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.]
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 some shit they aren't supposed to, they're still the 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 projectile 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.