27

DDay +22; The coast of East Java

The sky was bright, the wind breezing and the waves thumping on the boat. The splashing of salt water created natural sounds that soothed the ear. The blue water covered the horizons under the white-blue sky. The moment was so peaceful as if the doomsday never happened.

A group of people could be seen on top of the military mid-sized patrol ship. The ships were 33 meters in length and 13 meters wide. Their hull had navy grey and blue camouflage color.There were two 12.7mm machine guns on the front and back and one 20mm light canon. They're the Boa Class ships, they can hold a maximum of 20 men and have 40-knot speed. This was one of the two patrol ships that came with the navy destroyers.

The ships have been departing from Bali Island Bay City since early this morning and have been sailing for the last 6 hours.A man standing at the port deck was looking at the sky... suddenly three figures approached fast from the sky. It's a group of mutated birds. Within seconds they were closing in just a few meters away from the group.

BANG!! BANG!!

Two sniper shots, bullseye, two of the mutated birds' heads splashed. Their lifeless bodies dropped from the sky. The last of the mutated birds felt threatened and tried to make a turn back to the sky when a rope-like item suddenly wrapped around its body and pulled it down closer to the ship.

SLASSHHH!!!

A saber quickly cut off its head. All three mutated birds dropped within seconds.

"Did you see that Alex??"

A blonde woman who just sheathes her saber with a cheerful smile was waiting to be complimented.

"Yes.. yes your whip attack really improved... impressive, Cindy."

Her smile turned bigger when suddenly a woman approached her and raised up her hand and made a simple gesture with an expressionless face which translated to: 'I got two, you got one.'

.

.

"Yes yes, your snipping skills are also impressive, Aria.", Alex said.

.

Cindy responded: "Huh!! Nothing impressive about using a firearm, it's such a cheat!"

Alex was no longer surprised by how these two girls were weirdly competing against each other. But deep down inside Alex realized they were both really fond of each other. Aria, the ice queen who normally doesn't bother with anyone, was currently actively interacting with Cindy. It was an improvement on her part, Cindy really had talent in being close with other people.

There were a total of 16 men on this ship. Alex, Aria, Cindy, Theo, the twins and ten special forces soldiers from the Tiger Platoon. The rest 40 men were with Commander Donny who took the land route together with Farell's Division. The land approach would take a few days longer.Alex was kinda worried about James Randall abruptly ending long-range message. The last message from Surabaya City was that they needed help and since then, no one was reachable.

Alex brought the ship as an advance team, their target was the city of Surabaya. Within a few minutes, the group should be able to reach its destination.

The City of Surabaya is the capital of East Java province and the second-largest city in Indonesia. The city has a population of over 3 million within the city and over 10 million in the Greater Surabaya Metropolitan Area. Located on northeastern Java on the Madura Strait, it is one of the earliest port cities in Southeast Asia.

"We have arrived.", Alex said.

It's been three weeks since the doomsday, the once stunning port city had lost its glory. Tall buildings of apartments and office towers seemed ruined. Windows were broken, buildings blackened by fire. Many houses turned into a burned pile of rubles.. there was no sign of life, only zombies. Thousands of zombies could be seen from the coast. A city of 13 million would have almost 10 million zombies roaming around.

The boat slowly sailed along the coast to the west until reaching its main city area. There was one unique point of interest in the city. It's the Suramadu bridge, also known as the Surabaya–Madura Bridge, was a cable-stayed bridge between Surabaya on the island of Java and the town of Bangkalan on the Island of Madura in Indonesia. The 5.4-km long and 30 meters width bridge was the longest bridge in Indonesia.

Alex and James once discussed this bridge as the obvious best strategy to help the Surabaya City survivors. After doomsday, all survivors would be moved to Madura Island. The bridge would turn into a choke point and become the best defensive fortress.

The ship sailed alongside the bridge and headed to Madura Island.

"All the survivors should already be there by now.", Alex thought.

Suddenly Alex saw something that surprised him

"..."

The bridge was destroyed halfway. A hole gaping around 30 meters wide separated the two ends. From the way it looked it seemed as if it was blown apart, a big battle seemed to have happened here a few days ago.

"What happened here?", Alex thought. James should have known that within 3 months all the survivors needed to move back to Java Island and to the doomsday pillar location. James shouldn't have ordered this bridge to be blown apart unless it's really necessary. Alex became more worried about James' safety.

A few minutes later, the ship finally reached Madura Island. It's about half the size of Bali with a population size of almost 3 million people. At the Madura end of the bridge, an outpost was created. It had tall walls, watchtowers and barbed wires all over the post. Alex's group spotted a group of soldiers protecting this post.

"That's a relief, it seems the Madura Island didn't get overrun by the zombies."

"Let's dock and check out the post."

After an EMP, seeing a working military ship approaching the post created a panic among the soldiers. An alarm was sounded. Machine gun turrets were manned. Hundreds of armed soldiers suddenly lined up all over the defensive wall.

"Do not fire!! We are survivors from Bali Island, we mean no harm. Let me see the person in charge!"

To be safe, Alex didn't bring everyone, he needed Theo for mind reading, and probably a few soldiers just in case. The twins should be his best choice. He thought about leaving Cindy and Aria, but just before he said a word, both of them gave him the cold killer stare... It seemed Alex didn't have a choice about this, he finally decided to leave the twins and 5 soldiers on the ship.Theo, Aria, Cindy and another 5 men came along with him.

"I need you all to leave your weapons in here.", a man said.

The group of nine were welcomed by the leader of this post, he's an army captain named Eddy. They were being led to the headquarters where a colonel seemed to be in charge of this survival base. It was not James or the General that was sent by the regent. Along the way, Alex tried to gather information from the captain.

"Captain, we are looking for a friend name James Randall, is he here among the survivors?"

The captain looked troubled and hesitated to answer Alex question...

"Please Captain, I really need to know."

The captain gave a sigh and said...

"I am not supposed to tell you this, but James Randall is the city hero's, me and many people on this island owe him our lives... but, I am sorry to tell you, that your friend James Randall is dead."

"..."

The news was like an electric shock in Alex mind... At the same time, the sky had turned yellow as the sun set... His footsteps turned much heavier, he needed to know what happened.