Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

As soon as Dong exclaimed, Jared's head snapped in Oscar's direction. He had a hint of worry and confusion on his face and the rest of the guys were thinking the same thing he was thinking. However, Oscar clarified the situation for them.

"No, it's not what you guys think. Look at his arm near the elbow, see the hole? He must've been using psychedelics and he probably overdosed then turned after. I've seen a lot of those holes to know what would happen next." Oscar explained.

"It's also probably the same case with the guy in the airport, the one you killed that had a white substance on his clothes." I added.

"But how did the zombies reach here? I stayed on guard duty too, why did a few come from the left side?" Mark inquired.

"Some could have slipped by when we were eating breakfast since no one was at the barn earlier. We need to check the cameras to confirm that but that's the logical answer. Also, we need to start on our plan as soon as possible." I replied then everyone nodded.

We then hauled the bodies to a pedicab and drove carefully to the left side of the road. We started to burn the bodies on a street corner after piling them on top of one another. The streets were empty and aside from us, I could see a few heads from the windows of some houses. However, no one from their side seemed to be interested in striking up a conversation.

The bodies were starting to get burned to a crisp as the fire continued to consume them. We made sure to turn them to complete carbon so there would be no issue of their remnant fluids spreading elsewhere. The heads we saw watching earlier were now gone and we were left alone, watching dead bodies turn into cinders.

After a few minutes, we went back to the compound but there was an argument happening. It was between Jo and Manilyn and their child, Cleo, seemed to be taken elsewhere by Jo's mother, Nora. Everyone watching them was giving looks of surprise and confusion and it seemed that the argument just started.

"You need to calm down, everything is gonna be fine." Jo calmly said.

"How?! Tell me! Don't you even care about our girl?! She's 5!" Manilyn bellowed.

"I'm her father! Do you think I don't?! I'm doing my best here aren't I?!" Jo turned to her with a disapproving look.

"Do you know what she told me this morning?! She told me, 'Mommy, are we gonna die?' D'you have any idea how that felt like as her mother?! I can't even answer her!" Manilyn continued to cry out as tears started to fall on her face.

Everyone was silent.

Manilyn stormed off to their room while Jo followed her after giving out a long sigh. I was about to follow them but Aunt Sharon held my shoulder.

"Give them space, for now. I'll talk to them later." Aunt Sharon said.

A few of the people in the group had somber expressions especially the parents. It was a shitty feeling knowing that your child's future would be extremely different from what you've hoped it to be for them. However, I decided to let my Aunt Sharon handle it because she understands the challenge of being a parent more than I do.

"We're going to get through this you know..." everyone heard a small voice.

As we looked for the source it was from Aya.

"We got everyone here, right?" Aya continued with an expression that she firmly believes what she said.

It didn't take long before the gloomy expressions turned to lighter ones. Aunt Sharon hugged her then Aya walked towards me with her hands raised. The group was looking at me but I was also confused by what she was implying.

"What? I didn't pay you to say that." I said flatly as the group almost lost their footing.

"What? No, where's my peanut nips? I almost forgot to ask you." Aya said as she adjusted her glasses.

"Oh! I remember telling you that they were called 'Trailmix', right? Did you forget?" I replied, smiling.

"Hmm? Oh, right, right. I'll remember what you say from now on, I promise!" Aya exclaimed, smiling brightly.

I couldn't help but snort as I laughed at her response. Kaley couldn't help but smile as well because she remembered the short story about the bag of Trailmix I bought. After a few moments, Aya followed me to my house so she could get her little present while Unc Zeidrick and the others started to work on our building project.

As I opened the door to my room, Zeus zoomed past us and he started to make a mess of the blankets on my bed. He was snuggly covering himself with it but he jumped down when I brought out a bag of Trailmix for Aya.

"Don't eat them all in one sitting, okay?" I reminded her.

"Okay! Oh, what is that again? You call those samurais, right?" Aya asked as she pointed to a rack near my bed on top of a small cabinet with three blades placed horizontally.

"No, a samurai is the person who uses them. Okay, let me give you a brief lesson. This here is a katana, this shorter one is a wakizashi, and this last one that looks like a small knife is called a tanto, got it?" I said as I pointed to each one of them.

They only had subtle decorations compared to ceremonial ones but it looked slick the way the little engravings were placed. It wouldn't catch as much attention from afar but you'd notice how fine the craftsmanship was the moment you take a closer look.

The colors were mostly black aside from the habaki(ferrule), the seppas(spacers), the menuki(ornament), and the kashira(pommel) respectively because they were made with an alloy that looked similar to copper mixed with brass.

The tsuba(handguard), on the other hand, was dark-grayish in color and it looked like the tattoo on my arm. The saya(scabbard) had the same design but you'd have to take a closer look at it as I mentioned earlier.

"Got it! Oh, but where is the other one?" Aya replied as she pointed to the top-most part of the rack.

It had a groove where one more blade, which was much longer, could be placed down.

"Yeah, that's where you put a tachi, it's much longer than this katana here. It's this long~" I replied as I motioned with my hands going apart, farther and farther.

Aya was looking curiously but I gave her a light push on the forehead with one of my hands when it reached her. She started laughing when she almost bumped into Zeus but I never told her where the tachi was.

Aya started to ask more questions but after that, I took the wakizashi from the rack. I secured it to the back of my hips horizontally while the handle was located on my left-hand side.

When we went down, Aya carried the bag with both of her hands while Zeus was just happily circling around us. Lois saw us come down and he smiled when he saw the wakizashi on the back of my hip.

"Hey~ you finally brought the katana." Lois commented.

"Wakizashi." Aya said, looking at her brother weirdly.

As soon as Aya interjected, I couldn't help but chuckle at Lois' reaction. It was equal parts confusion and adoration because he just realized he was wrong and Aya actually knew the correct term.

After that, I asked Rin for a clipboard with everyone's names to assign tasks. Before I started, Arnel came up to me with his two kids though his little daughter was with his wife.

"Hey Boss, these two wanted to help, anything for them? Stanley, my eldest, is good with his hands, and Ian, my second eldest, is athletic." Arnel said.

"Hey guys, what's up?" I said to the two.

"Really surprised when I was taken from school by Ian but so far, doing pretty good." Stanley replied.

"I'm doing good as well." Ian added.

"That's good, that's good. I'm still figuring out the task for everyone today, so I'll call for you when I finish. However, I want you to help Unc Zeidrick draw up the design for the catwalk while I want you to help Unc Zardon with hauling the supplies from the storage area." I said as I looked at Stanley and Ian.

The two nodded and they then excused themselves with their dad.

I was about to call Rin to assist me with giving tasks but turns out, she was still behind me, eyeing the blade on my hip. She was startled when she saw me looking at her looking at my wakizashi as she adjusted her glasses and looked away momentarily.

"S-Sorry for s-staring." Rin apologetically bowed her head but I chuckled.

"You're interested in it? You can hold it for the moment? Careful, it's sharp, fucking sharp." I said as I unsheathed it.

The blade rang as I pulled it out.

"It's a bit short, is this a wakizashi?" Rin casually mentioned as she inspected it for a bit and handed it back.

"You're right. Hey, I never asked but you have Japanese lineage too, right?" I replied as I asked her.

"Oh, y-yes. My late grandfather is quarter Japanese..." Rin nodded a few times.

"Cool, I'm half. I'm surprised we didn't talk about it sooner." I replied as I chuckled.

We chatted for a bit then we got back to the task at hand.

After a few minutes, we came up with a simple list.