Just a bit of a refresher: if I ever go out with my crew to do whatever, we make sure to take down any forming hordes, infestations, and the like—even picking off any stragglers we'd come across. And if we're blessed with the time and some extra gasoline, we'd pile them on top of one another then we'd light them up so they'd turn into cinders.
But bringing it back to our current situation, it looked like Jesus and his crew had come across this rest stop before.
It's just that in this instance, I was thankful that they didn't clear it of deadheads or so I thought.
Kaley was the first one to speak up amidst the slight confusion, "They're… They're dead, right?"
At this point, Tatiana and Quinn just silently nodded but we heard Jesus' voice from the radio a second time.
-
*bzzt*
[Yo, you guys hearing me?]
*bzzt*
-
*bzzt*
"We do, we do. What the fuck is that place?"
*bzzt*
-
*bzzt*
[A rest stop?]
*bzzt*
-
*bzzt*
"You fucking— Good one, I'll give you that. But what the fuck are they doing?"
*bzzt*
-
*bzzt*
[Being… normal, I guess? It's fuckin' weird, I know. We came across this place a lot of times and the ones who wander in start to do what the freakin' Romans inside do.]
*bzzt*
-
No one said another word after that but what we're seeing was far from the word "normal".
We've seen deadheads do irregular behavior but we've never seen such a huge group well, for the lack of a better term, act "normal".
It was because the rest stop in question had deadheads in a line "waiting" for the next bus, "watching" the shops they were in, "sitting" on the tables with their orders, "wiping" the glass panes with their tools, "squatting" in a corner and "chatting" amongst themselves, "peeing" in a random private-ish wall, etc.
The place looked like any regular rest stop anyone would drive by but they were totally inhabited by rotting corpses that weren't even trying to find their next meal.
What's disturbing was that even if their motor functions weren't all there, anyone could see that they were somehow emulating what they were doing from their past lives.
Anyhow, we were still a good distance away from the rest stop in question so we went outside our vehicles without turning off our engines. Furthermore, I fetched the last drone I had on hand while Tatiana and Kaley went ahead and set up a small perimeter for us. Granted every deadhead in the immediate vicinity was already inside the rest stop, it wouldn't hurt to be extra careful.
"What are you—"
"I'll fly it around once to get some footage…"
"Oh? Take your time then," Jesus said as he was about to light his used cigarette.
Luckily enough, the rest stop wasn't enclosed in a single roof so I had easy access navigating my drone around it. And like how it looked from our perspective, there were deadheads around that were either employees or people that were doing the same thing in the other facilities further in.
However, right as I flew around the 2nd floor of this fast food joint that had glass windows, every deadhead inside took notice of my drone and they all just stood up and stood side by side—heads turning in the same direction my drone was flying to.
It made the next few seconds a little disturbing but when they eventually came back to their stations because they didn't even care about my drone flying around for the second time. Furthermore, only that particular place took notice of my drone taking a stroll and gathering footage because everything else inside their little territory was busy "functioning" as usual.
So once I got enough footage, I brought my drone back and turned to Jesus as I was putting it back in the case, "Since when has that place been… like that?"
Jesus shrugged, "I'm not entirely sure but it's been a few months at least."
Tatiana interjected, "Have you tried going near them or shooting them?"
"We… We went near to try and lure them out but they never leave that place for whatever reason. We've encountered deadheads that hunker down in a specific place like that but they rush you the moment they get near, not the other way around."
I nodded, "Yeah, we've encountered a nest of sprinters like that pretty early on…"
"Sprinters? Fuck, you guys must be pretty experienced with them, getting away—"
"Getting away? No, we cleared that place and discovered a dead toddler that could say words…"
"Don't… Stop. I can handle regular zombs just fine but if they're that young, I can't even imagine…"
"My bad, my bad…"
At that point, Jesus shared a few bits of stories from their travels while I was reviewing the footage I just caught. It involved some of the weirdest and most disturbing shit I've heard to the most fucked up and dumb shit we've also encountered.
Being on the road pretty much their whole lives was pretty difficult in this scenario because practically living in your vehicle was already hard even before the world ended, imagine living the "Van Life" when pretty much anything that walked outside was a potential flesh eater.
Jesus flicked off his cigarette butt, "So, what's your plan for that thing?"
"It looks to me that it's like an irregular infestation of sorts but looking at the display on some of the stands and the state of some of the vehicles present—as obvious as this would sound, it was formed after some time."
"Haa?"
I scratched the back of my head, "I mean—I'm just saying, people have probably picked that place clean or even used it as a base of sorts but my bet is that a special deadhead was making them act like that. It's just that its main purpose wasn't to infect the uninfected but to do as is, like what they were doing before."
"Uh-huh…"
"It's always a given that zombie was programmed to attack the living—special or not—but the question is, where's the deadhead that's responsible? The obvious answer is that it's probably inside their zone but how sure are we that they're not gonna pounce on us the moment we enter it? You said that you guys tried to lure them out but you never told me if you tried to drive inside."
"That's true—"
Quinn interjected after rolling her eyes, "The question should be, do you want to clear that place or not? Acting normal or not, they're still undead. They shouldn't be 'living' in the first place, right?"
"..."
"..."
"So? Are we gonna shoot first or drive out? We're burning precious daylight here!"
At that point, Quinn's words rang true because even if the deadheads we were witnessing right now were moving like normal humans, they were still meat bags that should be put down and laid to rest. It was the only form of respect we could give to these things because if we try and leave them alone just because of things that shouldn't matter, it could be another sort of problem we have to fix in the future that we should've fixed at this moment.
With that said, Kaley and I brought our rifles out—after driving at a much safer distance—so we could pick some of them off and see how would they react. But yeah, Jesus and his crew looked like they doubted we could pop heads this far but we didn't say much and let our rifles do the talking.
Then Kaley tapped me, "Shouldn't we wake Jose up too?"
"Yeah—"
"I-I'm awake, what are we doing again?"
"Terrorism."
"Hah?"
"Remember, no Russian."
Tatiana added to the confusion, "Wut— Nevermind, I'm not gonna even ask…"
We waited for Jose to get ready but there was a certain quietness when the three of us were lining our shots. And yeah, it didn't take long before each of us sent a lead trajectory through a deadhead's skull but the reactions we received weren't from shooting from this distance but because of how everyone else in the rest stop reacted from losing three of their own.
I thought for sure that the defensive mechanism of the one controlling them would make everyone else rush to our direction but they fucking didn't.
We can see through our scopes how the ones closest to the victims duck down for cover, run away, crouch to a fetal position, etc., while everyone else tried to get out of dodge. But yeah, the ones wandering outside their zone instantly hobbled to our direction but the ones who accidentally walked into their circle of influence abruptly turned and tried to take cover.
Kaley and Jose wasted no time to pick off anything that shouldn't be moving but I once again reached for my drone to get some precious footage. I could've asked Isaac—who just woke up—to drive it for me but I won't trust my last drone to someone who might just crash it the moment I gave him the controller.
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