Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

Past the halfway mark of this expressway, near Exit 125, our convoy slightly slowed down before we heard Artem's voice in the radio:

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*bzzt*

[Nyebo— Deadheads ahead, three in total, proceeding to slow down. We'll take care of them in just a minute or so.]

*bzzt*

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*bzzt*

"Where did it come from?"

*bzzt*

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*bzzt*

[My bet's the exit but we'll check, no need for you guys to get down.]

*bzzt*

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Then Jared joined in:

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*bzzt*

[Bro, I think they climbed the wall.]

*bzzt*

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*bzzt*

"How?"

*bzzt*

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Then a few more voices joined in:

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*bzzt*

[Yeah, how?]

*bzzt*

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*bzzt*

[Explain.]

*bzzt*

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*bzzt*

[I can see from my scope that the exit's still tightly blocked but I could see a rope dangling from the walls. A grappling hook type of situation and they seemed to have camped here for a bit.]

*bzzt*

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*bzzt*

"Now you're losing me— Wait, I think I get it, they're probably infected on the way here or succumb to their injuries. We might have to go down."

*bzzt*

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*bzzt*

[If you'd like to investigate, sure.]

*bzzt*

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*bzzt*

[Bro, we can check their camping gear over there, might be some clues to their identities and some shit, ya know?]

*bzzt*

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*bzzt*

"That's exactly what we're doing."

*bzzt*

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So yeah, as quickly Artem and Katya took down those three walking corpses, I still checked their bodies and stripped them of their clothing for further clues about the small timeframe they had before turning into the undead. A few curious folks from our "exchange-student" plan walked over as well but they just wanted to look and not provide any input.

"What did you find?" Katya asked.

"This dude here had a fanny pack/war belt with random knick knacks on it aside from the usual stuff but the ring he's wearing and the ring *pointing at the chick* she's wearing didn't match…"

"Who's the kid then?"

"You asking who's the parent?"

"Not whose, who's, with the apostrophe."

"Ah~ I'm betting the guy, biologically speaking… They dress almost the same but aside from this kid still having his phone in his pockets like me, it seemed to be—" then I turned to June, "Found anything on the phone?"

June was looking away from the corpses as she scrolled through the contents of the kid's phone, "Umm… Sorry, everything here's new to me—"

"Don't worry, just tell me what you found. Where they were staying and shit—"

"You're not gonna believe this."

"Hmm?"

Then she faced the phone towards me, "Look, isn't this the village of Aetas? They came from the mountainside?"

"For real— That does look—"

Katya and Artem tilted their heads at the same time, "Aetas?"

I explained, "Yeah, umm… it's one of the indigenous tribes here, a tribe of hunter-gatherers and shit but they do have people joining society and living amongst everyone else. I was just surprised to see these people with them."

"Are they a dangerous bunch?"

"They're pretty cool if you brought them gifts but *scrolls through the images even more* Hmm… Something probably happened in the place they were in that made them hike down."

Eden joined in, "C-Can we help them, at least?"

I shook my head, "Unfortunately, no. It'll take at least a couple of days to hike up to the nearest mountain and we can't just change plans from the get-go."

"I see… That's too bad…"

"Not quite," I said as I pointed at the three naked corpses lined together.

"Hmm?"

Currently, these people were zombies maybe a day or two ago and their bodies hadn't decomposed to the point that they'd give off a smell or any visual indication.

However, I didn't think I'd see these again but almost all of their blood vessels were completely black and some were even protruding from their skin, but the most puzzling piece of the puzzle was aside from the knife marks Artem and Katya made on them, there wasn't any sort of injuries to them whatsoever.

How I wish Oscar just drove with us so he could examine the bodies further but as I was just about to take some blood samples—or maybe even a body for an autopsy—June pointed out something that completely went over my head.

"Why are their tattoos like that?"

"Hmm?"

Looking closely, the tattoos these bodies had on them seemed fairly new and for some reason, it was a family tattoo because all three had the same one and at the same spot—which were on their left wrists—and it had all the signs of being a recent project that involved old-school methods of inking.

In addition, due to how the tattoos were tribal-like in nature and how their blood vessels were completely black, it hid the fact that it looked like the majority of the protruding blood vessels were centered around those areas.

If anything, it looked like a dumb fuck wasn't practicing safety and hygienic standards in the case of marking a client with their instruments, and it caused the deaths of these three people who didn't know any better.

I concluded, "Nice catch, June. I think that's the cause of death…"

"R-Really?"

I nodded, "Yeah, but why?"

Quinn said in a dismissive tone, "Right now? It could be anything, really…"

"That's true, sadly, but let's check their luggage just to be sure."

At that point, we found three hiking bags which were the same hiking bags I found in the pictures they took, but aside from the general stuff I'd put in a bug-out bag plus extra, there was nothing to prove as to why these people were done like this.

I could've understood if they stole a relic or done something to these people, but why did they go through all this trouble to off them if they could've easily lopped their heads off with their primitive weapons?

Chapter Stay:

But yeah, we can't do much since we were in the middle of something already so before we drove off, we took proper documentation and put the lightest body in a bodybag before we burned the rest.