Stronghold In The Apocalypse

The sun was setting in the horizon, and the soldiers had finished barricading the buildings to serve as their temporary hideouts.

Some soldiers and a few survivors are on the lookout while others went to rest to get as much sleep as possible before the scouting team who left earlier comes back.

Before the sun had fully set, the lookouts finally spotted the familiar bus in the distance heading towards their direction.

"The scouts are back! Get ready to receive them!" One of the lookouts radioed to his comrades stationed below the building.

The medic and the few others quickly readied themselves to receive the group, and as the bus slowly got nearer to them, they immediately noticed that the bus was in a worse condition.

The bus had a large dent on its front and because it had a flat tire on one of its front tires, it was moving like a person with a limp, and was covered in blood and disgusting bits of rotten flesh..

"Seems like they had a rough time"

All of the people present had the same thought when they saw the present condition of the vehicle, and with that thought in mind, all of them immediately went over towards them as the bus slowly came into a creaking halt.

Bella was the first to get down from the bus, followed by Darius, Sarge and the rest.

All of them looked incredibly tired, but mostly depressed with a guilty expression on their faces, especially Sarge, whose mood was like there's dark clouds hanging above him.

Then the people who came to receive them quickly noticed that there was someone missing.

"One of them is missing," said one of the survivors.

And the medic who was with the soldiers instead shot an inquiring gaze towards Sarge and asked, "Where's Lieutenant Trejo? Did something happen?"

Sarge looked at his colleague and replied with a nod, "Yeah, the others will fill you in with what happened. On the other hand, I need to immediately meet the Boss to report something important"

The soldier glanced at Bella and the others before looking at Sarge and said, "Go ahead, I'll take care of them"

The medic, an old man clearly in his fifties, quickly walked over to Bella and started inspecting her for any bites on her body, and while he was doing that, he asked, "So what happened?"

Hearing his question, the others quickly perked up their ears as they didn't want to miss even a single information about what happened to them.

Bella looked at the man, she sighed and slowly started telling them what happened.

"Everything was going well for us, until we met a mutated Tanker, a stronger and a little more intelligent monster compared to its predecessors. At first, everyone thought it was just a regular Tanker…"

While Bella was telling them about what happened, Sarge was on his way to the temporary headquarters where Leo and the few high ranking officials are located.

Arriving before the building, Sarge gave the soldiers on guard a nod of acknowledgement before making his way inside and towards the third floor of the building.

There was a soldier guarding the door to the command room, and when the soldier saw Sarge walking over towards him, he said, "Sergeant Barnes, did the mission go well and where's Lieutenant Trejo?"

Barnes just shook his head before saying, "Something happened. Anyway, is the Boss inside?"

The soldier looked immediately grim when heard his answer and so he replied, "I see, go in then, the Boss is inside with the other officers"

Knock! Knock!

Barnes knocked first on the door before opening it and stepped foot inside the room that was labeled, Boardroom.

Inside, Barnes saw three people. There was a middle aged man whose insignia indicated that he is of the Captain's Rank, while the other soldier was another man in his thirties and with the Rank of a Major.

And obviously, the last person was the man that Barnes is looking for, Leo.

"Sergeant Barnes, here to report, boss!"

With his back facing Barnes, Leo turned his head in the direction of his right shoulder and he said, "I heard that your team encountered a problem?"

"Yes boss, we… Lieutenant Trejo was left behind to cover our retreat" Barnes said while gritting his teeth and with his fists clenched.

Leo turned around and faced him, "Tell me, what is it that you encountered that one of you was forced to stay behind?"

"It was a Tanker boss, a mutated one, probably Level Seven"

When Barned uttered the words "Seven", the other two soldiers inside were incredibly startled as they looked at each other, before they turned their attention to Leo. They didn't comment and just waited for Leo's opinion before saying anything.

"Hmmm, I see"

They thought that Leo was deep in his thoughts because he was closing his eyes, not knowing that he already knew their encounter with that monster and he was just reviewing the information that Alex had told him before in his thoughts.

Leo's silence certainly made Barnes nervous as he immediately opened his mouth and said, "Boss, the Tanker we met possessed intellect compared to its counterparts who are just driven by their madness when they see prey. The example was what happened to us, the monster didn't follow its natural instinct to attack a larger group of prey, but instead, it just let us leave instead of coming after us for a more rewarding meal"

"That's the reason why I judged that it was a Level 7 for now, a level higher than the Z just for a precaution that it can also control other zombies and build its own nest"

As Barnes had mentioned, Leo hadn't forgotten to establish a system to determine the dangers of the zombies and mutated animals before he left for Washington.

Because Leo is the only one who can see the level of the monsters and can't really tell the others about it, he had Alex build the system for the survivors, so that they will be able to gauge if they are capable of tackling the danger associated with the danger level, and with it, at least casualties were lessened.