Chapter 5
"Then what the hell are they? If they are sentient, they aren't zombies."
"It doesn't matter what they are; it only matters that they are real and could pose a grave threat to our plans. Do not mess up." Ruby said calmly.
"If they aren't zombies, then what the hell do you call them?" Connor finally spoke, taking a step forward and standing next to Adamo.
Ruby frowned, obviously frustrated. "We can't waste time arguing over such trivial things, don't you understand!? We have more important matters to attend to, and the last thing we need is to be distracted by a stupid creature that isn't even alive."
Her voice was sharp and clear.
"What you need to know is that their virus isn't transmitted through just bites; it's more than that. The virus is transmitted through the air, and it has the intelligence to pick and choose who it wants to infect. Not only that, but it can stay dormant for as long as possible. All of you can be infected at this moment, and nobody would ever know until the symptoms started to show. Their numbers can go on for years and never go down; in fact, we are watching a monster evolve every single second, and every second is vital. Your ignorance of their existence could very well be the last mistake you'll make." She spat bitterly.
Ruby continued to say, "We're wasting valuable time while we talk about these monsters, which, might I add, are extremely dangerous if they decide that you're not useful. Get the supplies we need, get your asses back here before nightfall, and keep an eye out for anything that comes close to our hideout. Understood?"
Adamo gulped and gave a firm nod.
"Good. You may go now."
They all exited the basement. They were tasked with fetching more water for drinking and food. "For fucks sake, they have all these supplies, yet they want us to go fetch more supplies?" Adamo groaned.
Adamo nodded and stretched himself.
"Oh yeah," he realized. "That brunette is so bad."
"Adamo is actually spittin, though." Connor said.
"And the red-head one is fucking gorgeous."
"Maybe that's why she always gives you dirty looks; I guess you weren't supposed to tell a pretty lady you find her attractive."
"Yeah, man."
Adamo didn't know exactly where to find food or water, so he decided to try one of the drug stores in town and see if they had supplies. On the way, he saw Ayoub gathering water from a puddle on the ground while crouching down and straining it into a glass bottle. It was a terrible image. The liquid didn't seem like water, but the smell told him otherwise, though he could not pinpoint what exactly it smelled like. It was weird and unpleasant to think about.
Ren seemed lost too and began searching around the city to find someone or something, yet she was unsuccessful at finding any survivors at all. She returned to Adam, defeated.
She shook her head. "This city was completely abandoned, Adam. Nobody's home, just me and the five of us." She reported.
"Great. Awesome. Even better." He replied sarcastically.
Ren walked past Adamo and tried her hand at opening an abandoned fast-food joint's entrance, its metal gate blocked by garbage bags and scattered food items littering the alleyways. She kicked open the doors easily enough, however.
When they finally entered, an unpleasant smell immediately hit them like a ton of bricks, a horrid scent that made Adamo wince and want to throw up all over the place. The smell was so bad that he didn't want to breathe it in, touch anything, or walk on it.
There were piles of vomit all over the floor, table surfaces, and chairs. Some were even hanging from the rafters of the establishment. One of the biggest messes was smeared across one of the walls of the kitchen.
"What the fuck happened over here?" Connor asked with an expression that told Adam he knew what happened all too well, as did he.
"I dunno, I can't tell," Ren replied, shaking her head slowly at him.
The stench was becoming unbearable, so Adamo told Ren to cover their mouths and noses with their shirts. He took off his clothes and covered his entire head in a t-shirt. He was still unable to block all of the foul odor out and couldn't keep himself from coughing and choking as they explored deeper into the restaurant. The closer they came to the counter area, the worse it got, because they could clearly see dried blood and rotten flesh scattered everywhere.
Someone had torn a man apart right here—a gaping, bloody, half-eaten carcass sprawled atop one of the many tables. The floor, walls, and ceilings of the fast food restaurant were absolutely littered with body parts belonging to both humans and animals. The scent made Adamo wonder just what type of animal the person that ate all this flesh came across or how far they traveled, because nothing like it existed on earth anymore, but it couldn't have been a zombie due to the huge amounts of human flesh lying around.
No, the corpse they found wasn't even identifiable anymore because the human flesh had all been consumed. There stood a man—well, something that used to be a man—covered entirely in green viscera. It reminded Adamo of that time when his dog vomited in his lap and got his legs all wet as he was trying to wipe his own ass dry. The guy standing in front of them didn't even have a face—at least, he couldn't tell which part of this blob belonged to it anymore—just a giant blob of a massless mass, a mindless, squelching monster.
His innards dribbled freely from beneath his ripped jeans onto the filthy ground, yet he moved closer to Adamo and Ren and spoke in a raspy tone with a strange inflection in it. His speech sounded broken and his words were hard to discern. His voice crackled.
"Ahahahaa, c— hwat teh huuuh," he murmured to himself. "Ahy hea tah," he gargled, staring blankly out into space.
As soon as he started speaking, both Ren and Adamo backed off, preparing to run out of the restaurant, not giving the monster any chance at chasing them down. "We should get out of here, NOW!" Ren shouted. "Run!"