Ch.125Chapter 17. Desertion (3)

The next day.

I head toward Hampton in a pickup truck brought by the Minsk mercenaries. We left the camper in the research facility’s yard.

The vehicle must be well-maintained because it runs exceptionally well. I like how it surges forward with just a light tap on the pedal, rushing ahead with a satisfying hum.

After spending the night in a deserted warehouse and stopping at a gas station to refuel, I drive steadily toward Hampton.

Strangely, the closer I get to the city, the more obstacles appear. Abandoned vehicles on the road, scattered skeletons here and there.

The frequency increases until finally, I see rows of wrecked vehicles lining both sides of the road. None of them are intact. Either burned out or collapsed with blown tires.

“Well, damn.”

Now the road is completely blocked. All eight lanes. Full of burned and damaged cars. According to the map, Hampton is still two hours away.

Beside the road is cracked wasteland. Judging by the tire tracks crisscrossing the area, other vehicles have also detoured around this pile.

For some reason, I feel something creeping up my neck. It’s that familiar sensation I used to get during multiplayer games—the feeling that if I turn that corner, I’ll run into enemies waiting in ambush.

Why am I feeling this?

I examine the pile of vehicles again. Something seems off.

The cars at the center of the obstacle are visibly older, burned and melted into pitiful shapes. But the vehicles on the outer edges, while dented, haven’t been burned.

I look at the frontmost car. Its fuel cap is wide open. The driver’s side window is shattered. Bullet holes.

This is gang work.

Anyone would slow down when faced with such an obstacle. Then, like me, they’d grumble and drive around it. Their speed would inevitably be slow, and some amateur waiting in ambush would fire a shot.

What should I do?

They’ve probably been watching me approach from a distance. If I retreat now, they’ll just track me down. Above all, I don’t want to waste time in a place like this.

So I guess I’ll have to break through by force.

* * * * *

In the midst of a scrap heap resembling a junkyard, three young men were leisurely aiming their guns.

“What a beautiful day. The birds aren’t singing, the flowers aren’t blooming… on a day like this, kids like you should be burning in hell.”

“What era is that from?”

“Being eaten by zombies on earth or burning in hell for eternity. If you had to choose one, which would it be?”

“Isn’t this hell already? That bastard’s been sitting over there for more than 20 minutes.”

The gang had no name. They didn’t even consider themselves a gang.

They were young men from Hampton’s District 14, who had joined Virginia’s volunteer corps and been assigned highway garbage cleanup duty.

Garbage cleanup didn’t mean walking around with brooms and shovels. They were specially assigned an impressive truck with towing wires attached to both front and back.

Lately, more citizens had been turning into zombies, regardless of where they were or what they were doing. The pile of obstacles they were hiding behind was a case in point.

A bus driver transporting refugees to Hampton suddenly transformed into a zombie, lunged up, and tried to bite the passengers, causing the bus to overturn. Following vehicles crashed into it in a chain reaction. They had checked the refugees’ temperatures, but not the driver’s.

This wasn’t an isolated incident. Sometimes when they spotted cars driving erratically, they’d find a raging zombie behind the wheel instead of a human.

In a collapsing world, vehicle transportation is almost the only hope. If the roads that allow goods and people to move become blocked, Hampton would become an even worse living hell.

So these three men were, in a sense, keeping Hampton alive. And in the process, they saw nothing wrong with a little side business—shooting drivers with silenced guns and taking their belongings. If they claimed the driver was actually a zombie, who would question them?

It had been easy so far. Anyone would slow down when faced with such a massive obstacle. They’d wait for them to come around slowly, then bang—shoot them dead.

But this time, the newcomer showed no signs of approaching. Had they turned back, or were they performing some kind of ritual?

“Someone go check it out.”

“No way. If they spot us, they’ll run. Wait, I hear an engine.”

The sound of a vehicle rolling slowly reached them. The three men aimed their guns forward. Finally, the pickup truck they’d been waiting for appeared.

“…What the hell?”

There was no one in the driver’s seat. The car was rolling by itself at a steady speed.

“Hey, what’s that? Why is there no one driving?”

“How should I know?”

“Maybe they collapsed inside? Left the car on cruise control and they’re already dead.”

It wasn’t entirely implausible.

They’d seen it once before—a driver who had taken cyanide and died with his foot on the pedal, crashing into the pile of obstacles. He must have known he was going to turn into a zombie and prepared accordingly.

“Rock, paper, scissors. Ah, shit.”

The unlucky one who lost walked toward the car with his gun, shuffling along. The car was moving so slowly that even an elderly person could have climbed aboard.

“If you’re going to die, die properly, don’t make things difficult for—”

Bang!

A sudden gunshot rang out. “Argh!” The man approaching the vehicle clutched his shoulder and dropped his gun. Bang! The fallen gun discharged. Fortunately, no one else was hurt.

“What, what’s happening?”

The two friends were bewildered. The direction of the gunshot wasn’t from in front of them. It was from behind. The injured man looked toward them and shouted.

“Watch out!”

The two friends instinctively tried to run. But they froze when they heard the click of a gun being aimed at them from behind.

“So this is where you were.”

A cold, deep voice. The two friends didn’t dare turn around.

“You with the shoulder wound! Try anything funny and these two lose their heads. You two, put your guns down and raise your hands. That’s right. Now slowly turn around.”

It was a man wearing sunglasses with his face covered by a mask. In his left hand was a pistol, and in his right, an M4 carbine. He even had an M14 rifle strapped to his back.

“Sir, we were just—”

“Strip.”

“What?”

“I said strip. Try to grab your gun and I’ll shoot every joint in your toes one by one. Same goes for your friend over there. Tell him to strip.”

They did as they were told. Life is precious, after all. The gun barrel twitched. It was a signal to move in that direction.

“Where is it?”

“What, what do you mean?”

“Where’s all the stuff you’ve collected this way?”

“Oh, we sold it all at the black market. It’s gone, really!”

One of the young men whimpered. Though his face was covered, the man seemed very disappointed. Suddenly, the pistol spat fire.

“Gah! It’s, it’s in our truck! In the cargo bed of our truck! Just cash and alcohol, that’s all we have! Really!”

The sunglasses-wearing man seemed to be considering something. But only for a moment.

“Untie your shoelaces and pile them up.”

“Yes, yes!”

Their military boots were sturdy, and the laces were wax-treated, so they came undone smoothly. Now they were naked except for their boots with tongues sticking out—quite an avant-garde outfit.

“Now run with those boots on.”

“…What?”

Bang! The pistol fired again. Asphalt fragments flew up near the feet of the young man standing at a distance.

“Run. In the opposite direction of Hampton.”

Life is precious.

* * * * *

They really didn’t have much.

Biscuits. Alcohol. Clothes. Underwear. Toiletries. It seemed pathetic that they were committing robbery for such meager items.

Out of spite, I fired three more shots into the air. The naked men in military boots all dropped to the ground. Their jogging pace seemed to have slowed down, but with a couple of zombies sprinting toward them from the distance, it probably didn’t matter. If they wanted to survive, they’d run.

What concerned me was their IDs. They were young men from Hampton’s District 14, part of Hampton’s Civil Defense. It was clear that things were bad enough that they needed to conscript civilians, and that these guys were completely undisciplined.

The truck was military-issue. The weapons, though shabby, were clearly from the Elza regular army.

“They’ll collapse soon.”

After shooting holes in each of the truck’s tires with my pistol, I got back into my pickup truck that rolled so well on its own. I removed the wooden block I’d placed on the pedal and drove toward Hampton again.

I drove for a full hour and a half. I could see a long line, Humvees mounted with M60 machine guns, and soldiers on troop transport trucks aiming their weapons forward. No one was sitting on the ground. Everyone was in their vehicles.

“Argh!”

Someone screamed in the distance. Rat-tat-tat, gunfire erupted. A group of soldiers pushed a vehicle to the side of the road with great effort. People in full biochemical protection suits rushed over and dragged the corpse away.

Though the waiting line was long, the inspection itself wasn’t complicated. Name. Purpose of visit. Temperature check. And the temperature wasn’t even checked with a traditional thermometer, but with an infrared heat detector.

“Your name?”

A female sergeant with sergeant’s stripes asked in a disinterested tone.

“Picky.”

I gave a random name.

“Purpose of visit?”

“Purchasing supplies. I’m from Lennington, just buying essentials and leaving. Won’t stay more than three days.”

“I’ll check your temperature.”

Beep. It looked no different from scanning a barcode on merchandise. The sergeant scribbled a signature on a document and thrust it toward me.

“Keep this with you at all times and mind the expiration date. You must comply with random inspections, and failure to do so will result in immediate execution. No prior warning, understood?”

Thinking her attitude was a bit stiff, I offered her some of the biscuits I’d taken from those amateurs. The sergeant’s face immediately softened.

“Is it because of the zombies?”

Worried someone might see, the sergeant quickly pocketed the snack.

“It’s gotten worse lately.”

The sergeant grimaced.

“Even within the safe zone, we’re finding one or two zombies. Everyone’s keeping it quiet, but there’s talk that even normal humans are mutating into zombies now. Please cooperate with inspections—I’m serious. Everyone’s so on edge that they pull out guns at the slightest provocation.”

It was just as Cassandra had said. As the virus spread more and more, it was gradually crossing a threshold.

“But Hampton still does thorough weapons checks, right?”

“That’s old news. Commander Virginia has recruited civilian volunteers and authorized them to use guns freely. It’s reduced our workload significantly, but it’s created other problems.”

“Like what?”

“Don’t get me started. People shooting perfectly normal humans and then claiming they had to because they were turning into zombies is just the beginning. Roads are blocked, incoming goods and government support are dwindling daily, and the shopping district has been closed for ages. The clever ones are controlling warehouses and slowly releasing goods on the black market.”

It was quite similar to what happens when communist countries collapse. No goods, people distrusting each other, and the state losing its function. As the social contracts that had sustained them crumble one by one, it becomes an era where everyone has to fend for themselves.

“…But Commander Virginia will take care of things, right?”

There was a kind of faith in the sergeant’s face.

“What has this Virginia woman done?”

“…They say she’s preparing something big.”

The sergeant winked and then banged on the hood. It was time to move on. I took out my phone and called Leticia.