RE: The Walking Dead [Zombie LitRPG]

Later.

Jenner led them to the lounge area and told them that they would have to make do here since most of the facility is powered down.

No one complained since it was better than sleeping outside and constantly worrying about getting attacked.

And when the survivors heard about hot showers being available, everyone scrambled to go first.

"Ha.ha.ha~!"

Everyone was laughing and having huge smiles on their faces as they enjoyed the feeling of the hot water running down their bodies.

All except those who had lost people. Shane even brought liquor with him and drank it while taking a shower.

When everyone was finally done with their turns, Michael finally took this chance to have a time alone in the shower, to relax and possibly review his plans going forward.

"Ahh~ it's been a while since I've had a hot bath." Michael let out a sigh of relief as he can feel his tense muscle relaxing under the stream of hot water.

Michael pressed both of his hands against the wall and looked down on the floor and let the water to fall on the back of his head.

"What do you want?"

He had realized someone had followed him the minute he entered the shower, and judging by his actions, he seems to have an idea who it is.

Suddenly, two delicate hands reached out from behind him and started sensually caressing his chest. The hands slowly made their way further down until they reached somewhere more private.

Michael closed his eyes and aggressively let out a sigh before he slowly turned around to face the person who was behind him.

"Were you actually waiting for me to be alone?" He was poking fun at her, but his following actions certainly contradicted them when he gently pressed her shoulders down.

One of the survivors was making her way to the shower and just as she was about to go in, she heard the rhythmic sound of flesh striking against each other, alongside grunts and muffled moans of pleasure.

The woman blushed and hastily retreated to the door to give the people in there their much-needed privacy.

"I wish I was getting it too. It's been a year since I had one."

An hour to midnight.

On a makeshift bed inside the storage, Michael's eyes suddenly snapped open, he stared at the ceiling for a moment before he slowly moved his head to look at the woman snuggled up on his chest.

Michael carefully wriggled his body out the bed to prevent her from waking up.

"Hmm..where are you going?"

Despite that, Andrea still got woken up and groggily looked at Michael.

"I'm gonna go pee. Go back to sleep"

"Okay."

He was lying, the moment Michael walked through those doors. He headed towards a different direction. He continued moving until he reached the room the doctor calls the "Big Room".

When he got there, he saw Jenner still up and checking on some documents by the computer desk.

"You still haven't gone to sleep? Is that the result of our blood test? How is it?"

Jenner turned around to look at him and smiled when he was reminded by something. "You know, though not exactly the same words, Rick also asked me the same thing an hour ago. Regarding the results, no surprises there."

While saying those, he slowly picked up the papers and hid them under a thick folder.

"Before anything, I just want to say thank you. You don't know how much it meant to those people when you opened those doors for us."

Jenner continued to stare at him. "What about you?"

Michael shrugged his shoulders. "Whether you opened it or not. We would have still led those people out of there. Though with some casualties in the process."

"I see. Was it true though? Those things you said earlier?" Jenner was referring to the things Michael told them back in the cafeteria.

'I'm not sure, but you don't need to know that.'

Michael smiled and leaned on one of the machines. "Yeah. I also have a theory why the army fell so fast and wasn't able to properly respond to the threat of those zombies outside."

"Zombies, that's what you call them?"

"Yeah, the name kind of suits them." Michael continued. "Anyway, the army…they got defeated because they didn't know that people who die would reanimate. The only information they probably had was that people would only turn if they were bitten. I think this lack of crucial information was the cause of their defeat. Those people they brought inside those quarantined areas they erected, the injured people who got in with the healthy ones during their escape. Most of those people must have then succumbed to their injuries. And when the army is busy dealing with the zombies at the front, those that died would then reanimate and cause chaos at the rear. It would snowball into a panic fest and the army would be pincered, and now they had to deal with two fronts. They would be able to hold out for a while, but the noise they were making kept luring every zombie from every direction. Then, they ran out of ammo. The end."

Jenner and Michael stared at each other. The former was baffled since it was like how Michael described it since he had witnessed how the army that was protecting the CDC fell exactly like that.

"It was already too late when we learned about it. If your group came a week earlier, then you would have stumbled across a horde of those zombies surrounding this place. I sent what I learned and what happened here to the HQ. I just don't know if they received it or are even still standing, but I could only hope they are."

Michael nodded as he could understand him. He knew that this time, hope is what keeps a person going. That's why he said those words in the cafeteria when he noticed the dimming hope in the eyes of most of the survivors while they were listening to Jenner narrating what happened.

After all, even members of the CDC had lost hope, leaving just one man left standing and with no cure.

"So, what did you come looking for me this late into the night? I assume you have something in mind."

The two observed a moment of silence before Jenner addressed the elephant in the room.

"Medicines, guns. I want to know where you had stored them."

"Why?"

Michael stared at him for a moment and let out a chuckle. "What do you mean why? We need supplies and weapons while we're on the road."

Jenner stared at Michael, the other did the same too. The staring bout lasted several moments before the former decided to break eye contact.

"The guns I picked up are stored in the lockers in the showers. The medicines, I don't have much lying around anymore since most have been used up during the quarantine, but I remember there's still a box in the storage with the medicine logo on it." Jenner just gave him what he wanted and didn't say anything more. Michael liked it that way, and the two parted ways with a new understanding.

"Thank you."

He made his way into the showers and slowly opened up all the lockers that were unlocked. He continued to do that until he found what he was looking for in the locker in the middle row.

Michael smiled at the sight. "Found it."

There were three M14 and three service pistols inside, with seven extra magazines for the rifles and three for the pistols.

"Nice, he even got two hand grenades."

Michael carefully picked up the rifles and strapped them over his shoulders. He fastened the magazines and pistols on the waistband of his trousers before picking up the grenades and returned to the storage room where Andrea is still sleeping.

He carefully placed down the weaponry before he started searching for that box of medicine. When he found it, he just placed it down beside the weapons and soon crawled back to bed, satisfied with his haul tonight.

The following day.

The group gathered at the cafeteria, and it was clear that several of them were suffering from hangovers, especially Glenn, he looked worse.

"Morning."

Andrea and Michael entered the cafeteria together, the former, greeted the people who were already there. No one minded that they came together, they already had an inkling there was something going on between the two and them doing this just affirmed that thinking.

Michael noticed Dale staring at him with that same look he always gives him, that look parents have when their daughters or granddaughters start having boyfriends and then coming over to their house.

Michael just smiled, he knows how the old man cares about the sisters like they're his own daughters.

The two arrived to see T-Dog distributing scrambled eggs he had made to the others, or Jacqui massaging the shoulders of a hangover Glenn.

"Good morning, Michael, and you too, Andrea." Amy greeted as she took a spoonful of scrambled eggs that T-Dog gave her.

"Good morning." Andrea smiled at her and headed to the back to make some breakfast for both her and Michael.

"Morning, Amy. Did you have a good rest last night?" Michael smiled as he took a seat beside her.

Amy smiled at him while chewing. "Yeah, it was the best I've had so far."

Michael chuckled and turned to look at Glenn. "Was it your first time drinking? You look...dreadful."

Glenn groaned in pain and threw him a quick glance. "I just had too much to drink. You had more than me last night, why do you look okay?"

"I have a good body." Michael chuckled.

'This is a result of having a vitality surpassing human physique, but I'm gonna tell you guys that.'

Andrea also made some scrambled eggs and the two ate white chatting with the rest as the rest of the survivors slowly trickled in.

A short moment later, Jenner walked in.

"Morning."

Shane looked at him and acknowledged his presence. "Hey, Doc."

Andrea and Dale shared a look and nodded at each other. Michael noticed that and it made him wonder what they're up to so early in the morning.

Dale turned towards Jenner and tried to bring up a subject. "Doctor, I don't mean to slam you with questions first thing."

"But you will anyway." Jenner poured himself a cup of coffee.

Andrea quickly chimed in. "We didn't come here for the eggs, doc."

'What the heck? Why is she still curious about that when Amy didn't die this time?' Michael wondered.

"Why are you still curious about that when I already mentioned yesterday that there's no cure?"

Andrea turned her head towards him and stared straight to his eyes. "Yes, but we need to know what we're dealing with, right? At least we'll have some knowledge about it and maybe we can help the doctor here to create a cure or something to slow down the infection."

Jenner sighed and led them to the big room as he pressed something on the computer.

"Give me a playback of TS-19."

[Playback of TS-19] VI's voice echoed while the big screen slowly loaded some files.

A short moment later, it showed them a brain scan of a person's head.

"Few people ever got the chance to see this, very few. So, listen well." Jenner especially addressed Andrea and Dale.

Carl kept his eyes on the screen and realized something. "Wait, is that a brain?"

"An extraordinary one. Not that it matters in the end." Jenner smiled, then he became sad again when he remembered something.

"Take us in for the EIV."

[Enhanced Internal View]

As it said, the screen soon slowly zoomed into the brain and a view of interconnecting lines that looked similar to a huge ant nest was shown, but with flashes of lights rapidly running through them.

"What are those lights?" Shane watched the screen intently and became curious, the others were too.

"It's a person's life." Jenner looked at the screen with some emotions on his face. "Experiences, memories. It's everything about you. Somewhere in all that organic wiring, all those ripples of light, is you. The very thing that makes you unique and human."

Daryl crossed his arms and clearly didn't understand it. "You don't make sense..ever?"

Jenner patiently explained to them like how a kid would understand. "Those are synapses. Electrical impulses in the brain that carry all the messages. They determine what a person says, does or thinks from the moment of birth…to the moment of death."

Rick slowly walked over while looking at him with suspicion. "Death? That's what this is, a vigil?"

"Yes…or rather the..playback of the vigil."

Everyone was curious who it was, and Jenner told them that it was Test Subject 19. Someone who was bitten and volunteered to record the process. Vi then showed them the synapses of the brain hemorrhaging before it goes dark, due to the death of the test subject. The group were saddened to see this, still reeling over the loss of Jim who had died from a similar event.

"Scan to the second event."

[Scanning to second event]

"The resurrection times vary wildly. We have reports of it happening in as short as three minutes. The longest we heard was eight hours." Jenner slowly explained while the video slowly loaded towards the next brain scan.

Glenn turned his head to look at Michael. "That's similar to what Michael had told us before."

Jenner quickly turned to Michael when he heard what Glenn said. "You did? You've seen it?"

"Yeah, but the longest I've witnessed was only two hours."Michael just shrugged; his eyes still glued to the screen. "It's from my previous group before I joined this one."

Jenner looked down thoughtfully but didn't say anything.

There was a long silence following that as everyone was too focused on the big screen before their eyes.

On the big screen, the synapses of the brain slowly lit up in a dull light and it caused a small chatter among the survivors as they whispered to each other.

"What the hell? It actually restarts the brain?" Lori thought out loud.

Jenner turned to her and explained. "No, just the brain stem. Basically, it gets them up and moving, but everything else that person was once was forever gone. Just a shell, driven by mindless instinct."

In the video, a bullet flies through TS-19s, killing it.

Amy asked the doctor that one question that everyone is actually curious about. "So, did you find out what the virus is, doctor?"

"Sadly, no. It could be microbial, viral, parasitic, fungal."

"Or the wrath of God?" Jacqui added, and that thought sent shivers down their spines.

"There's also that." Even as a man of science, Jenner didn't deny that possibility. The fall of human society was just too fast for it to be only a simple virus.

"Well, aside from England, there should be someplace else also doing the same work as the CDC, right? They must know something." Dale's hope is still burning bright even with that news.

"There are others, right? Like other facilities in the country? This can't be it."

Jenner thought for a moment before he gave them an answer that just led to more questions. "There may be some... people like me."

"But you don't know. How can you not know?" Rick sounds frustrated. Jenner's answer also frustrated the others.

"Everything went down. Communications, directives, all of it. The government didn't have the same preparations as the Brits did. I've been in the dark for almost a month and I thought your friend, Michael here, had already made it clear to all of us last night."

"Damn, so there's really no cure huh." Glenn felt bummed out. Even though he wasn't optimistic about it, he at least had some little hope for it.

Everyone felt down when Jenner gave credence to what Michael had shared to them last night. Everyone was still holding on onto that thin rope, but it proved futile before the truth.

"Man, I'm gonna get shit-faced drunk again." Daryl wasn't receiving the news well.

Though the news was bad, Dale was more concerned about one thing that had been bothering him since. "Dr. Jenner, I know this has been taxing for you and I hate to ask one more question, but..that clock. It's counting down, what happens when it reaches zero?"

'This is it.' Michael thought while having mixed feelings. If it was possible, he really doesn't want to leave this place.

"The.." Jenner hesitated for a moment, "basement generators, they run out of fuel."

"And then?"

Jenner just ignored Rick and walked away.

Rick turned his attention to the AI and quickly brought up the question to it. "Vi, what happens when the fuel runs out?"

[When the power runs out, facility-wide decontamination will occur]

The group was alarmed as Rick and a few others hurriedly made their way down to the basement.

"Decontamination? What does that mean?" Glenn asked aloud while running down the stairs.

"I don't like the way Jenner clammed up. The way he just wandered off like that." Shane remarked, following behind Rick.

"What's wrong with him? Seriously, man, is he nuts, medicated, or what?" Like the others, T-Dog obviously can't grasp the gravity of their situation.

While Rick and the others went down to check on the backup generator. Michael, Andrea and Amy, including Dale, are discussing what happened earlier.

"What do you think is going on with that doctor?" Dale looked at Michael. He obviously does not like being with Andrea, but Michael has proven that he can be counted on as a recent addition to the group.

Obviously, Michael knows what is about to happen, but he plans to let this one run its course. "I don't know, but I got a bad feeling about that clock. Andrea, take Amy with you into the storage room and take the duffle bag to the lounge area."

"Okay." Andrea nodded and hurriedly brought her sister with her.

Turning to Dale, Michael gestured for him to follow him. "Follow me, we got something else to do."

Dale didn't say anything as he had already grasped what Michael intended to do.

Michael led the old man to the location of the fire cabinets that he had stumbled across last night and broke them and stole the fire ax's stored inside.

"You're a crazy kid." Dale couldn't help but say those after breaking out their third and last fire axe.

Michael let out a chuckle. "Just trying to survive. We need every weapon we can find. Even a small kitchen knife will prove helpful."

"Hey, wait..." Both of them were about to head back when the lights in the stairwell started flickering. "Do you think that clock-"

"...is a self-destruct sequence?" Michael cut him off. He already knew what Dale wanted to say the moment he opened his mouth.

Dale repeatedly nodded while trailing behind him. "Yeah, given the secrecy of this building. Shouldn't they have something like that in the event they were compromised?"

'Damn, I didn't know this old man was this sharp, though it wasn't enough to save himself from getting killed.'

"Maybe, I don't know. Maybe the entire facility would just shut down and we'll get trapped down here." Michael didn't want to say much as it might steer too much from how things are set to be. He had already blabbered a lot of information yesterday than necessary.

'I should try not to meddle too much in situations such as this. Since I don't know if I can be as charming as Rick.'