I remembered that fucker! Four of these prisoners, or he and three of his friends from outside, set up a roadblock and took everything of value from people trying to make it to the first survivor base I went to. They took my backpack and everything else from me. I’d have shown up with no food if I didn’t have my storage already. They were gone a week later, but it was still memorable because of their equipment. Rifles and body armor, the reason I went passed them is I thought they had to be part of the army because of their equipment.
That wouldn’t be happening now. I started storing the equipment into my storage so it wouldn’t be useless underwater here. The prisoners needed this equipment, but the police might have their own. I’d rather not leave it here. My storage was only twenty-five percent of the way full when I left the mansion. Right now, it served better to have all that space available to grab things than to slow time on objects.
They looked exhausted, they had to swim a few feet from being able to reach the ground right now, as someone began CPR on the drowned guy. With them exposed, I could see that three of the people were prison guards and not police. How the fuck did that happen? So the power went out, the prisoners probably forced the guards to open the first door to get to the guns, police showed up and scared them inside, flood-hit locking the exit, and then they were locked in the room.
I fully understand the situation now. One of the prisoners went to run, most likely thinking I wouldn’t attack him with the police free. He was wrong, I wasn’t going to kill him, though. A toothpick-sized bone pierced his leg, making him collapse; he wouldn’t have been able to open the door yet anyway. Not until the water equalized itself in a few hours.
“What the fuck was that?” One of the police officers, scratch that, one of the prison guards yelled out. “Oh, right. I have superpowers from the asteroid hitting the Earth. Did I forget to mention that?” The room went silent as they were trying to figure out whether or not I was lying. I sighed as I spoke. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that the world is going to change. This flood will last an entire month, the power will never come back on except in sparse survivor bases. Soon, other people will start developing powers, the lady cop is one of them. Just, stay safe, don’t go out right after the rain ends in a month and bunker down or you-.”
I heard the telltale noise of a person returning to life as a zombie. My eyes went wide as I pondered the implication. My brain went into overdrive as I started to panic. The virus was already inside me when I came back in time. It meant we were getting zombies a year earlier around me as I would spread the virus where I went. Fuck! Fucking fuck! I went to the hospital! A hospital with people I know are going to die.
“And I guess we’re getting zombies now, too!” Zombies could either be tier zero or tier one, depending on the situation. A tier zero is truly undead, they couldn’t do anything unless someone put their hand in their mouth or something equally as stupid, they wouldn’t attack. A tier one zombie was like a classic slow zombie; the only thing you had to worry about was their numbers and relentlessness. It wasn’t until tier two zombies did a normal non-idiot human had to worry.
As he got up and began moving at a normal human running speed, and looked around for the exit… I panic, that’s a damn tier two zombie already! What the fuck! Zombies were extremely rare in the first year of the apocalypse, I didn’t know there were different tiers until the second because of how long it took for the original zombies to evolve into the higher-tiered ones. We’re starting out with the more dangerous fuckers this time because of me!
Tier two zombies were just about as smart and often times faster than normal humans, but with the added thing of not needing to eat/sleep/breathe, it meant they could pursue someone relentlessly until they killed them. I just act first without thinking and spear him through the head. I do so in a way that makes his core fly out. My eyes went wide again at the unexpected sight. Zombies took time to make cores; it was tested and confirmed to take about six months, as people purposely infected those to test how long it would take.
The only thing that was confirmed is that zombies who were trapped/caught and with no activity to keep their minds working took longer to develop, so free-range zombies were the best way to have them develop cores. It meant that people couldn’t just convert a bunch of normal humans into zombies and then harvest their cores; well, they could, but it just wouldn’t be nearly as effective as going to a big city and harvesting the zombies there. Chapters first released on novel·fiɾe·net
This was far too fast and didn’t make sense to me. I really wish I had an intellect-powered person at the mansion so I could sit back and let them think about this. To be fair, I was almost at ten, which would put me at a stronger level of power than the average intellect-powered individual. If someone gained a stat power like strength or intellect, they had a ninety percent chance it would only boost that stat about five times that of a normal human, nine percent for a ten times boost, and finally a one percent chance at a fifteen times boost.
I walked over and picked it up before wiping off the brain matter clinging to it with the zombie's clothes. “This appears to be a core in the head of a zombie. I wonder what use it has?” I said this more for their sake than my own, I knew what they were for. One of the police officers began to puke as I realized how messed up this looked. It wasn’t a year into the apocalypse already, and people were curious about what made zombies tick.
They saw a madman kill a person who had the symptoms of something similar to what could be called a zombie, but it also just looked like a madman desperate to get out of prison. I took in a breath before saying. “Well, I’m going. Good luck with all this.” The police chief spoke up. “I don’t think so. You’re sticking around here and explaining what the hell just happened.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Nah, I’m not going to do that at all. Keep an eye on these corpses; if any move, shoot them. Don’t let them escape or bite anyone. Beautiful policewoman, what’s your name?” Everyone turned towards her, and she looked behind her like she expected to see someone else. “M-me? I’m Maria Lopez.” Teleporting out one of my stored jet skis, I stole when I picked up the boat, I tell her. “This is for you, I’ll leave the boat outside for the police to use. It’s stolen by the way, if you feel like returning it, I’d suggest waiting until after the flood is over.”
I don’t know why, but I loved teasing her. She just reminded me of a little girl I used to bully in grade school. One who wanted to seem like a boy but couldn’t handle the roughhousing or boy talk and would get really embarrassed by it. I ran up the stairs at a speed that would be hard to track as the chief called out again. “Where are you going?”
Not wanting to waste any more time, I kicked the door into the office I noticed on our way here. There was a window on the second level that would allow someone to leave before the water finally leveled itself with the water outside. Jumping down, the water was already a foot or so higher. In a few more hours, it would reach all the way up to my chest but stop there. Summoning out the second jet-ski, I was really glad I stopped to get these first.
With the police alive in this timeline, it was already shifting more towards a lawful area than before. Instead of highwaymen waiting to rob passersby, I hoped to see police checkpoints where they’d guide people to safer areas. Either way, I’d need to find another boat to replace the one I gave away. That shouldn’t be too difficult, hopefully, I could knock that out today before I head back.