Foundered

Jasper II: Heart of the Swarm

The road to Pristina felt pretty uneventful at first, but soon the green rolling fields were replaced by dark clouds and tall shadows piercing the horizon. The nuclear clouds moved away, letting a bright glare of light singe across the sky.

Six jeeps rolled over the country roads: five of them carrying around twenty of the elitest soldiers and the one on the front carrying Yara, Jasper, and Anatoli. All of them were clad from head to toe in plague armor, giving out no scent nor making them vulnerable to zombie attacks.

"The whole city's in disarray," said Yara. "is this it?"

"Yes," answered Anatoli, stopping the car by an old university building. "We are now at the heart of the swarm."

Right before the car, two zombies stood peering at them like idiots, unable to do anything without the scent of living flesh. "Oh, quit it!" shouted Jasper and swung his sword, beheading one and impaling the other.

"Calm down Jasper," Yara put his hand on his shoulder, "let's go in."

"Soldiers: follow!" shouted Anatoli as they walked into the building.

The soldiers with their M4s readied walked into the building, coming up to the reception area which was dark and empty save for a few ghouls and zombies who had rotten beyond comparison, feeding on corpses nearby without any hint of aggression.

"Weird," said Jasper, "I've never seen zombies so disintegrated but still functional."

"Well, what should have happened?" asked Yara.

"The zombies should have had a shelf life of a few months, or at most a year, by when they'd rot away and literally fall apart."

"Maybe there's something more to the zombies then," said Anatoli, commanding his soldiers around the building.

"Where are we anyway?" asked Yara.

"Pristina Institute of Technology," said Jasper, "I wanted to get admission here a few years back."

"Good thing you didn't," said Anatoli, "it wouldn't fancy me to kill my old comrade as he tried to lunge at me lumbering and fumbling."

Jasper smiled, "yeah, I'm grateful too."

"But apparently these ruins aren't," said Yara, "where are the zombies? This is the heart of the plague; we should find at least a million of them here."

Some ghouls looked at them, almost as if curious.

"I don't know, look around, maybe you'll find-" a drop of blood fell on Jasper's helmet.

"Uh, guys..." Jasper looked up in horror; Yara shone a flashlight up alongside him: ghouls scaled the ceilings, ever prepared to leap at them and tear them apart.

"I don't like this, I don't like this at all." Yara moved back.

"Get a Molotov," said Jasper, "fire is our only friend in these dark times."

But just as they pointed their guns upward, the ghouls looked down at them: their eyes flashing red, skin green with strange fungi growing on them, and dangerously sharp fangs and claws profiling their rotten figures.

"Shoot!" shouted Jasper, the ghouls jumped down thereafter. A barrage of 5.56 bullets clogged the environment thereafter, causing the ghouls to break apart and fall to the earth.

Jasper and Yara crawled out of the great pile of bones which had amassed over them, shooting back and destroying a multitude of zombies. Though they were dangerous, their teeth and claws unable to carve through the thick armor of the soldiers.