Apocalypse: The Savior with System

3 How Paul Became Infected

Three years ago

“That was quite the trick you pulled there.”

Paul grinned at his partner, Eric Mayer, through his goggles. “I know.”

Eric rolled his eyes and flipped up his visor. “Paul, you can’t be doing stuff like that all the time,” warned Eric, as they began to pull out of their most recent battle with the zombies in Pakistan.

“Well, I wouldn’t be doing it if somebody else was going to do it anyway,” Paul argued, pulling Eric out of the way of a passing military tank.

“See? You’re always trying to save everybody!” Eric shrugged off Paul’s hand on his arm. Paul raised an eyebrow.

“What’s with the hormones, Eric?”

By now they were behind a bombed out building, which could have been a house before the interim government’s combined military force descended upon Pakistan. Shielded from prying eyes, Paul in all seriousness asked Eric, “Man, what’s got you in a snit? Okay! Maybe I shouldn’t have dived into that crowd of Phase Fives but there was no choice, the detonating device was right there under their feet. And if I hadn’t gone down there, you wouldn’t have been able to connect your system digitally to the bomb and we’d all be overrun by the zombies. I trusted you to set that connection right and I trusted that you trusted me back, too. C’mon, Eric!”

He caught Eric looking at him, with an expression that meant he was about to say something. Only this time, Eric did not and looked away. If his eyes weren’t deceiving him with the heat and smog from the battle, he could say Eric was acting very very weirdly.

“Spit it out, Eric,” Paul said coldly. “You’ve been like this since last week and I’ve been patient and nice even when you’ve been such an ass. Look, man, I don’t need this right now and nobody needs this right now. If you won’t tell me as your friend and partner, then you will tell me as my subordinate. What should you be telling me now?”

It took Eric a few seconds of looking this way and that, obviously unwilling to say anything but perhaps friendship won in the end.

“Paul, when was the last time you talked to Amita?”

Amita was Paul’s wife of four years, a Pakistani-American who had come with him to her parents’ homeland to aid in the war effort against the zombies infecting and causing death in the region. And while in Pakistan, she had given birth to their little boy, Allan.

“Two weeks ago. Why?” Eric asking about his wife struck Paul as strange and quite unrelated to their current conversation. Unless…

“Eric, why the hell are you asking about my wife?”

When Eric would still not say anything, Paul grabbed Eric by the front of his battle gear and slammed him against the building wall. By that time, several other soldiers had witnessed the event and came rushing over.

“Captain Justinos,” one of them began but Paul was not listening.

“Mayer, you better open your mouth or I swear—“

“She’s at the facility!”

“Of course she’s at the facility! She works there!” Paul growled.

“Paul, she’s in the other facility,” Eric whispered brokenly. “I-I o-only knew last w-week but I was not even sure, I just happened to intercept a c-coded m-message of the newly infected with the new strain because those digitized tattoos do end up in our d-database here  a-and there are so many A-Amitas here in Pakistan, it’s such a c-common name…” Eric trailed off.

Paul felt his body go numb and without thinking, punched Eric straight on. The other soldiers latched on to Paul, trying to get him away from Eric. “You knew since last week and you didn’t tell me?! And my boy, Allan?! Where is he?!”

Eric whimpered, blood gushing from his nose. “They’re together—no! Paul, wait!” Paul pushed Eric and the soldiers holding on to him away and ran towards where the military jeeps were parked.

“You can’t take them! They won’t let you back in there! Paul!” Eric yelled but to no avail. Paul only knew he had to get back to Ormara, the place close to the Arabian Sea where recent research on the effect of saltwater on zombies was being done. It was also the place where Phases 4 to 5 of the sufferers were brought. The other facility.

For extermination.

After that day, he never saw Eric Mayer again and thought he couldn’t give a damn if he never saw the man again.

~~~~~

Until today.

“Why, of all the places—“ Paul began to say just as the guards prevented Eric from coming any closer to him. They did, thankfully, maneuver him to stand and at least face his old friend…if that was what they still considered each other after the events of three years ago.

“Long time no see, Paul,” Eric said, a sad smile on his face.

“Yeah, long time no see, Eric,” Paul said back. He saw that nothing much changed with Eric. He was still the same bespectacled guy he knew, a little given to pudginess under the chin, and still sporting the buzzcut the Marines employed.

“You must be dying to know why I’m here and why I look like a zombie but I’m not. I just need to clean up and maybe a place to stay for the night,” Paul said. “And then at first light, I’m leaving for Dallas. That’s where I was supposed to be headed and it’s all in my identification card which I inconveniently lost.”

“No, you don’t look like a zombie and you don’t look infected at all, to be honest,” said Eric. Turning to the guard with the scanner, he asked, “Could we not let him in, sir? He doesn’t look infected.”

“Apologies, sir, but the scanner tells us otherwise,” was the response he got. For a few more minutes Eric talked and argued with the two main guards, even offered to recheck the entire database but he could not convince them.

“Ben, hey, man,” Paul interrupted another round of arguing. “It’s okay. I understand. I’ll just see what I can find around here. I really am infected and I don’t want to spread it to anyone else. I’ll be fine.”

The two friends stared at each other for a long while until Eric said, “The safe zone is bordered by the river to the east. Just follow the river and you’ll probably see some shelter and food. If you’re going to Dallas, follow the river south and you’ll eventually get there.”

Paul nodded. “Okay, man. Thanks.”

With a salute, Paul smiled at his friend, turned, and walked away.

“I hope we see each other again, Paul!” Eric called out to him. Paul waved back.

If Eric had to be infected to do that, he’d rather they never meet again, thought Paul.

The night was getting deeper and unable to find the river or even shelter, Paul climbed up a tree—zombies could not climb, their rotten state prevented them from using that human skill—and just slept.

The following morning, he was awake, hungry, smellier, and still walking.

His growling stomach told him he needed to find food first and he agreed. He could not think straight when he was hungry. The system also told him he needed to go up the mountain and take up solar energy. He could pick up some wild berries and bask in the sunlight while he’s at it, hitting two birds with one stone.

The sun bore down on the state of Texas relentlessly, allowing Paul to take up a lot of solar energy in a short period of time. It was slow since it was not nuclear energy, but he was fine with it for the moment. The good thing about safe zones is that the zones almost always include the natural resources close to the actual holding area for humans. These places were also protected. That meant he would have no trouble finding resources and at the same time, be safe from zombies.

Finally, after a few more hours, he heard the sound of rushing water. With a laugh, Paul sprinted towards the sound and found the river, half-hidden behind a row of large old trees.

Water! Blessed, blessed water!

Paul shucked off his outer clothes and dove into the water, coming up for air, laughing, and scrubbing himself clean. There was no soap but he was not going to complain. He also took mouthfuls and gulped, quenching the thirst he had been ignoring for days. Once satisfied with his hygiene, Paul hitched a leg on a tree root and floated in place, letting the sun warm him. He smiled and wondered if they even had swimming pools inside the safe zones. They may have soap but they might not have this freedom.

The river was not a powerful one so he took the risk of letting the tree root go and float a little downstream. He was so lost in his own thoughts that he did not notice something blocking his way until it did.

And it felt so much like flesh. Human flesh.

Paul scrambled and flailed in the water, trying to get to a safe and standing position. Wiping the water from his eyes, he finally saw what it was.

A human body, half-submerged in the moving water and bleeding to death.

He approached slowly, not caring that he had any clothes on. The body belonged to a very large man, larger than him, and whose body was riddled with gunshot wounds from where the blood seeped. The man looked dead already and Paul decided it was best to just leave him.

He turned away. Made a few steps, even, when he heard it. He did not see it move. All he saw was the river foam, weeds, and a tangle of limbs as a great weight tackled him from behind and dragged him under the water.

The water soon began to turn red.