Stronghold In The Apocalypse

"Hmm?"

While driving the truck, Alex suddenly noticed something from the corner of his eye, technically from his holographic minimap.

So he slowly stepped on the breaks, and the truck slowly came into an immediate halt, before he killed its engine.

"Have we….arrive, sir?"

Trejo slowly woke up from his short nap when his conscious mind felt the truck stop.

"No" Alex gave a short answer as he kept looking at something out the window.

Frowning, Trejo looked around them and immediately realized that they were still on the road and surrounded by buildings, and his groggy state quickly went away as he immediately turned his attention back to Alex and said, "Wait...why did we stop here sir? Are there enemies? Are we surrounded already?"

And while he was saying those words, he was already arming himself as he even turned off the safety on his minigun that was already on its last stretch of ammunition while warily watching the dark surrounding through the window.

"There's survivors ahead, stay put" replied Alex as he slowly got down from the truck.

"Survivors? But I don't see anyone sir, sir?!"

Trejo called to him as he watched Alex slowly walk towards the darkness in confusion since he's really not seeing anyone around them, not even peep!

"It's so dark outside that I won't even notice if a cat walks by right now within my line of sight. Just how powerful is his eyesight that he's able to see anything from this darkness? Could it be related to his mutated ability? Cause that's the only explanation I can think of right now"

Trejo looked around their surroundings from inside the truck, and he couldn't help but mumble to himself.

"I'm just realizing now how creepy it is when you're all alone and surrounded by the darkness around you, and shouldn't the commander prioritize our safety? After all, he did say that the horde had already started moving behind us"

Meanwhile,

Alex is currently moving through the dark street while maneuvering around the obstacles on his way like the abandoned cars, shopping carts, etc.

Then he stopped in front of a now wrecked coffee shop and looked towards the small apartment building across the street.

"There are people inside that place, are they survivors living around this area or are they watching us and have impure intentions towards us?"

He didn't move from his spot though, as he can clearly spot the people that are looking at him through the windows of the building, and while Alex had already seen them, the people inside the building had also long noticed Alex because of how conspicuous the truck is even under the blanket of the night, and the sound of the engine doesn't help, and anyone with ears can clearly distinguish it even from the noises of monster and zombies around the area and had been watching him the moment he got down from the truck till the moment he stopped across the street from their hideout.

And while he was standing there, Alex saw a small red dot on his head from the reflection coming from the shattered glass window of a car on the road..

He smiled, and slowly raised his hands to show that he's unarmed.

Well, that's in condition that they can also clearly see him under the blanket of the night.

"Why is he raising his hands up? Are there really people there?"

With his night vision goggles back on, Trejo saw Alex standing on the sidewalk a hundred meters or so away from his position and was raising his hands up like someone was threatening him.

"Oh, there's people coming out of that building across from him. Should I go down and see what's going on? But he told me to stay put though. Hmmm…besides, those people would have immediately tried to kill…ohh, he beat them up"

Trejo was still in the process of contemplating if he should go down and help Alex when he immediately saw the scene of Alex immediately subduing the three people the moment they entered his range of attack.

"Well, that was…pathetic. I was even hoping for a fight to happen to see if they have a mutant within their ranks. I guess that's probably what the commander had in mind too, as he didn't immediately attack them"

On Alex's side, he had knocked out two of the three people who wanted to capture him while he had also easily subdued the other person and used her as a shield from the people hiding inside the building.

"L-let me go!"

The woman who was captured by Alex tried to wriggle free from his grasp, but when she realized that his grip was too tight on her arms and he wasn't even budgin from his position, she quickly warned her companions and yelled towards them, an action that attracted more zombies around them.

"Be careful! He's a mutant! Daryl and Carl are dead!"

Though Alex's face clearly couldn't be seen in the dark, it was certain that the events that just took place didn't even cause a ripple on his expression as he's still wearing that deadpan expression on his face while looking at the woman in his hands..

Seeing that three of their companions got taken down in the blink of an eye, someone from inside the building was clearly flustered by the turn of events as they immediately shouted saying, "L-let her go or we will open fire!"

"Stop making so much noise woman, your companions aren't dead yet. I just want to ask you a question" said Alex to the woman, ignoring the people threatening to shoot him from the opposite direction.

With her back facing Alex, the woman could only snarl in anger and replied, "Grr, you won't get anything out of me"

"Relax, I just want to know why you and your companions are here, since there weren't any living people in this area the last time we checked it. Think carefully and answer my question honestly, and if I'm not satisfied with your answer, then you're dead meat, and by dead meat, I mean I'm gonna feed you to the zombies so you won't immediately die. I'm pretty sure you don't want to see that outcome of dying a painful death. So…who the f*ck are you people?"

His voice that was devoid of emotion immediately sent a shiver down her spine, and her courage in the face of death that was blazing from the power of friendship earlier had slowly died down the moment she started imagining the scene of her getting eaten alive, and it scared the sh*t out of her.

"W-we're just regular people struggling to survive! We don't even eat people! We're just hiding inside till sunrise, p-please don't feed me to the zombies!"