RE: The Walking Dead [Zombie LitRPG]

The survivors were finally allowed into the U.S Center for Disease and Control.

"Hello?"

Michael and Daryl covered the rear while the rest of the survivors poured into the building.

"Close those doors. Watch out for walkers."

Being the last to get in, Michael closed the door and carefully checked if it would hold.

'Damn, that's heavy. Is this bulletproof glass?'

The group was on edge as they constantly looked around them. After all, this building would be a death trap if there are swarms of zombies inside the building.

Kachak!

Then the sound of a gun being cocked echoed and everyone immediately turned towards where the sound came from while pointing their guns.

They saw a man in a t-shirt standing beside a small staircase with a rifle in his hands, pointed at them.

"Anybody infected?!"

"One of our group was. He didn't make it."Rick answered while gasping for breath.

The man moved a couple steps towards them. "Why are you here? What do you want?"

"A chance."

"That's asking an awful lot these days." The man calmly moved towards them; their weapons still pointed at each other.

"I know." Rick tilted his head to the side.

"..."

It was followed by a deafening silence. The man saw the way they were looking at him, those eyes, pleading, full of hope.

"You all submit to a blood test first. That's the price of admission."

In the end, he eventually accepted them, but not before presenting them a stipulation they need to adhere

"We can do that."

Michael finally smiled. He would never forget the events that followed in this building.

'Finally, some hot shower.'

The man finally lowered his gun, and he wanted to say something more, but then he saw the zombies that gathered on the door and chose to remain silent.

The man looked at Rick and let them know.

"Once this door closes, it stays closed."

"I understand."

Rick agreed without hesitation since they really don't have any other choice.

Though it wouldn't be until later that they would realize what the man meant by those words.

Beeps!

The man swiped his card on the machine affix on the wall and talked to someone on the microphone. "Vi, seal the main entrance. Kill the power up here"

As the door was now secured, and the shutters slowly came down.

"Rick Grimes."

"Dr. Edwin Jenner."

With everything finally out of the way, the two men finally had time to introduce themselves to each other.

Jenner got the survivors in batches down the elevator until it was finally the main group's turn.

"Do doctors go around packing heat like that?" Daryl couldn't help but become curious.

He turned to look at him with a small smile. "There were plenty left lying around. I familiarized myself. But you look harmless enough"

Jenner scanned the group, and his eyes stopped at Carl and had a chuckle. "Except you. I'll have to keep my eye on you."

Carl responded with a small smile.

As the group wandered deep into the underground tunnel of the CDC. Michael thought of something. 'This looks like we're inside a spaceship'

Jenner led the survivors into the spacious control room where computer-like machines were set on an elevated circular platform.

"Vi, bring up the lights in the big room."

The lights quickly turned on, illuminating the room.

With the lights turned on, Micheal quickly spotted something that caught his attention.

'The self-destruction countdown. We have less than 24 hours huh'

"Welcome to Zone 5" Jenny continued moving ahead, with the survivors slowly trailing behind.

Looking around, Rick becomes curious about something. "Where is everybody? The other doctors? The staff?"

Standing in the middle of the circular platform, Jenner turned around to face them. "I'm it. I'm the only one that's left."

"What about the person you were speaking with? Vi?" Amy remarked, the others were also curious.

"Vi, say hello to our guest. Tell them…welcome."

[Hello, guest. Welcome.]

The obvious sound of a female AI voice reverberated throughout the room.

"I'm sorry." Jenner saw the disappointment in their eyes.

*****

Jenner brought all of the survivors into another room and started the process of extracting their blood for the blood test.

The process proceeded smoothly until it was Cole's red-headed girlfriend's turn that Jenner finally heard a complaint from them. "What's the point of doing this doctor? If any of us were bitten, then we would've taken it ourselves to isolate them."

"I've already broken every protocol by letting you guys in here. Let me just at least be thorough."

The people just quietly looked at each other, all feeling tired.

"All done"

The red-haired woman slowly stood up and suddenly felt her knees go weak. Thankfully, Cole was just there to catch her in time.

"Is she okay?"

Cole looked at Jenner and explained. "She hasn't eaten much these days. Well, all of us."

'Except me' Michael thought with a shrug.

Jenner looked concerned and decided to be a generous host.

*****

In the cafeteria, the survivors became merry as they let themselves go for the first time in a while. They drank wine and liquor alongside generous amounts of food that the survivors cooked using the resources inside the cafeteria.

Dale was standing and filling up a glass of wine and handed it over to Lori.

"Did you know that in Italy? Children would have a little bit of wine with dinner. Including France."

Smiling, Lori looked at her son. "Well, when Carl is in France or Italy. He can have some then."

"What's it gonna hurt? Come on." Rick let out a joyful chuckle and looked at his wife, both eyed each other for a quick moment. "Come on. What?"

Everyone laughed as Dale handed Carl his first experience of wine.

"Eww!"

Everyone on their table clamored in laughter and the men then started teasing each other.

Michael had excused himself into a corner and just watched the people finally getting their well-deserved respite after everything they have gone through and not worrying anymore about zombies coming to devour them.

'Unfortunately, such happy times are fleeting. So, enjoy it everyone while it lasts.'

Michael quickly gobbled up the steak on his plate and sneakily left to someplace else.

He started wandering around the facility, going from one room to the next.

He made mental notes on the location of fire safety cabinets he came across to or things inside rooms that can be looted for later.

Michael continued walking around. It was clear that he had an objective in mind.

"Do they not have a pharmacy like thing inside here?" Michael scratched his head as he had been walking around and had not seen even a small cupboard of medicines.

Falling short on his goals, Michael sneakily made his way back to the cafeteria and just arrived in time to Shane being a killjoy.

"We're celebrating, Shane. Don't need to do this now." Rick admonished him.

Shane looked at Rick like he had just heard something very funny. "Whoa, wait a second. That's why we're here, right? This was your move. Suppose to, you know, find all the answers."

"Instead..." Shane scoffed then continued. "We found him. One man and a talking computer, why?"

Jenner didn't immediately say anything, he wanted his words to be concise, precise, before he said anything. "Well, when things slowly went bad. Most people just slowly...left. I can't blame them, they also have their own families outside this building. When things got worse, when the military cordon got overrun, the rest bolted. Leaving me."

"All of them?"

"No, some couldn't face reality. Those people…opted out. There was a series of suicides, it was a bad time." Jenner looked sad. Talking about it made him remember his departed friends and colleagues.

The topic of discussion certainly made some people uneasy. They just quietly sipped their drinks and listened to the discussion taking place.

"You decided to stay and hold out. Why?" His story made Andrea very curious. A few probably shared the same sentiment.

"I just kept working, hoping to do something good." Jenner sounded calmly, but Andrea was able to hear the pain in his voice.

"Is there…any cure at all?" someone among the crowd asked.

Jenner forced a smile. He was really hoping that no one would bring that question.

"There's no cure."

He was just about to respond when a familiar voice interrupted them.

Everyone turned their heads towards the source of the voice and saw Micheal leaning on the kitchen counter with bottled water in his hand.

"Is what I would have wanted to say, and while yes, it's true that we don't have a cure.right now. That doesn't mean the others won't."

The others looked at each other and their impression on Michael even became deeper or more mysterious with how he's coming at them right now. They weren't stupid, they had long noticed that he seemed to have adapted too well to the chaos going on around the world.

"What do you mean by that? Who are you?"

Jenner slowly stood up from his seat, a little agitated. The once extinguished hope in his eyes had once again started burning, albeit small.

"Do you know something?" Rick was also growing curious and agitated.

Well, all of them, even Shane.

Looking at Jenner, Michael felt that he should have just kept his mouth shut and regretted butting in.

"Well, I'm Michael…and the UK, or more precisely England. I have a friend that lives there. Who told me that their country had declared martial law and had long started their preparations against a possible global pandemic. He told me that they started building huge walls to isolate themselves from the outside world."

Michael looked at the dubious looks on their faces and added. "We communicated through sat-phones a week back. Until I broke it when a swarm of zombies jumped on me during a short supply run. So the best bet I can think for a cure right now is in England since they would still have a working government right now."

It was certainly great news, but no one was in the mood to become happy.

The United Kingdom is, after all, on the other side of the world. The journey here to CDC that should've normally been taken around 40 minutes to travel had instead taken them several hours just to get here. So, they can already imagine the perilous journey to Europe.

"And I don't believe the government, or the military had already fallen. Defeated by those monsters outside that even a kid can outrun. Maybe they had fragmented but not defeated."

Michael knows that it was implied in the show that the world's government fell along with their militaries, but he does not believe that's their case for one good reason.

'This is a real world, not a TV show. No showrunner. I'm just not sure if this is a world separated from my Earth's universe or a whole new parallel universe altogether. Nevertheless, still a world. People die.'

"But we saw how the city fell. How the army got overrun and all" Glenn remarked. Though he thinks Michael does have many points, the things he witnessed said otherwise.

"You saw a portion of them. If England can do it, why can't we? Our technology is as advanced as theirs, our military is also as good as theirs. So, do not lose hope just because of one minor setback. Please keep on living..for our families and the friends we lost along the way. I don't want to die only to get scolded by my ancestors for why I didn't procreate to continue the bloodline."

His last bit elicited chuckles in the room, at least it had lightened the mood.

"For our families and the friends, we lost along the way." Dale suddenly stood up and addressed the crowd by raising his glass of wine.

"For our families and friends!"

Everyone all followed suit and everyone drank to that, restoring a little bit of hope in them, enough to encourage them to keep on living..even if they're the only ones left.

Michael had been keeping an eye on the doctor and was relieved to see him still in low spirits.

'Phew, It got me scared there for a second when he suddenly acted out of character and started showing signs of hope. I really don't want to add another variable right now.'