After walking in mostly silence (to be precise – I was silent) for around six hours, we had a clear view of our destination.

  We stopped walking when we reached a vantage point from where we could see the base.

  “The forward base seems a bit small for a 15-person raid,” someone said.

  “Don’t let it fool you – half is underground. I’d like us to be home before nightfall, so after you clear the ground, two teams should go check the buildings to clear them, whereas the other three will go down. Any candidates for the underground area?”

  Silence followed after he spoke.

  And there was no wonder why – lower visibility in such close quarters could mean one would die before they knew it, even if the person was wary.

  “Then the teams will be decided by a lot. Every team should decide on one foreman to draw from the sticks in my hand,” he said, took a random branch from the ground and broke it into smaller sticks.

  “Who’ll be drawing for us?” Lily asked.

  And the gaze of my teammates fell on me.

  I could not disagree when two girls were looking at me, could I?

  I had to look docile and harmless for the time being and who drew mattered little.

  It seemed like I was the first to be forced to draw. The other teams discussed it among themselves. It felt like they thought this was an important decision.

  Did girls make decisions fast or was I targeted beforehand?

  Even the officer commented on that when I was in front of him.

  “You came faster than I thought. Draw your lot.”

  As long as I drew anything but the middle stick, things might have been fine.

  But with my luck, I would probably draw the middle one.

  Here goes nothing!

  My draw was… hard to say.

  “Also… for making me come here personally, I’ve prepared you a gift,” he whispered, only for me to hear.

  Welp, he did know I killed them. Anyway, it seemed like I was going underground then.

  I dejectedly walked back to my teammates. The draw was rigged from the start. It was just for him to have an excuse.

  Soon, every team had drawn their lot.

  The results were as follows: I drew the biggest stick, the team with Roosevelt got the shortest one and I did not care about the others.

  Some of Mary’s teammates from the other team seemed restless, but calmed down when they saw my draw. I wondered why. Did they think that a little stick meant certain doom? If yes, why were they happy?

  “The teams with the …”

  He made an eerie stop for things to become dramatic or to be precise – to look at our sticks.

  “… biggest three sticks will go down.”

  “WHAT!” half of the people exclaimed while others gave sighs of relief as if they had just encountered Death itself.

  “What do you mean by that? Why’ll the teams with the bigger sticks go down?”

  “I don’t remember saying which sticks are for under- or overground, have I?”

  With that, there were no more words we could think of to protest. The option of giving up existed, but we got this far. It was also ill-advised to get on the bad side of the authorities.

  “Now go, there isn’t much time. If you aren’t back after two hours, we’ll consider you killed in action and be on our way with the survivors,” he continued to pour salt.

  I bet most of us were thinking something of the line ‘What a dick!’. I would have if I had not known why he did so. I was not happy, but understood.

  The base was to the west of us. It had a square perimeter and a pointed wooden wall with a height of around two point five metres. The south side of the base had sustained no structural damage, but parts of the northeastern side were destroyed.

  Barbed wire was around the wall, while the entrance had nothing to stop our entry.

  There were four four-metre wooden watchtowers at each end of the base.

  A few types of scavenger birds could be seen on the watchtowers and the wall. They were waiting patiently for their turn on the leftovers.

  The first creatures to notice us were the said birds, but they posed no threat to us.

  Around the entrance, a few zombies were motionless or were lying on the ground. Two were feasting on a corpse.

  The officer assembled the teams that were going underground.

  “The underground is composed of four floors. There were five entrances, but I have no information on how many are usable now. Each of your teams’ members will get a flashlight, some flares and other useful trinkets. Good luck.”

  We went to take them from his guards while the other two teams got their instructions.

  I got what he told us we would, a pair of batteries and a gas mask with two spare filters.

  Gas masks? I hate those things. They fucked up my entire kit when I had to use full set. I could not deny their helpfulness in the very few situations where I needed one, but most of the times I had it, it was an annoying decoration.

  My pouch set had room for improvement. I had no grenade pouches or one for a gas mask.

  At least the mask was given with a pouch for it. Now the annoying part – where to wear it? On my back? On my pistol side? Or on my knife side? If I knew there would be one, I would have rearranged my set beforehand.

  After opening the pouch and checking the gas mask, I decided where to wear it.

  I had it on my left side, my knife under it. I thought it would have been the least annoying there.

  Most of the other people found random places to wear them. Some had to rearrange their sets, screwing them over, some had it on their back, while others were still contemplating.

  The rest of the trinkets I put in the few empty pockets I had. My teammates decided to have the mask on their backs. They helped each other with that.

  After everything was distributed and we were ready, the officer spoke.

  “I repeat once again – you have two hours and if I’m feeling like it, maybe an additional half an hour. The mission officially begins now.”

  I intended to be done by the set time frame of two hours, but if things went wrong, I would keep it in mind.

  We started to head into the entrance. It was located on the north side of the base. The zombies had yet to notice us.

  We could have engaged from afar, but we lacked both the skills and weaponry for an accurate long-range first strike.

  Judging by the bones, skulls, flesh and the eating ones I saw around the entrance, I could tell that they had “food” recently.

  However, some exposed bones could be seen through their torn and rotting skins. Some had clothes on, others barely had anything to cover themselves with. Not that it mattered for them.

  The closer we got, the stronger the stench of rot became. The sickening smell hit my nostrils, but it was not new to me.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Voyaging in the sea breeze and walking in the clear air in the wilderness for a few days made me forget their smell. I would get used to it fast.

  Flies were flying around the leftovers, some even on the stationary Walkers.

  The ‘Walker’ was pretty weak and could be dealt with most of the time with bare hands.

  Still, if they were slightly “fed”, they were stronger than ordinary humans, but if they starved for a prolonged time, they would die.

  As the weakest of the undead, there are numerous ways to kill them.

  The simplest ones are by destroying the head, beheading them or having them lose around 65% of their rotten blood.

  Their look is… let’s say if it was the first time someone saw one, especially if it had “starved” for a while, they might show what they had eaten recently.

  They have necrosis, their eyes have red spots, the skin can change colour to an extent, their clothes could be melted with their skin, it is not rare for them to have wounds and the face and mouth are often disfigured.

  The people here did not seem that distressed by what they were seeing.

  Overall, killing a Walker was slightly harder than killing the average human.

  Their strength was in their big numbers. As the most common type of zombie, it is common to see hordes of them.

  The smallest ones consist of around hundreds; the biggest – they are millions!

  Nowadays, hordes with such numbers were a rare sight.

  The bigger a horde is, the more zombies are left on its path.

  The horde's mechanics and actions are more complicated, but I hoped we would be dealing with a leftover of a horde, as there are only a few numbers left of them or at worst – almost annihilated one.

  On our side, the weapons we used vary a lot.

  From AK-47s, like mine, to shotguns, M16s and other firearms and melee weapons.

  None of us had the well-maintained equipment of our employer.

  The few times when they had to deal with threats along the way, the firearms they were using were FX-05 Xiuh… Fire Serpent or something resembling.

  It was hard to get such arms even for “mercenaries”. They were sold at a ridiculous price.

  While we were closing in, some had already aimed their weapons, others continued to walk calmly, whereas the third did not think that those half-dead undead were worth using ammo for and they had their long melee weapons in their arms.

  This would cost them their lives at some point.

  Killing 10 was easy. If one was used to melee, maybe 100, but unlike humans, those things had no sense of self-preservation and felt no pain.

  Most “mercenaries” ironically die to this common zombie. There is a joke that they “filter” the “mercenary” population. They are both the weakest and deadliest zombies.

  I did have experience with firearms, but I preferred to close the distance to less than 50 metres before opening fire on a small batch of them.

  Some of the people decided to open fire at around 80 metres. I was not going to waste ammo, so I continued to close the distance. My teammates followed half a meter behind me.

  Thanks to the trigger-happy bunch, the zombies noticed us. They roared and started to walk in our direction, but their sluggish speed allowed us to take our time. Most of the zombies lying on the ground got up.

  I had to admit that the ones shooting hit half their shots, but unless they hit the head or another important organ, they did little.

  When I was certain I would hit, I aimed and opened fire. Although I was fully stocked, I picked my shots.

  When the red dot was on one of their heads, I shot. My target fell on the ground. It took me a few seconds to aim and shoot, but every time I pulled the trigger, one of the creatures died.

  More were coming from inside the base, but no matter how many of them there were, the 15 of us should have no problems.

  Even the ones with the melee weapons sliced them with no problem.

  Some zombies had holes in their heads, others lacked the said part, the next were on top of a lake of their blood and the last were sliced in half.

  We got through them quite easily and were near the entrance. We were about to enter, but soon we realised that the inside was no better.

  On our side, those who used their guns showed no fatigue, but those who did not showed, even if a little, tiredness.

  My team was the former, which delighted me. Yes, girls were more agile and could go wilder than men in a fight and have the advantage with their sharp nails, but that should be their last resort. Even I knew that making a woman’s nails into such a weapon took effort and time.

  The first to enter was our close-range infantry. I noticed that they got stunned for a second.

  The inside of the base was anything but pleasant. What we had killed before entering was around one-tenth of what was left. They were coming from all sides.

  Even the ones using their brawn had to pull out their pistol.

  There were numerous rotting corpses with dried puddles of blood where they stood and uneaten bones and skulls.

  The entire place smelled like rot and the recently spilt blood added a metallic flavour. That combination was something normal people would find nightmarish, but it was the daily experience for the average “mercenary” fighting zombies.

  Until we entered, there was no need for any talking, but the inside changed that.

  I took charge by shouting orders.

  “Form a half cycle around the entrance! Keep this formation until we reduce their numbers!”

  They followed me and we did exactly that. Occasionally, I turned around for a second or two. Getting flanked was the last thing we needed.

  When most of the zombies were taken care of, each team decided on their approach to mop up the skirmish.

  The interactions between the teams happened in various ways.

  The most common two were by speaking or with hand gestures.

  Since some, for me – all, of us here were just strangers until yesterday, a lot of yelling was happening.

  “Left side. 20 Walkers!”, “In front, in front!”, “Reloading! Cover me!”, “HAHAHA! DIE, YOU BASTARDS, DIE!” and so on.

  “Is that normal?” Mary asked while shooting sparingly.

  I assumed she asked about the one who went berserk and was slashing with a machete.

  Since the fight was mostly over, I took notice of my teammate’s skills.

  Mary aimed her shots. At times, she overdid it a bit too much, but hitting four out of five shots was decent, as her target was their heads.

  On the other hand, I take off my hat to Lily. She was skilled with the gun. Her accuracy and fire rate were better than mine. Her weapon did not have half of my modifications, yet she was doing better than me.

  Yes, I was not giving my all, but it was noteworthy.

  Both of their weapons were something from the M series. M16 maybe? The only attachment they had was the vertical hand grip.

  Overall, both were doing fine. I was content with them. There was no need to waste a lot of ammo on the Walkers – one shot was good enough.

  Mary was looking at me for my answer to her earlier question.

  “It varies. The thing I can tell you is that they will not survive long,” I replied.

  “Henry, get back! You are going too deep!” someone shouted to him.

  “It’s fine! Just follow my lead!”

  He decided to ignore his compatriots’ advice and, surprise, surprise, he got slowly but surely overrun.

  “AH! Bastard bit me! Come here!”

  That was his last chance to realise his overconfidence and retreat, but he did not.

  Three minutes later. No, it wasn’t even that long before he went even deeper in, the zombies circling him.

  His team tried their best to help him, but by the time any of us who might have wanted to help him realised the danger, it was too late.

  The only words that could be heard from him were screams and in a bit more – silence.

  One of us died, fourteen to go. Underestimating the zombies would cost gravely.

  Saving him was not out of the question, but I saw no reason to do so. I neither knew him, nor cared nor found such a troublemaker to be of use.

  I have seen people dying. I have killed people. What one more corpse before me did?

  But that was my way of thinking – not all thought the same. It seemed like the princess in my team, Mary, did not like how he died and was frozen in place.

  In those cases, I knew two solutions – do nothing and let them be food, maybe enjoy it if one was into that (some do that, but I would rather use them in other ways) or snap them out of it.

  “Hey, girly, snap out of it!”

  Did not work.

  Oh well, time for plan “S”.

  ‘Slap’.

  I gave her a light slap. She staggered a bit and looked at me.

  “Snap the hell out of it if you don’t want to die like him!”

  As I was giving her my “motivational” speech, I saw that her cheek was red. She had her hand on it.

  I hit her only lightly! It should not be that red! At least she was not crying, right?

  As I was reconsidering what a strong and what a light attack was, a Runner sneaked up on me.

  The unexpected attack threw me to the ground. It was as if I got charged by a rugby player. I fell on my right side and dropped my weapon on the ground.

  I had to parry it by the neck with my forearm as drops of its saliva fell on my clothes near my shoulder. I could see its teeth closing in on my neck! It wanted to end me in one bite!

  I either had to overpower it and push it back or get a weapon with my other hand. That was what the average “mercenary” should do.

  I got careless. I thought the zombies I had to face now posed no threat towards me. I could have overpowered it, but I assumed an average “mercenary” should try to get it off with a gadget.

  As I tried getting my pistol, the goddess Mary managed to get over her fear and kicked the Runner before it did any biting on me and shot it once.

  “Look who’s frozen now,” she said somewhat playfully to mock me, but then asked, concerned.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, thanks to you.”

  She stretched her hand to help me. I accepted it.

  The one that ambushed me was recently turned. Its body had no rotting skin and the clothes were there.

  “Hey, two idiots! I stopped watching you for a bit and one becomes paralysed and the other almost dies! What’s with you?!” Lily scolded us.

  Well, it was a deserved scolding. Therefore, I could not retort.

  I could take my dissatisfaction with the other Runners that were running in our direction. They were similar to the previous one – in military uniforms, but neither wore armor vests nor helmets.

  Hitting the slow Walkers was simple, but the faster Runners were a bit harder than them. Their predictable movements made them an easy pick from range, but if they got close enough, they were a bigger threat than the Walkers.

  The ‘Runner’ is a well-fed Walker. It might be said that a Walker was what a starved Runner looked like. If a Walker were to feed well for a while, they would recover their strength and ability to run.

  They look better than the Walkers. Their skin colour has minor changes, the eyes have red spots, while the necrosis is affecting fewer places and their muscles are better developed. Their blood also has a darker hue.

  They look a bit rotten, but compared to a starving Walker, they are lookable.

  If a person were turned into a Runner not long ago, they would lack most of the above-described problems affecting their skin. After starving for a while, they lose the ability to run, their muscles weaken and they degrade into a Walker.

  They are thrice as dangerous, run fast and use at least 50% of their muscle, whereas the Walkers use between 30 and 50%.

  They share the same weaknesses as normal humans, but are resilient, even more so than the Walkers.

  Like the Walkers, they are the backbone of any horde. Both of them travel in groups.

  At the beginning of the infection, 99% of the zombies were Runners.

  They held the highest kill count. Back then, when humanity struggled to cope with their sudden appearance, civilians mostly knew how to run.

  This was a mistake. They were faster than a normal human.

  With the abundance of “food” for them back then, it took years for the degraded Walkers to emerge.

  The group of Runners before me became the prime target for all near it. Some even temporarily stopped engaging with their adversaries to target the bigger threat.

  With ten people focusing fire, the Runners stood no chance.

  There were no other major incidents until we cleared the ground area.