Outbreak Chronicles: Dead Pandemic

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Repeated gunshots rang around the area as blood and brain matter explode left and right.

"Don't let that bastard get up!"

"Watch it!"

As we quickly try to clear the surrounding undead that is surrounding the crate, we suddenly spot a freak that resembles the Grenadier freak, the undead that throws some sort of biologic grenades that explodes. We rarely see them during the Night Rage but we suddenly see a variant of them.

"What the hell is that freak?"

BLOOOOP!

This new freak we are seeing in broad daylight makes a weird sound like some sort of a gloop trying to move. A hairless human, I call it human since the gender of the freak is indistinguishable and it is nȧkėd. It has the same features of a normal undead on its face but its body is built differently. The first thing you would notice is the big stomach of the freak which is for some reason, the skin on his stomach is transparent. Also, instead of intestines and different kinds of innards, what you see inside is a blue-colored liquid.

"Shoot the freak!" Mr. Tanaka shouted.

POOOOOOF!

The moment the bullet penetrated its head, the transparent bloated stomach of the freak exploded and the liquid inside it suddenly turned to smoke. The moment we smell the smoke, you get the urge of barfing and indescribable pain in your head. We grab our heads as the pain suddenly kicks in and it is very painful as hell.

"Stay out of the smoke!"

It was a good thing the explosion of the new freak is far enough from our car or else we would be forced to stay away from the car if it exploded near or inside of it.

Thankfully, the painful headache we experienced is not permanent like a normal headache whenever we get a fever since the moment we escape the cloud of smoke that freak released disappeared. The only thing that lingered is the smell and it is pretty bad.

We also noticed that the cloud of smoke caused the nearby undead to avoid the smoke cloud and was hesitant to approach us since we are just near the smoke cloud. We took this opportunity to gun down some of the dead that still can't approach us due to the cloud.

"Take this opportunity to load the crate into the van then we escape here!" I shouted.

The three nodded and helped each other to load the crate while I gun down the undead that are still hesitant to attack. When the cloud of smelly smoke dispersed, the crate is already loaded into the van.

"Let's get out of here Kyosei! We already loaded out the crate and we are ready to go now!"

Without looking back, I jump inside the van and Souichi quickly closed the door. Mr. Suzuki quickly steps on the gas and the van's wheels quickly screech before we moved out of the red zone.

... .

2 hours after our escape in the red zone unscathed, the van stopped in the middle of the road without any undead on sight. Due to the harsh drive of the van, the bumper of the van is broken and the windshields are already cracked. Thankfully, the crack did not spread out too much that might have caused it to break. When we managed to escape the red zone, we sighed in relief that we no longer need to crash against the undead for a while.

"Damn, this one almost cost me half of my lifespan. I am not going to do anything rash like that ever again!" Mr. Tanaka said as he heaved a sigh of relief.

"I am almost sure that we would be dead before we can even take that crate out of the red zone. And it is a miracle we still didn't get bitten by a single undead from the skirmish!" Souichi said.

I didn't speak but I stare at the crate that the three of them hauled in. After we managed to get a breather from all the excitement that occurred in the red zone, I opened the crate and look inside at its contents. 

There is indeed a gun, an AR15, and an M15 rifle. It also comes with 5 boxes of ammunition. A month's worth of food and water and medicine are also included in the pile. However, those things did not strike me a fancy and my eyes are glued to the little book below the supplies. 

Spotting that the book is a little bit out of place inside the box, I grab it out from the box and realized that it was not a book but a thick binder notebook. It seems like a diary since there was a lock on it, preventing anyone who didn't have the key to open it.

"Is that a notebook? What is that doing inside the crate?" Mr. Suzuki asked as he observes the notebook I was holding.

"There was a lock on this one. Hey, maybe the key is also inside of this crate? We can open it and see the content for ourselves!" Souichi said and started to search inside the crate.

"Stop searching for it, I will pick the lock so that you guys would stop fussing about the missing key."

Since the key was small, I also used the smallest pick I have that specializes in locks with small keyholes or just complicated to pick with bigger picks. After a few tries, the key unlocks itself and I slowly open the notebook to see what is the content and why it was included inside the crate.

The sentences inside the crate leave me a bit speechless.

"To those who manage to open and read the notes of this notebook, I will be telling you how to create the cure and how to stop the infection from bites into turning you into an undead."