldier.
"Don't know." responds the soldier. "I've never been on this part before. This is my first mission outside of community walls."
"You were inside since the beginning?" asks Gancea curios.
"No. I came here a month ago due to a transfer."
"Guys." says Daniel who is looking down the cashier register. "There's a corpse over here."
The two people are gathering to the place Daniel points out. The soldier is looking at the corpse, and when he saw the corpse is having a mushroom on the mouth, he is looking back scared to the two people.
"We have to get out of here!"
"Why?" asks Daniel.
But the soldier did not respond, he jumps out of this store, and is immediately followed by Gancea and Daniel, all running to the direction where the community should. The three people have run from this gas station without taking any goodies.
After a minute of running, the soldier stops from running, stops to take a breather. Daniel and Gancea are doing the same. Both are looking curios at the soldier, who is revealing as he is breathing heavy why they've run from the gas station.
"The corpse over there is known as Musha by us, soldiers. As some kind of code. This type of zombie is one of the dangerous one to encounter."
"Why?" asks Daniel.
"You've seen the mushroom from his mouth?"
"No." responds Gancea.
"Yes." says Daniel. "I saw it. What is it?"
"Not sure If I can explain in the best way, but if you see a mushroom like that in a zombie… Whatever you do, do not break it. It will free in the air a Z virus bacterium, that can go through human respiratory systems and transform the said person into a zombie. This fungus is very dangerous, the best solution being to run away as fast as possible from the contaminated zone and corpse."
"So, we will leave that zone with goodies to the hands of any person?" asks Daniel feeling a little pissed.
"Supplies are not a problem for us. Didn't I tell you we have crops of food and our own mill to make bread? We also have storages of food that will last us even three years." the soldier raises from the ground, takes his rifle on the hands, and continues to lead the way. "We have to hurry. Sun is almost down."
Soldier continues to lead the way while Gancea and Daniel are following the person. Both are looking at each other, not knowing what to say on the rest of their journey.