Chapter 19 - Strange Things

The good thing about a zombie outbreak is that no one obeys any traffic rules. Now I wasn't sure how fast we were going, but what I do know is that I was clinging onto the driver seat for dear life. Everything was a blur as we passed by it, and any zombies in our way immediately became a splat of blood on the windscreen. It's a good thing these cars are reinforced and able to withstand more damage than a normal car.

"May, how did you get your ID watch off?" Lia asked as she eyed hers.

I immediately knew why she was asking, "Demi, is there a safe way for her to remove her watch?"

"No need to worry, I had my people disable the tracking function a while ago," he explained as he gave me a quick glance.

"Oh," She responded, letting out a breath of relief.

It hasn't been long since we escaped that refugee camp, but we've put a lot of distance between it. Because of all these set backs my sense of time has been blurred, I don't know how much longer it'll take us to get to D2.

______

I was awoken to the blaring sounds of sirens and Lia's voice. 

"What's going on?" I asked her.

She gave me a concerned look, her eyes filled with both unshed tears and surprise, "You've been asslep for three days, May."

"What?!" I exclaimed in disbelief.

That was impossible, I don't even remember falling asleep. I took in my surroundings and only then did I notice we were in a house.

Before I could ask any questions, Demi stormed in the room. I'm not sure what he was going to say, but when he saw me he immediately ran towards me and engulfed me in a hug.

"Do you know...how worried we were?" His voice trembled as he spoke.

Soft sniffles caught my attention. Lia was crying, and not long after she too hugged me and her sniffles turned into full blown sobbing.

"Were you dreaming? Is that why you wouldn't wake up?" She asked after a while.

I was going to say no, but truthfully I'm not sure. They saw my confusion and that's when Demi stood up, he pulled a chair out and sat.

"We're currently three blocks away from the D2 gates," he explained. "After we escaped the refugee camp you fell asleep not long after. Lia and I didn't think anything of it, but then you started screaming and trashing around in your sleep. We tried waking you but you wouldn't wake up no matter what."

He paused for a while a strange emotion coating his face, "We thought you would wake up in a few more hours....but you didn't. And after two days we ran into a strange mutant, it was able to control the other zombies."

His word shocked me. I was trying to process the information when my head started hurting, images from a future to come flashing and changing quickly before I could make sense of them.

"It's him isnt it? Edward Viola, he's controlling the zombies isn't he?" I asked them.

When they nodded I explained, "I never thought about it before, but when a person is bitten by a zombie, it takes less than a minute for them to transform. On the night he showed up to my house he was already bitten, but it wasn't until the next day he transformed."

"That means mutants have been around since day one and they didn't just pop up all of a sudden. But the question is how do they become mutants?" Lia stated.

"By eating other zombies," the words came out of my before I knew it.

My friends looked at me in surprise. With shaking hands I brought them to my lips and touched it lightly, "How...? What did I...why did I...?"

Something strange was happening to me. This was the second time I spoke and it didn't feel like me, but at the same time it did. 

Demi changed the subject as he noticed my confusion, "We need to make a decision now. In the past three days you've been asleep, zombies have successfully invaded D2. The government no longer considers this an outbreak and has declared it an apocalypse. This means that eighty percent of the world are now zombies. They even sent out their best men. At first they were winning, they were successfully pushing the zombies out of D2 and we almost made it.....until it showed up."

"We got away before it could spot us, but its terrible out there. For a cameraman he sure knows how to direct an army of zombies," Lia continued.

I took their explanations in, I wasn't sure if we should continue or not. A zombie that can change form and control other zombies is dangerous. But how does he have two powers?

After a while of thinking I explained, "He ate zombies and turned into a mutant with the ability to change forms. The only explanation on how he got another power, is that he ate a mutant with that ability."

"What?!" They both said in unison.

"That would mean they're capable of evolution the more they eat. This is worse than we thought," She ruffled her hair, panick ensuing her features.

I swallowed the lump in my throat, I have to put an end to this for my friends. It's okay if they don't want to follow me anymore, but I can't let them live the rest of their lives in fear and danger.

"Last chance guys, you can stay here until I fix things. I...I don't want to put you in anymore danger."

They exchanged a look. Lia patted me on my head, "No matter what happens, my answer will never change. I'm on your side May."

"Me as well," Demi added.

Tears glossed my eyes but I blinked them away, "So what's the plan? Can we make it through the gates?"

"That's actually what I wanted to talk about. But then I saw you were awake and it slipped my mind," Demi said sheepishly. "We can make it through, the zombies are mindlessly following orders and flooding the gates. I saw a few people safely exit the gates by running through the crowd of zombies. Some of them were even patrolling around a while ago but they didn’t attack the people."

"The zombies can probably only follow the orders they're given, you're saying we have to count on that to get through the gates?" Lia rose a brow.

"It's suicide, even more so when we don't know what the orders are," I stated.

Demi's experience turned grim a he responded, "I know, but we don't have another choice. I can't get onto my people that I had stationed there or in D1,  and unless one of you has a reinforced, military grade cybersteel rocket launcher, getting thought those gate any other way is impossible."

Maybe there was another way through this. If The End was here she'd probably have tons ways for us to get out of this. But she wasn't here, she left me to fend for myself. Though this should've hurt, it didn't. I had cone to trust her without realizing it, but maybe I always have? This was another strange feeling. 

I was nervous, afraid something might go wrong. I tried convincing them to let me go alone and find a way for thwn to get in later, but they disagreed immediately. 

"Then, I guess it now or never. Right guys?" I said nervously.

They both looked nervous as well. But their determination shone brighter. 

"Right!" They said in unison.

And so, we made our way to the crowd of zombies, steeling ourselves for anything that came our way.