Chapter 5: Taming Zombies
1154 Words
After a few days of experiments and tests on Lucy and himself, Luke once again set outside to grab more zombies.
Since the zombies around him were only normal zombies, it wasn't hard at all for the enhanced Luke to behead them one by one.
He didn't bother bringing their bodies along and directly took their hearts and brains instead and tossed them in one big black sack.
When he slings the sack over his shoulders, you'd think that he's like Santa Clause. Only, his sack didn't contain gifts. Rather, it contains brains and hearts...
Luke continued to reap and extract brains and hearts for a few hours before returning back to his underground shelter.
During this time, he didn't encounter any living being. Just the dead walking.
After returning, he familiarly extracted the Zombie Organs and synthesized the Cores into Serums.
He injected the serum all into himself which led to another increase in his strength.
When Luke felt that he was no longer visibly getting stronger after the injection, he tested the remaining Serums into Lucy instead.
As expected, Lucy also displayed an increase in strength. Coupled by the fact that she had ingested dozens of Zombie Organs, she had started to become smarter and smarter.
It was to the point that she can already answer Luke when he speaks to her.
"What's your name?"
"...Lu...cy..."
"What are you?"
"...Hu...man...?"
"No, you're a zombie. Remember it."
"...Zom...bie...?"
"That's right. Next question, who am I?"
"...Luuu...ke..."
Luke stared at Lucy silently, seemingly in deep thought.
Then, after some hesitation, he removed Lucy's chains.
"Sir!"
"Quiet. I know what I'm doing."
Luke didn't bother with Athena's warnings and continued to remove Lucy's chains.
Lucy just looked at him curiously and didn't do anything else.
When all of her chains had been removed, she touched her arms which used to be held by chains curiously.
"Mmh?"
Lucy tilted her head in confusion as if she can't believe she can now move her body.
She looked around and started to wander while staring at everything curiously.
Luke spoke up.
"Stop."
"Ooo..."
However, Lucy didn't pay attention to him and continued to move about.
Luke grabbed her shoulders to force her to stop.
"Stop."
"Mm?"
"Stop."
Luke repeated as if wanting to ingrain this word in Lucy's mind.
After seeing Lucy stop moving, he let go.
Once he did, Lucy started to move again.
"Stop."
Luke repeated the same thing and grabbed her shoulder, forcing her to stop.
He did this a few more times and finally, Lucy stopped moving without being forced to by just hearing him say 'Stop'.
Luke continued to use this method to 'train' Lucy to comply with his commands so that she can be of use.
It took a month for her training to be completed.
A month later, Luke stepped outside once more to grab more test subjects. But this time, he brought along another figure with him.
Lucy.
Right, Lucy is currently very obedient to Luke as she walked behind him like a dutiful servant.
If Luke stops, she stops.
If Luke moves, she moves.
If Luke kills, she assists.
And since Lucy is originally a zombie, she didn't care about being bitten or scratched.
She was simply the most useful bait that Luke could use.
With her, Luke was able to gather even more Zombie Organs and Cores before retreating once again to the base.
Now that he had gotten dozens of materials, Luke started to resume tests and experiments on the Zombie Organ.
His idea was, if he could synthesize the Cores, maybe he could do the same for the Organs and give himself a boost in his mental capacity.
But unlike the Core, synthesizing the Organ seemed a tad bit more difficult.
It was more complex and difficult to make a perfect compound that wouldn't harm himself. It simply won't stabilize properly.
Luke started to shut himself in as he continued to study and test the Organ.
He ate only a little twice a day to sustain himself and spent the remaining hours working.
Meanwhile, inside a certain shelter.
After a few months of fighting and running for their lives, this group of people managed to find this fortified shelter and quickly hid from the zombies.
At first, it was still fine.
However, in an environment where strangers grouped together and lived in a shared space, eventually, a 'leader' was made in order to 'maintain order'.
This leader was naturally made because he had something the others didn't have. A gun.
The leader was drowned in his power.
He started to abuse it.
Giving more food to those serving him, especially the women sleeping with him.
To him, this apocalypse was simply paradise.
He forced others to do his bidding, even going out to get more food by holding their loved ones hostage in the shelter.
Everything was still going well for him until today.
But...something changed.
While Luke was outside earlier, he attempted another experiment.
He chose a random zombie, gave him a Zombie Organ to eat, and handed him a handgun.
He wanted to see if that zombie will make use of the gun to hunt. Of course, he wouldn't do that to harm himself. He simply attached a small wireless camera on the body of that zombie and had Lucy throw it somewhere while he left.
Before Luke started his experiments, he had observed this zombie through its camera for some time as he was curious as to how it went.
Unfortunately, that zombie was quickly killed before it could do anything else. It was a failure.
Luke vowed to try it again on a more powerful zombie next time.
As for who killed it...it was one of the guys in the shelter where the tyrant leader was in.
That leader had sent another group outside to gather food and supplies.
One of them found and killed Luke's zombie experiment and grabbed its gun.
As soon as he returned back to the shelter, he shot the leader in the head.
Everyone cheered.
Finally, they were free.
But.
That wasn't the case.
The leader simply switched.
Everything...was the same.
Inside Luke's underground shelter, Athena continued to monitor the digital space.
She was looking at one particular screen. There was a map displayed and a red dot was constantly blinking on it.
Luke naturally wouldn't simply give away his gun. There was a tracker on it as well as a listening device.
And now this gun was picked by another person. Athena had listened in on everything that happened while the gun was in that person's hand.
Athena sighed in disappointment.
She then turned her attention back to her master who was still busy experimenting non-stop.
"It seems we will soon have a new batch of living test subjects. After he's finished, I'll tell him all about it."
A small smile formed in her digital expression.
- Writer
