Apocalypse: The Savior with System

9 The Sachly Institute

The electric car he repaired can go twice as fast as another of its kind but Paul made it amble in an almost slow crawl, his eyes and ears attuned to their surroundings as they made their way towards the Sachly Institute. As they drew closer, more and more bodies came into view. Rahu’s grip on his knives became tighter.

“What the f**k just happened here?” Rahu asked to no one in particular.

“Zombies, obviously,” said Paul.

Rahu shook his head, and in an unconvinced tone responded, “Next to the Government’s Parliamentary Hall, the Sachly Institute is the most well-guarded building in the entire North American continent. How zombies could have come here to kill off all these people…”

“Well, hopefully not all the people,” muttered Paul. He was worried they were too late, that his only hope of helping Rahu was already dashed. He needed Judith Merkel to be alive.

“I don’t know, man,” Rahu whispered as the gates of Sachly Institute appeared before them.

Paul was about to push down on the accelerator when a zombie hurled itself onto the car. And then another. And another. Soon, the car was covered with screaming, shrieking, rotting zombies, all wanting to get inside to eat him and Rahu.

“Jesus, Paul! Get us out of here!”

“Okay, okay!”

Paul revved the engine and speeded away, dislodging zombies and running over those who were stupid enough to stand in the way. When he got past the open gates, he drove fast until they reached the front entrance. Quickly, he and Rahu got out of the car and ran into the building. More bodies greeted them as they went further, the silence of the building disturbed by the distant sound of zombies.

“Should we split up?” Rahu asked.

“No,” Paul said, opening a door to his right that led to the emergency stairs. “You don’t know what Judith Merkel even looks like and you’re not in good condition. We’ll scour the place and try to avoid zombies as best we could. If we don’t find her, then we leave. Okay?”

Rahu nodded and followed after Paul. They went to each and every floor all the way to the topmost eighth floor and roof deck. But there was no sign of Judith Merkel anywhere, only dead bodies, blood, entrails, and the smell of rotting rancid flesh.

“I don’t think we checked all the rooms yet,” Paul said abruptly before Rahu could urge him to leave. They went back down and upon landing on the third floor, Paul thought he heard something in one of the rooms.

“But we’ve checked the whole floor already,” Rahu argued.

“No, but listen!”

They paused in the middle of a corpse-strewn hallway. Something like the sound of paper being gathered carried over to them from their left. Paul stepped forward and leaned his ear to the wall.

There!

“There’s a hidden room here somewhere behind this wall.” Paul scanned the wall with his hands until his fingers brushed on an almost invisible elevation. He pressed on it and the opaque white wall turned into a transparent glass one through which he could see a figure in a long laboratory gown bent over a long desk, shuffling and dislodging stacks of papers.

“That’s Judith Merkel!” exclaimed Paul. He banged on the glass wall to catch her attention. “Doctor Merkel! Doctor Merkel!”

The body stiffened and turned. A brown-haired and brown-eyed woman gazed at him in stunned silence. Paul continued to bang on the wall, screaming at her to let him in. Suddenly her shocked expression turned into horror and she began flailing her arms and seemed to be screaming right back.

“What? I can’t understand!”

It was not until he spied the reflection of a zombie about to bite onto his neck on the glass wall that he realized what she was motioning to. Paul fell to a crouch on the floor to avoid becoming a zombie snack. He opened his system, accessed the launching pad for his fireballs, and aimed at the zombies coming after him. Right behind him was Rahu, who managed to pick up a gun somewhere, and was now firing onto the zombies.

While Rahu finished the zombies, Paul felt a rush of cool air as the glass wall slid open and out came Judith Merkel.

“Paul Justinos? What are you doing here?”

“Er, how about we do the Q and A later when we’re a lot of miles away from these things?”

“Paul! There’s another wave coming!” Rahu shouted, picking up another rifle from the floor and firing at the incoming zombies. “You take the Doc and get the hell out of here! I’ll cover you!”

“I’m not going to leave you here, Rahu!” Paul shouted back, launching several fireballs at the zombies.

“Level Updated. Thermal Upgrade increased to Level 2. Fireball size duration and increase upgraded,” the system announced out of the blue.

“Okay, great! Nice timing!” Paul huffed, trying the upgraded fireball version on the second wave and easily destroying them. With the floor cleared, Paul urged his companions down to the lobby and to their electric car.

“Rahu, I could have sworn I parked right outside those glass doors,” Paul said anxiously. “Where the hell is the car?!”

“If it was blue and had silver side mirrors, it just got thrashed to the ground,” Judith said grimly.

Paul thought he might have whimpered. He could hear more zombies coming towards them from everywhere.

“Wait! I believe there’s still one vehicle left here,” said Judith, leading them out of the lobby and running across the back lawn to what looked like an airplane hangar.

Unfortunately, the steel doors were thick and heavily locked. Judith did not know where the key was.

“Right. What are level upgrades for, eh?” Paul quipped, launching a single fireball onto the door. Given its size and heat level, it barely burned a bandwidth of a hole. Paul was about to follow it with another fireball but Judith held him back.

“Don’t overdo it,” she warned. “Not now,  at least.”

Paul was not given a chance to ask about her cryptic warning because Rahu decided to blast the hole wider with a two-barrel shotgun he also picked up from inside the institute. With the force of the shots, the hole was wide enough for a human being to crawl into.

“There! The tank!” Judith pointed to what looked like a military tank.

“What the hell is a military-grade battle tank doing in a biomedical research lab?” Paul asked incredulously.

“Question and Answer later, you said,” Judith huffed, stepping forward to help Rahu pull down the asbestos covering. Paul ran to the tank and was about to open it when he saw that the tracks were heavily damaged.

“Really?!” he asked sarcastically.

“We don’t have time to repair this,” Judith snapped, already looking for a way out of the place.

“Actually, he can,” Rahu said nonchalantly. “Not very fast but if he has a few minutes to work unhindered…”

Judith thought for a few seconds. “We really don’t have time but I can give you some,” she said, rummaging in her coat pockets and pulling out a small black canister.

“Something I developed on the side,” she explained vaguely, shaking the can vigorously then throwing it out of the hole they entered from. Immediately upon touching the ground outside, thick gray smoke puffed out of the can, enveloping the hangar.

“The smoke bomb can distract and confuse the Phase Fives for ten minutes. Better start fixing those tracks now, Captain.”

“Yes, ma’am!” Paul said with a one-hand salute and quickly set to work on the tracks. True to Rahu’s words, Paul was able to repair the tank’s tracks in less than nine minutes.

“Come on! Everyone inside!”  All three clambered up the tank as the smoke completely dispersed and the zombies waiting outside finally found the hole and began crawling in.

Paul opened the hatch, helping Judith in first then Rahu. He entered the hull basket, taking control. Rahu set himself to operate the gun while Judith sat behind them. The space was cramped but still safer there than outside.

“Are we ready to get out of here?” Judith asked.

Rahu grunted.

“Consensus has been reached, then,” Paul said excitedly, operating the tank’s controls from memory.

“Clear the road for me, will yah, my friend?”

Rahu grunted again, eyes on the periscope and hands-on the gun control.

Paul started the tank’s engine and then they were off.