Apocalypse: The Savior with System

2 Old Friends

Something or someone was talking to him.

Rather, it seemed to be coming from inside his head, as Paul slowly opened his eyes. Gritty, his lids felt glued shut but he forced them open, vision adapting quickly to the gloom. The voice was relentless; it continued speaking to him, ordering him to do something his newly-awakened mind could not yet understand.

His body felt heavy, too. Then, it registered to him that he was not exactly heavy but that something heavy was on top of him, preventing him from moving. From the crick in his neck and the dull pain on his right side, he assumed he had been lying sideways. Memory quickly returned and he remembered the zombies entering the railcar.

Paul struggled and mustered enough strength to push against the heavy body on top of him. His efforts managed to dislodge the body, which, to his horror, belonged to Ricky.

Ricky, who was now dead, and missing an arm. Right beside him was the young lady, half of whose face was also now gone.

Fighting the urge to vomit, Paul clenched his lids shut and pushed harder, completely extricating himself from the mountain of bodies that had somehow all ended up on top of him. He crawled slowly sideways, managing to find a small space between the wall and the corpses. As he moved, the bodies crashed down, burying Ricky and the young lady.

Whatever was left of Ricky’s body, his right hand, Paul grasped for several moments in gratitude and regret. Obviously, Ricky and the lady had tried to shield him.

And there it was again…that smell.

Which only meant that there were still zombies around, looking for fresh meat and blood.

And by the looks of it, those only belonged to him now.

Paul peered over the corpses and saw two zombies sniffing the air, finally honing in on his location. He knew there was no way out but the door through which the zombies had entered. Unfortunately, he would have to get past the two bastards before he could make his escape.

He listened again to the voice talking to him, realizing it was something named system instructing him on what to do. It told him the only way to survive was to release fireball and kill the zombies.

But how? He was mildly panicked. He was a soldier, not a mage. He couldn’t release fireball by simple gesture and mimicry. That could only happen in fiction.

The system only kept sounding the alarm in his head and the two zombies were almost on him.

“Well, here goes nothing,” Paul muttered, jumping as high as he could despite his height, the barrier of corpses, and the low ceiling of the railcar. If there were no miracle, he would absolutely die.

He prayed and listened to the answered.

Fire danced in his hand.

He released two fireballs, one after the other, using his Marines training and mission expertise to hit the zombies directly, one fireball into each.

To his surprise, the zombies burst into flame, screeching and clawing at the flames as they died a slow and very painful death. They were people once, too, who already died a horrible death before becoming what they are now Paul knew. What a sorry way to die in such pain twice.

Accepting that there was no chance of him being able to get Ricky and the girl’s bodies out from under all those corpses, Paul reluctantly left them and crawled his way out of the railcar, following the light coming from the open doorway. Once out, he was able to inhale his first breath of fresh air…or as fresh as the world could provide, given the number of dead bodies—sufferers, hazmats, guards, and zombies alike—strewn on the ground. The hazmats and guards put up a fight but lost it anyway. Half of the train teetered sideways, derailed most likely by the zombies.

Poised and ready to fire should any other surviving zombies come out, Paul went to each and every railcar, calling out for anyone, for survivors. However, no one answered.

I am the only one left of five hundred sufferers, then, Paul realized with dismay. He was about to leave when something held him back. It was more of a thought, really, or maybe a feeling. He wondered about Ricky and the girl, and the few children he saw in the other railcars. They were dead, yes. But the new strain can now reanimate the dead.

Ricky, the girl, those children…they could all become zombies by tomorrow, a mockery of humanity. He was not willing to make them suffer that indignity at all.

So he made a decision. He went to the fuel reserve and found several gallons of gasoline. He made quick work of the substance, drenching all the railcars, its contents, and the bodies strewn outside on the ground. Satisfied, he activated the system and released a fireball into each railcar. Once the entire train caught fire, immolating even the bodies outside, Paul stepped back.

Goodbye, Ricky, and young miss, he said in his mind.

With one last look around, he walked away from the scene of c*****e, checking with his navigation system. Since becoming infected, his navigation system was off most of the time but he expected it could still give him at least a rough estimate of where he was. His journey from the quarantine facility in Los Angeles required three stops and three train changes. He ascertained he might be somewhere in the south now but if he was even inside the state of Texas, he could not be sure.

Tapping repeatedly on the system, he was told he was within the state of Texas and that a safe zone—a government-run facility where he could find shelter, food, and hopefully a bath—was several miles away. He sighed with relief and hoped that the several miles the navigation system told him was really just several miles and not, maybe, a thousand.

Surprisingly, not even an hour of walking exhausted him. Paul wondered about this. Infected people usually became weaker with time and developed a myriad of symptoms, getting worse and harder to cure. He, instead, felt more alive and agile. Even his system, which had been a bit of a mess a year ago, seemed to be recovering bit by bit, even if slow.

It could just be adrenaline, too, after that encounter with the zombies. He was not that afraid of them in an open field but to be trapped inside a closed space with them was another thing entirely.

He checked with his navigation system again and it told him there was a road up ahead, which led to the safe zone. Soon, he came to that road, thankful that it was not deserted. But when he tried hailing a ride, no one even slowed down. He flapped his arms for many minutes and was close to giving up when one car slowed down. Thinking it was going to stop, Paul edged closer to the curb only to be disappointed when the car zoomed away.

The few seconds he was close to the passenger window gave him the explanation he needed. His reflection told him why nobody wanted to stop.

Drenched in blood, grime, dust, and various bits of stuff he did not want to think about, he must have looked like a zombie to them.

“I really need that bath,” he murmured, shaking his head.

For that, he really was going to have to walk the whole way.

At least there’s a road I can follow, he thought positively.

As he began walking along the side of the road, the system spoke again out of the blue.

“Thermal Power at Level One. Conversion Level One. To upgrade, increase temperature. To upgrade Thermal Power, increase Energy Conversion. Uptake of large energy resources required. The current Energy Level is suboptimal. You have four Level One fireball left.”

Paul grunted. Level One? Large energy source required, huh?

Nuclear energy would have to be the best large energy source but that was something only the government could provide. From what he knew, the furnaces are being operated via nuclear energy and those were too far from his location. Stores of nuclear energy could also be found in government-run laboratories but where they were exactly relative to his location, he did not know.

He looked up at the setting sun and thought there was still a bit of solar energy left for him to absorb in the meantime. And given that the safe zone was up ahead a road with freely-passing vehicles, the chances of encountering a horde of zombies were low.

Finally, after a few more hours with the moon already up, Paul saw the side road diverting from the main one and curving towards the safe zone. Gladly, he walked into the area secluded from the world by tall walls, the metal gates looking to him like the ones leading to heaven.

He managed to reach the gate unharmed where two armed guards in hazmat suits blocked his way in.

“Identify yourself,” one guard ordered.

“Paul Justinos, sir.”

“Identification Card, please.”

Paul patted himself and searched all his pockets. There was no identification card.

“Er, I seemed to have lost mine during a series of bad events,” he said apologetically, gesturing to his dirty state.

The other guard took out a scanner and told him to put his index finger on it. The device lighted up, showed his name, and in big bold red letters across his passport picture proclaimed him “INFECTED”.

Before Paul could even get a word out, sirens blared from the gates and he was tackled to the ground, the guards aiming their guns at him.

“But, I’m only leve—“

“Stay down!” the guard yelled.

“Hey! I deserve some respect! I’m a former Mari—“

“I said stay down!”

“Look, sir, I don’t even have to go inside inside the compound, okay? Just tell me where I can take a bath and if there are any spare clothes—“

That got him a smack to the face with the butt of the guard’s rifle.

Paul rolled his eyes, threw his hands up in the air in frustration and flopped face down on the ground, bringing his nose closer to his reeking body odor. He was certainly already in the position to pass out from the smell. He really needed to be soaped…badly.

Could this day get any worse?!

“Wait! Officer, wait!” a male voice yelled from behind the gates. Lying face down on the ground, Paul could not see who it belonged to. “Open the gate! I know him! Please, Officer!”

The sound of metal rubbing on metal screamed as loud as the sirens and soon a shadow fell over him.

“Paul Justinos?”

For a moment Paul thought he must be having delusions of Ricky but the face was not right. This one was healthier and younger. It was a face he knew very well.

“Eric? Eric?!”