‘Incoming! Incoming!!’ the sergeant in command screamed. His voice echoed with terror and panic.
They were on a mission to investigate an Intel on a growing number of sufferers in safe zone B. They were met with chaos and bodies littered all over like an open graveyard. The floor was filled with blood as though painted red and the smell of decomposing bodies engulfed the atmosphere like a wet blanket. This was supposed to be a safe zone, they wondered what had happened here. A large number of zombies came rushing to them immediately they passed through the safe zone’s gate. Team delta was the first to enter the zone while team Alpha stood outside to take watch.
Gunshots could be heard from miles as team delta struggled to contain the ever increasing numbers of zombies. It was like a holocaust, they stood no chance. About 10 minutes into the fight, the gunshots seized. No sounds were heard again.
‘Team Delta, this is team Alpha commander, do you copy over’, but there was no response from the other side of the radio. Everyone became tensed. Silas repeated the radio call again,
‘Team Delta, this is team Alpha commander, do you copy over’, still no response. Silas could feel the morale of his team pummel like molten wax in proximity to a flame. Silas knew the sergeant in charge of Team Delta, it was his best friend.
‘Derek, this is Silas, brother do you copy over’, still nothing. As Silas turned to face his team mates, a troubled voice broke through the radio
‘Run! Run!!... They are in their thousands and they… ‘, the radio call was stopped with the screams of Derek as his flesh was torn from his bones by zombies. His screams sent fear chills down the spine of the entire Alpha team. Silas could feel the fear ripples through his team, they were terrified and at this point he did not know what to do. He had a choice to make, to either check for survivals from Delta team or save his team and abort the mission. But before he could make a decision, a flood of zombies were seen coming from all fronts. He knew the end was near.
‘Nobody is surviving this one’, he said, ‘call for airstrike and tell them to target our position’.
‘But sir…’ one of the soldiers tried interrupting him
‘I know soldier, I know… it’s better to die with dignity, blow to pieces while standing on our feet with heads held high, than to be torn apart by these creatures’. Soon after, his team opened fire on the zombies as they flanked them from all angles. The sight was gruesome, the zombies kept coming nonstop. They were in their multitudes. The soldiers engaged them bravely with all the fire power they could get, but not before long they were overpowered by the zombies and as one of them tried to grab for his neck, the bomb from the sky came falling to where they stood. The sounds of the blast woke him up from his sleep.
Silas stood up from his bed abruptly. He was sweating and breathing really hard. He stared around the small humid room he was staying, and then ran his hands across his beards. This dream of his was becoming recurrent. It was the day he lost almost all his team mates and got infected with the UCL virus.
He stood up and went to the bathroom to wash his face. He checked the time, it was twenty five minutes past three o clock. After washing his face he stood in front of the mirror. Scars that reminded him of his time in the army filled his body. He didn’t know if they were trophy stories to be told someday or they were demons that would hunt him forever, reminding him of his failures. Sometimes the scars hurt, but he guessed the hurt was more emotional than physical.
After he got expelled from the army because he contracted the virus, he tried to live a normal amidst all the chaos. But how could he? How could he be normal when everything about his existence wasn’t?
‘If only I had a penny for every one of these scars, I would have built an empire’, he said aloud to himself. The gingerly traced the prominent scars on his shoulders and chest. He was well built, with all his individual muscled pronounced and toned. Silas had short military style blond hair, pointed nose that looked like a river fall during fall. His eyes were intimidating yet gentle, this perfectly complemented his thin slender lips. His chin were narrow and flowed with his chiseled jaw line that gave him a tough masculine look.
It was barely three months after the attack by zombies on his team while on mission. Three months of trying to live an ordinary life, three months of feeling useless. He was a man of action, he was used to the rush of adrenaline and the sound of gunshots. He was never created to live an ordinary life, he knew this from his childhood, that was why he joined the army, and now all of it have been taken away from him. He couldn’t stand this life, he needed more.
He stared once more at the poster on his dining table. It was a poster calling for volunteers for a new vaccine against the UCL virus, and they needed those who were already infected with the virus. Maybe this was an opportunity to do something meaningful with his life, he thought to himself. Maybe it was time to…
Check next post for part 2 and previous post for Chapter one.
Thanks.
