Prologue : The First Outbreak

A city in Tibet, China. February 2020.

Alvin Plommer's satellite phone rang as he crouched behind the cover of the balcony in the fifteenth floor tofu-dreg apartment in the city of the Tibet Autonomous Region. The black briefcase, the reason he was here, was safe in his hand. He could not let go of the briefcase even for a moment, because that was his ticket out of the hell the city had turned into.

With every ring, Alvin was afraid that his satellite phone would get jammed by the People's Liberation Army. The satellite phone was the only means with which he could contact his handler in the CIA for extraction.

The PLA was losing ground they had gained in the start of the attack to the infected, as they got overrun unable to stop the tide of the great mass of zombies. Shots rang continuously from assault rifles and machine guns from the PLA forces as they fired at the infected population of the city, trying and failing to retake the city from the undead.

It took only three days from when the first cases of the Z-Virus appeared for it to infect almost the whole city. The leak had taken days before Alvin had arrived in the city, his asset had assured him that the Compound-Z infection could take days to incubate and start infecting others.

The first infection cases was bought to the attention of the director of the Bioweapons facility, from where Alvin had taken the briefcase from. The moment the director became aware that the Compound-Z was leaked, he had called his superior.

The superior then had called his bosses, who surprisingly acted with swiftness and ordered the PLA to quarantine the whole city. That contained the spread of the zombies within the city, trapping Alvin and the rest of the city inhabitants with the zombies.

It was not like Alvin could get evacuated by the PLA even if they even had conducted evacuations in the first place.

Alvin was an operative sent by the agency to investigate and obtain the biological weapon called Compound-Z, that the Chinese were developing. He had gotten a sample of Compound-Z from one of the Assets working in that Bioweapons facility, before things went to shit.

In exchange for the virus bioweapon and a prototype of the cure, the asset had demanded a million dollars to be deposited into an offshore account. It looked like he won't be able to use that money now. He was probably among one of those infected zombies feeding on a body or he was dead and being fed upon by the zombies.

The call connected to his handler's desk in the Agency.

"This is Alvin Plommer. Where is my goddamn chopper? Things are getting worse out here. The PLA forces are getting overrun from the infected. They are gonna fucking blow this whole city to Kingdom come any time now."

"Are you still in the possession of the virus and the cure?" A voice he didn't recognize said from the satellite phone.

"Yes! I have the fucking briefcase with me!"

"The chopper is ten minutes out," the unknown person said. "You need to get to the roof. We have two pilots who have defected their posts on the way to pick you up. I have given the pilot the coordinates of your location, when you get extracted via the helicopter, then you can come home agent."

"Who am I speaking to?"

"This is Tanner Hilson speaking."

The goddamn director of the CIA was speaking to him. In all his years on the field, this was the first time the big boss ever bothered to speak to him, a field agent like him was not something the director would even bothered to have a conversation with.

"Remember Alvin," Director Tanner said. "You have to get that virus and cure to our hands. I hope you understand the importance of this mission agent."

"I am in a city infected by these creatures, I had only read about in world ending apocalypse fiction. Of course I know the consequences, just get the chopper in place already damn it!" His voice broke a little. "I don't want to turn into one of them."

Alvin cut the call and threw the satellite phone into his pocket.

He needed to get to the roof now. It was easy considering it was only two floors up. The thing that was hard was stumbling upon any zombie stragglers on the way or encountering the zombie horde when they came for him, attracted by the rotor noise of the helicopter.

Zombies were drawn by loud noises. The soldiers of the PLA were not realizing that as they fought the zombies. The sounds of the gun fire attracted all the zombies in the area to go attack the soldiers. Already the frequency and intensity of gun fire was receding and the PLA were in the process of losing the battle against the zombies.

He took his Glock-19 from his waistband of his pants and checked the rounds in the mag before putting it back. The handgun would be his last option against the zombies. When they swarmed on him, he would have to use it even if the gunfire attracted all the zombies in the area towards him.

He wrenched a firm looking steel rod that was acting as a support to a potted plant. The melee weapon was the primary weapon he would have to use if he encountered any zombies on the way to the roof.

Three zombies had followed him, when he ran from them and took refuge in the apartment building he was currently staying in. There would be one or two left in the hallway. He had heard them moving about last night with their inhuman growls from the door.

He began removing the obstructions that he had piled against the door slowly without making any noise. This apartment was one of those Tofu-Dreg buildings that he had heard about where a punch could probably put a dent in the brick wall.

He slowly opened the door to find the hallway covered with blood. A zombie's or a human's? He was not interested in investigating it. A body was on the floor, the flesh and organs consumed by the zombies before the virus could convert the human into one of them. It was probably the source of the noises he had heard last night, the creatures could be still in the building, he moved with every effort to make sure that his movement didn't make any unnecessary noises.

With one hand held onto the briefcase containing the samples, another on the steel rod, he moved out the door and into the hallway.

As he put some distance, he noticed one of the doors to a apartment home was open. He could hear faint noises coming from inside the doorway.

Alvin peeked slowly. Just as he thought, a zombie was outside a room, banging its head against the door.

It was a woman before it got turned. The skin was pale, the dark-blue veins visible to the naked eye, blood covered it's hands and clothes and probably it's face too. The eyes would be blood shot. He had seen enough of those blood filled eyes on the first day of the outbreak to keep him up for days.

There was someone alive inside that room probably. The zombies had shown a small measure of intelligence, if you could even call it that. But mostly it must be its senses that had remained, that said to it that meat must be alive beyond that door, fresh to be consumed.

Though Alvin didn't care enough to bother the zombie with its strange lurking meditation, he would have to close the main door to ensure that it doesn't attack his back when he passed by it.

Carefully he reached the handle and pulled it lightly towards him to close it.

The door hinges gave a whiny screech.

The zombie abruptly turned towards him and they eyed each other for a moment as time stilled and he gulped.

The zombie had its blood shot eyes alright. The red, blood leaking eyes noticed a meal ready to be consumed to sate its thirst for human flesh.

It sprang upon Alvin fast to close the distance between them as it screeched.

Before it could get its teeth into his flesh and turn him into one of them, Alvin slammed the door shut just in time.

It banged and screamed at the closed door.

Alvin had to leave before it could attract other zombies that would come to investigate the noises. So he picked up the pace and went into the staircase. He looked up and down the floors to make sure no zombies were there to surprise him. He gripped the steel rod in his hands more tightly as he inspected the place.

He could hear the growl of the zombie from one of the floors below.

Alvin checked his watch. There was still five minutes left for the helicopter to reach him.

As he moved up the staircase, he noticed the door leading out the staircase into the floor was jammed open. Down the floor hallway, a zombie that was standing there lurking spotted Alvin and ran towards him.

He dropped the briefcase on to the floor, tried to close the door, but it wouldn't budge. He tried until the last moment, when it didn't budge, he raised the steel rod ready to swing at it.

As it came barreling towards him, Alvin took a step forward and swung the rod to meet its head.

The rod sunk into the zombies head, splattering blood and grey matter on the walls and knocked it back wards.

He pulled the zombie and kicked it against the railing. It collided with the railings as it fell down the staircase, making noises that echoed in the building.

Multiple zombies in the building began to growl in a frenzy as they woke up to the stimuli of the noise.

Alvin picked up the brief case and moved up the staircase to the roof door. The steel rod in his hand was a bit bent.

The access to the roof was blocked by a lock. He was trained to pick lock like these easily but he didn't have the tools with him. And he had no idea where he lost it, in the chaos of the last three days.

He had to break the lock before the zombies from the floors below realize where he was, trapped against a locked door. Knowing the noise it would make, a risk he had to take, he used to steel rod to beat against the lock.

Clang!

The loud noise echoed in the staircase and the growling intensity of the zombies increased. He heard the noise of their movement as they ran up the staircase towards the noise. But the lock was not broken yet.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

He hit it again and this time, thank the little luck he had, it broke. He quickly removed the lock and opened the door to the roof. He threw the briefcase onto the roof and wedged the steel rod to keep the door closed.

He kept his shoulder pressed against the door as the zombies slammed into the door. The steel rod almost gave way falling out of the position, if not for the pressure he was putting on the door to counter the zombie's greater force.

He fought as the zombies tried to push the door open.

With a single burst of strength he closed the door fully and pushed the steel rod into place. It was just in time as more zombies started pushing against the door.

Alvin didn't dare to leave the door unattended so that the zombies could break it. He looked at his watch. It was time, the helicopter should have been here by now.

The steel rod was bending even as he supported the door with his weight. The rod would not hold forever.

He took the Glock-19 from his waistband and put it against his head, the last measure if the zombies broke through the door. He could not bear to be eaten alive.

He heard a faint sound of the rotor of a helicopter when he was almost out of hope that he would not be able to get out of here. In the direction of the sound he noticed a black blob in the distance coming towards his direction and hoped that the helicopter extracted him before the door broke.

Alvin smelled the stench of the horde of infected zombies within the city as it followed the helicopter.