Stronghold In The Apocalypse

A small mini bus is slowly moving along the coast of the city, which has cars pushed to the side like they were parked there deliberately.

The road and the surroundings look messy and desolate with a few mindless pedestrians here and there that tried to hitch a ride on the bus and failed.

"Aiya, it's been a while since I've seen the sea this close"

While driving the bus, Eirik couldn't help but spout those words with a little melancholy in his voice.

"Yeah, the coast was just over a mile away from our base, but we couldn't even head over here because of the numbers of zombies that were here before. Were you and your group the ones who cleared the surroundings here Mr. Leo?" Haley was gazing at the sea at first before turning her attention to the man standing by the door of the minibus and asked something that also made the others curious about it.

Leo looked at those eyes full of curiosity and he couldn't help but chuckle to himself and said, "Yeah, it's the first thing we did when we arrived here, but it's still not safe though as we don't know when that horde will start moving again. I'm actually more amazed than surprised that you guys actually managed to survived this long without the presence of any adults in your group"

When Leo mentioned the word 'adult', the kids suddenly grew quiet and a little crestfallen as they seemed to have remembered something heartbreaking.

When Leo noticed it, he couldn't help but curse himself inside, 'Sh*t! Seems like I brought up some bad memories'

Then the dark skinned kid among them, who is probably around seventeen to eighteen years old, called Julien, said, "We did have adults with us during the first couple of weeks of the zombie apocalypse, but…but they died..one by one, and ever since then…it was just us now"

The kid sounded so sad that Leo felt a little guilty for accidentally bringing up something that triggered some bad memories that they probably just wanted to forget, and he realized that behind those carefree smiles on their faces he had seen before, was just a facade to conceal the loneliness and sadness inside of them.

"Anyway, we won't be alone now! Aren't we gonna see Bella and the others soon?! I'm sure they'd be excited to see us when they least expect it! Thanks boss, for letting us join your group! And here we thought you were a bad guy at first!" Eirik quickly broke the awkward silence after that by bringing up the subject of their soon eventual meeting of their friends they thought they had lost!

Then their eyes quickly brightened up after hearing Eirik and one of them couldn't help but say, "Are we almost there yet!? Right, I wonder if that annoying bastard managed to hook up with Bella"

Leo raised an eyebrow hearing that and said, "You mean Griff? He didn't, and if you have any disagreements with him before. Don't you worry, he's been quite obedient lately"

"Obedient, huh! That bastard is a two faced person who wouldn't hesitate to betray his comrades for his own selfish intent!" Haley immediately opened her mouth and rebuked his statement because she felt like she was hearing the most absurd thing in the world!

Leo just lightly smiled at her and said, "Oh? How so?"

On the other hand, her friends was giving her the eye of 'shut your damn mouth', but as someone who has been stubborn all her life and not one to back off from a challenge, she responded saying, "Well, there was this one time, where he almost got us all killed because of his selfishness…"

The others just sighed to themselves when she started narrating an event that happened between the two groups in the past, and when Leo heard that Griff almost sold out their group during a trade with another survivor group, it made Leo think about Griff's actions during the days he was with him and were living on the island.

But the only things that he remembers from that dude ever since was how obedient and hardworking he is, based on what he saw and the reports from the others living on the island.

'If what Haley said was real, then he is one hell of an actor. Well, Mina did warn me about him before though, it seems the dude would still have to suffer a lot if he wants to convince the others that he had change, sort of'

Just after Bella and her group joined Leo, Mina had come over to him and warned him about Griff's selfish tendencies that tend to endanger their group. In fact, the only reason that Griff haven't yet betrayed their group was because of Bella who was adept in using the pull and push tricks towards the poor man, who thought he had the chance to smash her because of her flirtatious actions she would often show towards him, that would then devolve to aloofness when Bella sees that Griff had once again had solidified his misconceptions that she's just like playing hard to get, a tsundere to be precise.

"Anyway, you kids shouldn't worry about those anymore that you have to decided to join us, with us protecting you, you don't to worry about any threats from the zombies or any other survivor groups" Leo said with a smile on his face, he didn't dare to look down on this group of kids just because of their age.

In fact, he was actually satisfied that he had managed to recruit such experienced survivors.

After all, these kids had already managed to live this long in these dangerous times, which speaks volume of their experience on dealing with the dangers around them.

"Yeah, but on the other hand, we've always been curious about a few things though. How come the countries of this world fell so fast when we have modern firearms? Not only that, it felt like all the animals suddenly disappeared, like the dogs, cats, rats and the like, and they even numbered in the hundreds of thousands or even millions. If it wasn't for the few flocks of ordinary birds that we would see every so often, we would have thought that they already disappeared"

After a short moment of silence, a girl called Trinity suddenly brought up a question that had always been bugging them.

Hearing her question, Leo pointed his finger at her twice while saying, "That…that is a good question kid. In fact, the only conclusion we came to that question of yours is that most modern firearms after world war two had become useless, and about the animals, there's still a lot of dogs and cats living on our bases, some had mutated, but most probably died under the hands of the zombies or their mutated brethren. But the birds, yeah, it's weird, we've not seen a lot of them anymore, much less those that mutated. My guess is that they probably escaped to isolated islands far away from civilization"

Of course, Leo certainly wouldn't tell them the real reason behind the apocalypse, but what he said was enough for an answer with that kind of question that the kid asked.

"So that's the reason why the navy lost even when they had those powerful weapons on those ships" Haley said with a snap of her fingers, the look on her face was just like a monk being enlightened.

Leo on the other hand, just gave a dry laugh, which was then suddenly followed by a voice that came through his radio, and it made the eyes of the kids light up!

"This is Raven to Gingko, over!"

"It's Bella!"