How to Be Mistaken for a Villain in a Zombie Apocalypse – Chapter 11

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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Zaped
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Crack, Crack, Crack.

The crow’s beak dug into the window frame.

I snapped back to reality, grabbed a dry towel to cover my mouth, and picked up the iron skewer.

One.

Two.

Three.

I carefully opened the window a sliver. The crow stuck its head in.

Thud.

The bird blinked.

Its skull was thicker than I thought, so the skewer didn’t pierce through, but I flung it out, skewer and all, before the blood could drip.

I slammed the window shut.

“Caaaaaw! Caaaaaaaaw!”

Stupid crow.

Only now does it realize what happened.

It thrashed its skewered head against the ground, flapping its wings.

It looked like it could still fly, a desperate plea for another chance.

Looking to the heavens like a damn bird.

Finally, spewing out its grape-juice blood, the crow collapsed.

And then the sky went dark.

I thought it was just clouds, so I looked beyond the trees.

Storm clouds were rolling in.

That’s weird.

The white clouds were pushed away by the approaching dark storm clouds, moving against the wind, relentless and greedy.

It was the birds.

A whole flock of them.

Crows, darkening the sky faster than I could blink, like a living, cawing, feather-dropping storm cloud.

I saw the trees swaying, already aware of what was about to happen.

This wasn’t their first rodeo.

Or mine, for that matter.

Stepping back from the window, I drew the curtains, held my gun and knife tightly, and pressed myself against the wall.

No sudden movements.

Just smash anything that tries to get in and then run for my life.

Caw! Caw! Caw!

The noise hit me like a physical blow, deafening, overwhelming.

The savage shrieks, the desperate cries… zombies.

The frenzied flapping of wings, the sickening thud of zombie skulls against tree trunks.

Trading feathers for eyeballs, broken beaks for flesh.

Sometimes, you hear clearer than you see.

Right now was one of those times.

Sound was vital in this new world.

Sounds were information, clues for survival, and I was used to filtering that symphony of noise.

I knew exactly what was going on out there, more clearly than if I were watching it unfold with my own eyes.

Focus.

Don’t get distracted by every little sound.

Like driving.

Find the balance.

How hard to press the pedal, when to brake, the car behind you, the car in front of you, the traffic lights, pedestrians about to jump out…

You’d go insane if you thought too hard about every little thing.

Take it all in, anticipate it, but focus on what’s directly in front of you.

Deep breaths in and out.

Don’t panic.

Ignore the flapping wings, the pecking at the window.

Even the clattering metal as—and this, too, must be ignored—another group of crows tore into the remains of the first one I’d killed.

Filter the noise, latch onto the important information.

This world’s virus infects animals.

That’s how Eruptor Protocol worked.

You could change the way the infection spread with every playthrough, could even add an option to scramble the method mid-game, just to keep things “interesting.”

Airborne, waterborne, through physical contact, even close proximity… hell, there was an option to have it spread through contaminated food.

The real nasty options were ‘Completely Random Transmission Methods’ and ‘Multi-Transmission.’ You could get infected through contaminated water and breathing the same air as an infected.

Or maybe all the options at once, for a real party.

That was why you had to learn the infection method early.

Determined what you could and absolutely should not do.

Airborne?

Always wear a mask and keep your gun loaded.

Shoot before they get close.

Of course, firing a gun also gave away your position, so that play style quickly turned into a game of base defense.

Waterborne only opened up your options a bit.

Just boil your water and sanitize.

Getting bitten or scratched barely mattered.

This time, you could embrace stealth.

Sneak around like a shadow and eliminate your targets with ruthless efficiency.

But I had no idea what the rules were for this world.

I couldn’t even trust what the humans thought they knew.

Maybe their information was incomplete, or worse, outdated, rendered obsolete by the virus’ relentless mutations.

This is why I stuck with fire and letting the infected deal with themselves: nice and clean.

But the crows… they were a new piece of the puzzle.

Zoonotic transmission option.

Meaning, the virus could jump from animals to humans and back again.

Zoonotic viruses were a bitch to contain.

Even with strict quarantine zones for humans, how could you control the birds?

Issue a no-fly zone for every animal within a hundred-mile radius?

What about infected rats hitching a ride in a contaminated car?

You couldn’t keep them out forever.

And that wasn’t the scariest thing about zoonotic transmission.

Not even close.

The really terrifying part was the unlimited mutation potential, endless Darwinian competition between different strains, only the fittest surviving long enough to breed and create a whole new generation of bioweapons.

But here, fittest was temporary.

Like clockwork, rebellion follows revolution.

Just like every gamer, including me, the virus adapted.

It knew trial-and-error wasn’t efficient.

Not when it could use millions of humans and animals as its personal test subjects instead.

Each generation, carefully nurtured to their maximum potential, would be thrown at the wall, again and again.

Fail?

Time to die and feed your stronger, faster cousin.

Repeat until you reach the final stage, conquering this world.

Except this wasn’t a game.

This was happening, for real.

See, zoonotic transmission usually went hand-in-hand with another fun feature: rapid mutation of the virus itself.

They came as a set, like doom and gloom.

If I was wrong about this… Well, problem solved, at least for a while.

But if I was right… Humanity was well and truly fucked.

Whatever plague ravaged this world would just keep evolving.

Push and prod against humanity’s best efforts, a relentless onslaught on the world’s immune system until… It would adapt.

It would find a way through the cracks.

This new generation would become the old generation, again and again until it achieved complete domination.

Kind of like a certain strategy I enjoyed back in my world.

Except here, in this reality, the stakes were a bit higher.

Life and death higher.

“…Except, I’m also playing that survival game, aren’t I?”

Not such a bad thing when you think about it that way.

It was quiet, peaceful, when I finally emerged from the cabin, backpack full.

The crows had done their job and moved on to greener pastures.

Literally, probably.

As I suspected, there wasn’t much left of the zombies that had swarmed the cabin before the crows showed up.

Just bone, mostly. All the soft bits—gone.

A few femurs and scattered ribs were scattered around like fallen branches, stripped clean of even a scrap of meat.

Even the lighter bones—fingers, toes, a stray jawbone here and there— were gone.

Maybe the crows were carrying them off to their nests for later, a gruesome sort of takeout.

I swear I saw the flock flying lower to the ground as it headed south.

Heavier that way, maybe.

It finally dawned on me why the woods had been so unnaturally silent before, why the zombies had clustered so tightly.

Survival instinct, probably.

Nothing to do with intelligence.

Just base instinct.

You couldn’t really say that zombies had a will to live, not in any meaningful way.

Their whole existence revolved around a single drive: find and consume flesh. Even their supposed “allies” were fair game, nothing but a walking, shambling buffet waiting to be devoured.

It’s just what they did.

No different from me seeking shelter from the rain or sleeping when I was tired.

Or eating when I was hungry.

It was like an automated survival program running in the background, urging them to cluster together because hey, maybe there’s safety in numbers, even for the undead.

Humanity.

Such stubborn creatures.

Back at my container house. Everything was… just as I left it.

Guess even desperate times don’t automatically equal a lack of basic morals.

Not that anyone would have been crazy enough to try breaking into my hideout.

I had strategically orchestrated a zombie apocalypse right outside, after all.

Though… it might get boring around here without my friendly neighborhood zombie horde.

Something to think about for later.

Maybe I should orchestrate another “accident.”

Before heading back inside to get ready for my trip, I flipped through the meticulously crafted newspaper clippings I had taken from the park ranger’s place.

Figured I might as well get some light reading in, or in the worst-case scenario, some kindling for a fire.

It turned out that my impromptu newspaper supplied quite the haul when it came to useful information: everything from the history of Hampton—apparently, that was where “Hans” had set up shop— to local gossip.

Who would have thought that such a boring-looking house could offer such fascinating stories?

I mean, sure, most of it was about the local church’s charity bake sale, but I’m sure it was riveting to whoever lived there.

Apparently, there was this whole big corruption scandal in Hampton after the war, mostly surrounding the reconstruction effort, which led to the mayor’s resignation.

Pretty standard stuff, honestly. Some things never change, zombie apocalypse or no zombie apocalypse.

The most interesting things I found were the black and red marks on several articles.

One article, detailing a speech competition for children about denouncing violence from the — ELZA(short for the Elza Liberation and Zion Army) had a picture of a little girl with her face circled in red.

Next to the picture, a handwritten note simply read: “My Granddaughter.” Aw, sweet.

I was hoping for something a bit juicier, though.

Looks like grandpa had a soft spot.

One article—that’s a generous term for it— about rampant biker gang activity had several sentences circled aggressively in black with a very un-grandpa-like “Veterans my ass. Bunch of trigger-happy thugs.”

Apparently, those bikers really got on this guy’s bad side.

Which made sense.

Even pre-apocalypse, bikers weren’t exactly known for being the nicest people in existence.

There was one last clipping I deemed worthy of my time: an announcement that Hampton City was under a sudden lockdown.

It seemed they issued a quarantine due to the growing number of infected, forbidding entry and exit from the city without proper authorization, and even that seemed shaky at best.

The article concluded with something along the lines of “We urge all citizens to cooperate with local authorities” and “Hopefully, this temporary measure will contain the spread of the infection” blah blah blah.

Typical PR statement.

You’d think an impending apocalypse would teach people to skip the whole flowery-language routine and cut straight to the “we’re all going to die.”

Always found that to be much more effective for grabbing people’s attention, myself.

As I pieced together the information from the newspaper clippings, one possibility emerged from the shadows: The biker gang I had read about most likely seized control of both the food factory and Lambert Town.

Considering that there wasn’t anything standing between Lambert Town and the factory aside from fields, well… This just got a lot more complicated.

Time to gather more intel, I guess.

First stop?

Hans in Hampton.

I might as well make myself useful and tie up that little loose end before making my escape from this forsaken country.

Besides, it was the closest city to my current location.

Always a plus when every step could lead to another encounter with an overly friendly member of the undead community.

“No rest for the wicked,” I muttered under my breath.

That was my new life motto now, apparently.

I idly wondered if the pay was good.

Spoiler alert: it wasn’t.

Flipping open my phone—still outside network coverage, as far as I knew—I idly checked to see if my favorite client had messaged yet.

Almost immediately, an alert from the ever-reliable National Emergency Broadcast System popped up on the screen.

A little on the nose, but what can you do.

They certainly were trying, and at least they weren’t trying to charge an outrageous price for information that should be readily available to the public.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Or maybe they did, depending on the situation.

I swiped past it, only to be greeted by another PSA:

Right.

Dead animals.

More dangerous than hungry, flesh-eating corpses.

Makes sense.

At least whoever designed these messages took basic graphic design into consideration.

Always hated getting spammed by official channels that looked like a five-year-old went wild with Microsoft WordArt.

A shame it seemed like that was the extent of their skill.

Should have hired me when they had the chance, I’d tell them what’s what when it came to public service announcements during a crisis.

Then again, something told me that my personal design philosophy might not sit well with most governments, zombie apocalypse or no zombie apocalypse.

Anyway, back to the issue at hand: the briefcase, still glowing red in that one corner of my mind, reminding me that I might be wrong about the whole “not being chased by anyone” thing.

And then there’s the small fact that my phone was able to receive emergency broadcasts outside of the supposed network coverage area.

Could only mean one thing: if he wasn’t lying about being monitored before, then he definitely was now.

All thanks to my new client.

Funny, considering that they hadn’t even agreed to meet me yet.

Or sent a single text message.

This was already turning out to be a complicated relationship.

Then again, what else was I supposed to do with my newfound free time now that I’ve successfully directed the horde to their last supper?

Just as I thought the damn thing was just taunting me, a notification finally popped up. Jackpot.

Or maybe just a big, fat red herring.

Only one way to find out, right?

That’s it?

That’s all he’s got?

No fancy greetings, no long-winded introductions?

Guess I have my work cut out for me when it comes to this new client.

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