Survival Bunker System Developer

Beginning of the End

“Warning. Security Line 2 breeched. Six unusual life forms detected. Kindly prepare for evacuation.”

Caleb was shaking. Then again, who wouldn’t be terrified in such a situation? It was only three months since the ghouls showed up but already more than eighty percent of humanity had fallen. The remaining twenty percent who survived so far like him were hiding in self-made bunkers and survivor camps.

The system developer’s fingers flew quickly on the keyboard that he had worked with for more than five years. In the background, his old black cat and only companion hissed. Jeremy might be old but that didn’t take the fight out of him.

As the ghouls clawed and slammed themselves against the barricaded door and last line of defence before they reached his bedroom, Caleb was fighting to write the last post to update his apocalypse survivor guide blog – humanity’s biggest hope.

[Day 96:

Encountered an abnormal ghoul who possesses intelligence. Can command other ghouls and will target survivors living in bunkers. Is capable of creating coordinated attacks and has regeneration abilities.

Recommended action: Flee upon sight and hope to survive.

This will be my last post. They have breached all my defences. As long as the last man stands, don’t give up on humanity.

Signed off,

Caleb Houston]

Once the last blog post was completed, Caleb hit the publish button just in time to see the door’s hinges c***k and loosen. Reaching for the handgun in his desk-side pedestal, the system developer loaded the gun and waited. Jeremy continued to yowl but Caleb was unusually calm as he scooped his feral cat into his lap protectively.

Death was only a minute away but strangely, the system developer didn’t feel afraid. If anything, he felt relieved that these three long months of unimaginable hell would finally be over. It was the year 2022 and he was only twenty-seven but the last three months of his short life felt like it the longest three months of his life. He barely remembered the taste of his favourite pepperoni pizza and cola. He couldn’t even recall the brand of his favourite cigarettes, much less the smell of beer. All he knew was how to kill ghouls and hide from them when scavenging food and resources for Jeremy and him.

The last layer of defence finally broke down and Caleb smiled from his expensive leather gaming chair. He fired five shots in succession with the first one killing Jeremy in his lap. The other four hit the ghouls who tried to get through his door. Caleb smirked. After so many months of practising how to fire a gun, his aim was getting better. The bodies piled up in a heap acting as a temporary barricade for the remaining man-eating monsters. This was it. Caleb closed his eyes and pointed to barrel to his head. The screams of ghouls became the last symphony for his requiem and without further hesitation, Caleb pulled the trigger.

It was game over. He was gone. No more fighting ghouls and fearing if he would die from starvation or getting eaten. No more building bunkers and modifying his smart home system to act as a surveillance system. No more guilt for not being able to save the other survivors as they get mauled by the flesh-eating cannibals. No more updating the blog that only provided a sense of false hope for the other survivors when the city’s power and water supply was getting cut.

Finally, Caleb would be able to rest in peace. Or so he thought.

For an unknown period, Caleb felt a strange weightlessness as he floated in space. Unable to sleep or wake, he could only recall foggy pieces of his memory. The last three months after virus PXE22 took over the world came back to him in bits and pieces. Yes, now he remembered who he was and what he was doing.

He was Caleb Houston, a system developer and one of the world’s best in his trade. He was single and lived alone in a studio apartment in Windsor Terrace with his black cat. On busy days he chugged cola and ordered pizza to deliver work to his clients. On bad days he smoked Marlboro and downed beer. 2022 was a good year at the start with Caleb getting five new big contracts one lined up after another. Sadly, he didn’t get to live to see it end.

It was amazing to see how quickly humanity fell. Initially, when the virus started showing signs, nobody paid any attention to the odd behaviour of rats eating birds. It only started getting a little more attention when house pets started eating their owners who were often reported dead. Brownsville didn’t have a particularly good reputation in New York City so nobody bothered with a few spikes in death cases. Local authorities wrote them off as homicide cases and Caleb saw everything in the news within the comforts of home, not bothering to look deeper into the matter.

That was his first mistake.

A week after the incident of cannibal pets and human-eating pigeons, humans started eating other humans. That was the first real wake up call for humanity. The video of the shocking cannibal who attacked and killed seventeen residents became viral. No longer able to suppress the panic, the government employed the police to quarantine the area of the first infected victim. Not long after, they released a statement claiming that the cannibalism was caused by a strange virus called PXE22. New York City was the first to be locked down within twenty-four hours and the army was deployed.

That was when Caleb started taking action to dig further into what PXE22 was. However, he didn’t think he would be too late. With the situation spiralling out of control as the days passed, Caleb was strapped down on resources that he needed to fight back and learn what the government was trying to hide.

By the time Caleb learned that PXE22 was a secret project about DNA modifications, there were already no traces left and he couldn’t find out who the mastermind was. Facing the dead-end of his investigations, Caleb’s hope dimmed further when more than eighty percent of the city’s population had either fled, were dead or infected. To make matters worse, after suffering severe loses with no signs of being able to win the cannibals that were later dubbed as ‘ghouls’, the government issued their final stand. Survivors who were willing to fight against those monsters were welcomed to sign up as recruits with the army as a ticket out of the hell hole. The other option was for the city to be abandoned and the survivors were left to fend for themselves.

Caleb made his choice. He chose to stay in the city. Many able-bodied citizens signed up with the army to leave the cursed place. Only the young, weak and old were left to fend for themselves in the ghoul-infested place, abandoned to fate. Caleb took advantage of the situation and set up camps for survivors. He also taught them how to build bunkers to defend against ghouls and fight. At the same time, he didn’t keep that knowledge to himself. Other countries and places that were facing the same situation often turned to the internet but nobody was providing practical advice or solutions. Hence, Caleb took it upon himself to create a blog that will educate those who were willing to work hard to survive the apocalypse while the government hid like cowards in military camps, talking big and waving guns without making much progress with finding a cure for the virus or controlling the situation.

Caleb was disgusted with the government but the last straw was when the government announced that it was going to cut power and water supply to major infected cities to save cost and divert those funds into better places like firearm production. Just within a month of the virus, the generators were cut and the city only had limited resources to work with. Caleb struggled. He knew he struggled. The system developer did his best and harvested solar cells or fuel of any kind to modify car engines and act as power generators for his apartment that he converted into a bunker. He continued to update the blog to give survival tips, encouragement and information from the front lines about the ghouls, hoping that someone else out there can find a way to exploit what he knew and turn the situation around.

He just never expected that PXE22 was capable of mutating. Whatever that new type of ghoul was, Caleb knew that mankind wasn’t going to last long. It was stronger, faster and more intelligent than any humans could ever be. Caleb admitted. He wasn’t prepared to take on such a monster. Before he could catch his breath, the creature was already knocking on his front door.

Did he regret anything? Probably. But there was nothing the system developer could do. He was only a single human trying his best to survive in a world full of conceited assholes and cowards. Against an army of monsters and the new type of ghoul with awakened intelligence, he didn’t stand a chance. There wasn’t a vaccine or a cure. There wasn’t enough information about the enemy. His death was only inevitable.

Caleb was tired. He wanted to forget everything and let it all go to waste. He was an atheist so there wasn’t anything waiting for him in the afterlife. It’s a pity Jeremy wasn’t here with him. He could use some company in this lonely space.

“Stand up. Your fight is not over.”

The voice that spoke to Caleb sounded neither male nor female yet it sounded like two voices in one. Startled that somebody could disrupt his peace, Caleb opened his eyes to be greeted by a blinding flash of light.

He couldn’t see who or what was before him but he felt their domineering presence. Caleb wasn’t able to lift his head under the overwhelming pressure but he heard them clearly.

“I’ve seen what you did for humanity. You cannot die just yet. Here, take this gift and use it to save the rest of your kind.”

The system developer had questions but none of them left his lips as a severe wave of nausea hit him. His body fell through a never-ending void, throwing his orientation off course and the light disappeared into a sea of darkness.

Information. Data. Lots of things that Caleb didn’t understand were crammed into his brain in a short period of time causing a great feeling of discomfort. If Caleb was still alive his brain might have literally exploded but in this strange space between life and death, he could only suffer in silence.

There were only a few things he understood from the information overload. Whatever the great being from earlier was, Caleb didn’t know or bothered to find out. However, it had tasked him with the responsibility of saving humanity from extinction with this new power. The power includes a strange kind of technology called the Survival Bunker Builder that can only be activated or utilised after fulfilling certain requirements. The rest of the information was garbage and Caleb didn’t pay much attention to it for now as everything faded into a buzz in the background.

When Caleb came to, he was greeted by the sight of a very familiar digital alarm clock. Everything was in place as it should be but for some reason, he woke up feeling disoriented. This was his studio apartment and he was in bed. Why did it feel as if he was missing something important?

Then, he remembered. He was alive but he should be dead.

“Wha-?”

Jeremy pounced onto his bed and meowed loudly. Caleb stared at his buddy and grabbed the cat in a hug. Jeremy squirmed uncomfortably and yowled but didn’t scratch his owner. The cat didn’t know what was wrong but clearly, the man was distressed and in need of comforting.

Seeing Jeremy again felt unreal but Caleb didn’t have much time to dwell on it. He now understood that he was given a second chance at life. For now, he had to figure out how long he had left to make preparations before that intelligent monster makes its appearance. This time, he was going to make better preparations. Humanity was going to survive.

“Alexa, what’s today’s date?”

“Good morning, Caleb. It’s the 24th of April,” his home system assistant replied.

24th of April. Caleb recalled now. That was about a week before the news reported mysterious deaths and pets killing their owners. Caleb didn’t have to go through the hard route this time. He knew that everything started with that virus and now that he had a week before things started snowballing towards destruction, he might still be able to make it on time to find out who is behind Project PXE22 and stop it. Prevention was always better than cure.

“Come on, Jeremy. Let’s get breakfast,” Caleb smiled, glad that he was able to see the sun rise once more.