Return (5)

It was the fact that Arnold have not seen anyone for more than a week that lead to the impulse of saving the boy. After all, humans are social creatures; the lack of companion has made Arnold quite bored, despite the fact that he needed to be alert for potential danger each second he is out in the open.

This was actually the first time Arnold have even seen such a naive child. Although they were the same age, the boy seemed to have not matured mentally as much as he had, due to the forced circumstances of his previous years.

"That kid must live in the lower floors." Arnold thought to himself.

"Hey you," Arnold said in a less than pleasant tone, "How were you able to see that clearly in the dark?"

When Arnold was approaching the swarm of zombies that were trying to eat the boy, he noticed the despair in the boy's eyes, as if he could see everything that was going on, even though it was completely dark. The clouds at the time completely blocked out the crimson moon.

"N-no." The boy squeaked shyly, "I was simply able to deduce the locations of the zombies through my sense of sound. Even now, I can deduce where you are due to the sound of your footsteps."

Arnold raised an eyebrow. "Is that your esper power?"

The boy shook his head, "My ears have always been good since birth, so my father forced me to take lessons in echolocation. The lessons were such a pain..."

Arnold felt like smacking him. "You have the money to take lessons from a trained professional and a natural talent from birth and you still think that learning is a pain in the ass?" He completely did not understand what that rich second generation (fuerdai) is thinking.

Arnold was reluctant to chat with him anymore. He felt like his inferior complex would surge being next to this guy. Also, making sounds right now in this eerily quiet place where the only thing you can hear were the screeches of zombies would only attract more zombies towards yourself.

Before Arnold left with the boy, he had forced the boy to change into the spare clothes and pants that was supposed to be for his brother. The uniform of the boy had the smell of the white powder, which was bound to attract even more zombies towards themselves if they continued with the ticking time bomb on.

Arnold was quite irritated in wasting such a precious piece of clothing to a rich second generation kid, so he simply gave him the t-shirt that contained his urine. The boy had a look of disgust back then, but since Arnold was the person who saved him and gave him food, compounded with the fact that staying in the uniform was really dangerous, he reluctantly put it on. There was still a slight putrid smell emnating from him now as they walked quickly towards the direction of the base throughout the night.

As they walked through the night, by the complete guidance of the map in the lower corner of his right eye, the boy walked up to Arnold and held him by his lower arm. "What are you doing?" Arnold asked in a tone that basically equates to telling the boy to f*ck off.

"I-I'm scared." The boy whimpered, holding onto Arnold's lower arm even higher. He stared upwards at Arnold. With the crimson moon shining against Arnold's face and his penetrative eyes, visible scar, he looked dazzlingly dangerous and handsome at the same time. The boy immediately looked away.

Arnold scoffed. "Then keep up with my pace." He started taking larger steps, striding through the plane. The boy helplessly chased, trying to catch up with Arnold. By the time the sun rose, the boy was already completely exhausted. Arnold, however, was slightly surprised that the boy was able to keep up with him. "His endurance is higher than I expected. Although it might just be his survival mechanism causing him to be able to endure more than usual."

After walking (jogging for the boy) for a few more hours, they could finally see some man-made objects in front of them. It was a designated safehouse. The safehouses close to the base, for reasons unknown to Arnold, was a safe haven for soldiers, mercenaries and scavengers who wander outside of the base for long periods of time. Each safehouse had some things in common: they had enough food for a platoon to last for a month, the safehouse will never be attacked by Level 4 or 5 zombies and there might even be electricity in some of the safehouses.

When Arnold and the boy walked near the safehouse, a large sign made of metal was nailed to the ground. On the sign wrote, "Welcome back, brave explorers! You are now only 200 km away from the main base. Please take a rest and enjoy our amenities for free! Base S-4."

The safehouse was actually a barracks built with concrete. The small square-shaped windows were reinforced with security gates, preventing anyone from breaking in. The entire barracks was shaped like a long rectangular blocked. It was asthetically unpleasing, but in this day and age, good architecture was in the back of everyone's minds.

Arnold and the boy approached the main entrance at the very edge of the barracks. The door was reinforced with steel, which looked like the door to a bank vault from the pre-apocalypse era. However, there was a mechanical lock on the right of the door, preventing anyone who doesn't know the combination from getting in.

Arnold took a glance at the boy, "Do you know the password?" He asked in a monotone voice.

The boy nodded. He walked up to the mechanical lock and typed in a few numbers. Then, there was a *chikchak* sound, signalling that the door was unlocked. I walked towards the door and turned the wheel in the middle of the door. After turning the wheel left until it got stuck, Arnold pulled the door with all his strength. He might have pulled a little hard since the door flew out, almost hitting against the boy. Luckily, the boy dodged.

Arnold headed in, thinking, "It's lucky I have a military personnel with me, or else I would have no idea how to open this lock."

The passcode combinations to all the safehouses were different, and the only people who had all the passwords were people from the military and the leaders of certain famous mercenary groups.

They entered the barracks to find a rather large living room. On the left was a long hallway that leads to all the bedrooms for people to sleep in. On the right were several cupboards that were filled with MREs, nutrition bars, nutrition tablets, and bottled water.

The boy followed Arnold in, closing the steel door behind him. However, due to his weak strength, he had to use all his strength just to pull the door back inside. When he finally locked the door, all of his arm muscles were screaming.

Arnold turned the left and walked along the hallway in order to carefully observe each room to see if there were people. Meanwhile, the boy hungrily stared at the packs of MREs standing on the cupboards of the living room. Without asking Arnold, he grabbed a pack of MRE and placed it on the dining table in the middle of the living room. The table was shped as a square, with a wooden chair on each side, supporting only 4 people. It seemed that there might be more dining rooms down the hall since this barracks serve much more than 4 people.

After surveilling the entire barracks, Arnold found all the rooms empty. There were 4 bedrooms on each side of the hallway next to the living room. To the right of the bedrooms was a large open-space dining room with several tables and chairs. The dining room was followed by another 4 bedrooms and another dining room at the very back. Each dining room had a stable supply of MREs and other foods and drinks. Also, there was a trap door on the floor in the middle of each dining room, which leads downwards to a rather large supply room containing even more food and also contained various weapons.

As Arnold walked back to the living room, he found the boy already eating a pack of crackers from the MRE. It was there that he found another trap door below the dining table that the boy's food were currently placed on. "How come there aren't anyone in this barracks? It's usually quite busy in this time of the year." Arnold contemplated.

"I don't know." The boy shrugged. "After we submitted our official route to the logistics office, there was no other platoon that decided to head our way."

Arnold narrowed his eyes. He decided to put this to the back of his mind for now as he was hungry as well. He went to the cupboard and took a MRE and 2 bottles of water, sitting opposite the boy.