Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

Ignoring the fact that I did a special favor for the old man to edit out the parts where the guy shows his face, Grace never looked so uncomfortable while the old man and this scary-looking mofo looked like they had just become friends. Meanwhile, Kaley was laughing her ass out about my predicament, but I just straight marched up the stairs while everyone else was still reeling.

'Never again…'

It didn't take long before we reached the fourth floor but once we reached this "Mrs. Deweys's Office" which looked like a principal's office instead, Mr. Jacobs walked ahead of us and knocked at the door.

"Mrs. Dewey? Our guests are here."

Then we heard a voice from behind the door:

"Come in, come in— Open the door for them, Jacobs— Ah!"

And as Mr. Jacobs did, he walked in front of us before we saw an older lady wearing very casual clothes and was just in the process of dusting her own office, looking like she wasn't this place's owner at all.

"Welcome! I wish we could've prepared more for what you did but— Honestly? We're all pretty scared when we heard the assault! Sit down! Sit down! M-Make yourselves comfortable!"

Oscar walked in towards her, "Howdy, name's Oscar Goodman, this here's my nephew Sky and his wife, Kaley—"

"W-Wife?! You two young ones?! When did you two get married?!"

I waved her off, "We're not technically husband and wife but we are wearing our rings and living in the same roof."

"Oh~ It's that type of situation, I see. Would you like anything? Tea? Coffee? Some orange juice?"

Oscar waved her off, "Unfortunately, we just had breakfast before coming in. How about you? Would you need a bit of time to get your gears rolling? I, for one, wouldn't function with my cup of Joe and a shot of whiskey, heh."

Mrs. Dewey chuckled, "Oh, goodness, no. I'm not one for alcohol and even coffee's too much for me. One sip and my sleep schedule's all broken, unfortunately…"

"Ah… So, can we get right on business then?"

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Mrs. Dewey's expression changed suddenly as she turned to Mr. Jacobs, "Mr. Jacobs— Or should I say, Captain? Could you please guard the door for us? We'll be uhh~ Discussing important topics and we wouldn't want any of our patients listening in for a little bit and interpreting it all twisted."

"Very well."

'Hmmm…'

With that said, Mr. Jacobs just gave each of us a nod before he did as he was told and Mrs. Dewey just sat on her comfy chair before looking us straight in the eye.

"So, to what do I owe the visit?"

"As you can see…"

Oscar started by giving her the brief run-through of the US Marines coming to this country and the upcoming arrangements we'd have with them, and as we discussed before, we specifically told her about working together as allies.

Mrs. Dewey nodded pensively, "I wouldn't say no to that, I'm delighted, even—"

I cut in, "I'm sorry, but could you also give us a brief about what happened around this area? Also, it seemed like you don't have any protective barriers around the building or buildings—"

She let out a smile, "One at a time, young man. What do you wanna hear first?"

"Some lore would be nice?"

"Lore? Hah! Do you perhaps play this old tabletop game back then?"

"Which one? There's a lot of them with lore."

"Ah— Right, it's this roleplaying one my husband loves to play with his mates, they do it every Thursday—just sitting around in a circle with their sheets of paper, pen, and some dice. They even take hours just to finish a game and that's all they talk about even in the mornings when they go off to work."

"Ah~ You're talking about D&D, I do play them, even now."

"Oh? Then my husband would love to have a chat with you— Oh! But with our current subject, it's umm… It's quite long? Would you care to hear everything or just a few important snippets?"

I faintly smiled, "I'd like to piece the whole puzzle actually, we've only heard what happened around the airport and we could only speculate from the damages done all around, but yeah, this place is… this place looks like it had never seen a zombie attack—at least for the most part."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean… I've seen the checkpoint, heard of your people going on runs, and seen the next generation training for the undead. It's still pretty standard stuff but there are no gates, no boarded-up windows, no walls— it feels like this place got isolated."

"Oh, I dunno about that…"

"Can I ask why?"

"Dear, this is a hospital that mostly caters to retired veterans and to anyone the other hospitals rejected. We see death on a daily basis and seeing them rise up for the first time caused chaos in unbelievable proportions.

If my husband isn't what he is and raised our kids a certain way, this place would've been one of those abandoned buildings with all its resources taken by raiders and survivors alike."

Kaley interjected, "Excuse me, Mrs. Dewey but where is Mr. Dewey?"

"Jack? Hmm~ Probably with Eden, our second eldest daughter, checking the forest."

"The forest?"

"Well… there's a reason we don't have checkpoints on the forest and have concrete walls, it's because the forest itself is ladden or filled with obnoxious amounts of traps my husband set up since day one. It used to be just for small to medium animals but he quickly moved on to larger targets…"

Oscar nodded approvingly, "Hell yeah~"

Mrs. Dewey shook her head, "You'd get along with him, I'm assuming. It's great and all but even I don't know how to properly traverse it. Only him and our kids could come of it unscathed because even Captain Jacobs came back with a scratch when he tried to do the rounds without any of them accompanying him."

But I took it as a challenge:

"Is that so?"