Chapter 20. Patriot (2)
* * * * *
Camilla, who thought she was sleeping, was sitting on the bed. When she saw us coming in, she immediately pointed at Leticia.
“You jumped out of the corner of your mouth.”
“Huh? Are you sure you cleaned it?”
Startled, Leticia soon realized that Camilla had made up her mind. Before Leticia could pounce on Camilla, she grabbed her waist and pulled her behind her.
“Ugh, what is it?”
Thanks to this, even Cassandra, who had been sleeping soundly, woke up. The thin T-shirt was soaked with sweat and clung to her body. The trailer is a bit hot.
“Sorry, it was a little hot, right? “I guess I should have left the window open at least.”
“It just blew hot wind and had no effect.”
Camilla, who was lying down on the bed like a cat, stretched out her body. She was wearing a tank top and dolphin pants. There was a bit of a cool breeze in the lab, but the trailer was literally no different from an iron plate house, so heat radiated from all directions.
“Calm down and sit down. Let’s re-plan. “There are so many entrances and exits?”
Baytra was designated as a non-protected area four months after the zombie outbreak.
Until then, the prevailing belief was that ‘you only need to stop zombies coming from outside’, so the National Military Police blocked off the outskirts of the city, and citizens built defensive positions and surveillance forts throughout the city. The situation was quite optimistic until a flock of zombie-infected migratory birds ‘bombed’ Baetra.
But now that the city has become abandoned, the defensive positions set up to block zombies have turned into minions protecting fanatics and gangs.
For several days, we scouted the southern and eastern outskirts controlled by cultists. Although the city was obviously large, you could see guard fortresses wherever you went. I couldn’t think of anything else since they had erected a flag depicting the goddess’s silhouette in torn rags.
“So, let’s go to the North and West, where gangs rule.”
It was Camilla’s suggestion, but Leticia shook her head.
“I don’t know how many gang members there are, but they are very aggressive. In addition, there will be regular patrols. “If you get discovered, they’ll come at you from all directions like a pack of wolves.”
“Isn’t that the same for fanatics?”
“No. Cultists have families and people to protect. They say they can’t track beyond a certain level because their ankles are filled with sandbags. But the gangsters don’t care.”
Camilla got a little angry at Leticia’s rebuttal.
“Don’t you feel anything after going through something like that at the gas station?”
“If even people who are rational and have families to protect are like that, I can’t imagine what level the gangsters are at. Why?”
“Stop. Stop.”
In the end, I intervened. What both of them say is correct. Camilla and Leticia looked at me with subtle anticipation. As if they were expecting whose side I would take.
“John, what do you think? After all, you’re going to break through to the gang, right? Let’s just drive the car. “I will shoot them all.”
Camilla squinted one of her eyes.
“Let’s go nicely.” We didn’t come here to loot. I came here to settle down. What good is there in invading beehives? “Let’s just penetrate the south or east.”
Leticia answered harshly.
“Ka, I’m not sure about Cassandra…. She’s never been here before, so….”
But I know this city.
A city that seemed like a strong fortress even in times of destruction. However, it was a city that was incredibly difficult to restore.
The fact that Beitra is divided into five districts is both the city’s strength and its blind spot. If each area operates properly, they can help each other defeat external enemies.
What now? The central area is overrun with zombies, and cultists and gangs control the city, splitting it in half. It’s a bit unstable, but it’s stable anyway.
Even in a situation where the two forces, split in half, exchanged attacks and defenses, strengthening each other’s outer shell. It will be difficult for a small force like us to break through easily. Anyway, it is a city with a population of over 1 million.
“Leticia.”
“Huh?”
“When does the rainy season start? “Can you get me some information?”
“Just a moment.”
Leticia took out her laptop and connected to the communication network. Cassandra, who knows a bit about programming, made some ‘modifications’. It was very difficult to track the location, but the speed was a bit slow, so I had to be patient and wait.
“The rainy season will come in about three weeks to a month. It’s particularly hot this year, so the possibility of heavy rain is quite high. But why is this?”
“Wait a minute. Cassandra?”
Cassandra, who was suddenly singled out, was surprised and stuttered.
“Uh, huh?”
“Do infectious diseases spread more easily in the summer?”
“Yes. I guess… This is a good situation for the virus to spread. This is especially true when the surroundings are unclean and public facilities are not working properly.”
“What if it were like this?”
I pointed my finger at the map. My finger passed right across the line between the South and the West, the southern fanatic district and the western gang district.
“It will be difficult for the four of us to penetrate the outskirts of the city with our own strength. This is because gangs and fanatics are wary of each other. But here, if we finally reach this point by gradually gnawing away at the boundary like this.”
The outstretched finger was placed in the central area, that is, the zombie reception area.
“John, you?”
Cassandra opened her eyes wide. Camilla and Leticia asked, ‘What is it?’, But she did not answer.
“Yes. “What you think is right.”
Baytra is not ruled by gangs or fanatics. It’s a zombie.
And the region with the most zombies is the central region. It is said that zombies were housed there in the early stages of infection.
And we have a weapon to infect zombies.
* * * * *
A fever broke out in the city of Beitra.
You might say, what’s so big about an infectious disease spreading through a devastated city? Water and electricity supplies were broken a long time ago, and even the sewer pumps stopped working. The streets are littered with corpses, and zombies wander aimlessly through the streets.
Not only humans have become zombies.
Pet dogs that were once quite cute, and stray cats that walk gracefully even in the back alleys
Same. Quite a few traces of self-harm are found on the bodies of animal zombies, which is due to the stress that comes from starvation. Of course, most of it is fake hunger caused by the Limos virus, but animals cannot tell the truth of hunger.
These beasts would bite anything that walked. I didn’t care if it was a zombie or a human. But most of them bite the same zombies.
It is very difficult for humans to take a bite because they drive cars or wear protective gear made of tin cans. So, it was much safer and easier to bite the same zombie and hang around.
In a situation like this, it is only natural that an infectious disease would spread.
But this epidemic was something different.
Both humans and zombies suffered from fever. Strange scenes of zombies lying on the dark streets and moaning were seen in quite a few places.
The gang’s unlicensed doctors and fanatic researchers thought, ‘The time has finally come for zombies to be naturally eliminated!’ But that wasn’t the case.
Zombies are not dead. It just lay on the floor and groaned, easily became helpless, and became easy prey for other zombies.
The keen-sighted guys who defend the district noticed that the zombies that ‘ate other zombies’ fell ill.
It was quite similar to the principle of exterminating pests. It is spread by feeding insects food containing toxins that do not decompose in their bodies, and then transferring the toxins back to the bodies of other pests that eat the dead bodies of the insects.
“Something is a little strange.”
That wasn’t the only strange thing.
Most of the zombies that filled the streets of Baetra were either standing around dumbly, sitting down, dozing off, or eating something. They were the kind of people who didn’t really care if the zombie next to them ate their leg.
However, after the fever spread, the behavior changed slightly. They were seen forming groups of five or six and systematically ‘hunting’ other zombies.
“It was like that before. “Eat the guy with the blood on it.”
“No.”
“No?”
“Of course. “They don’t want to eat people from the same gang, even if their bodies bleed.”
Such words were exchanged between gang leaders and local fanatic leaders.
On the other hand, the rumors spreading among the gang’s outskirts patrollers and fanatical enforcers were even more sinister than that.
“They say there’s a zombie with chains wrapped around her arms.”
“Chains? “Zombies?”
“But the chain stretches all the way out. She stretches out her arms and wraps them around the prey’s body, then jumps up and eats it. And they eat it.”
“Usually, big guys used to show monster-like movements even when they became zombies. “Are you that kind of guy?”
“No. This guy is a little different. He is wearing a national military police uniform. “I heard there’s a clanking, clanking sound when that guy appears?”
Clang.
“Yes, this is it…” Uh? Uh? “What is that!”