Night of The Dead- Chapter 11: Blood on Blood

We were already nearing the western end of the city, and behind the curtain of fog the walls of Boston City stadium was already visible. Almost all of the supplies Pyut tagged around the city have been collected, including ammunition, stationary explosives and medical supplies. Few stray mutated dogs, called Stalkers by Pyut, tailed us along the way. None were posing as threats, though. Kheez was already getting worried about Night Cat, who was now barely catching up with the rest of us. He was striding aimlessly behind us, with his head down and obviously lost in thoughts and maybe even regret.
"Night Cat!" I stopped and yelled over at him. He did not respond. Instead, he just continued at his pace towards us, with his head drooping over his shoulders. Something had to be done. I had no idea what caused him to act like that, but his despair could only spell danger for us all. The team cannot, at all costs, do without a marksman.
"I will not have you act like this during the mission." Night Cat came up to me, raised an eye at me, and continued frontward. This is not geting anywhere. Behind him, I saw Crucist exiting a building with his hands tucking ammunition boxes into his pant pockets.
"What's with him?" I asked almost in a hush.
"His brother was with Pyut's team." At that moment all the answers came to me. It all made sense now, how he was acting. Along the whole way, Crucist began telling me Night Cat's story.

The bio warfare that lasted a good 6 years left the world with nothing less than an economic depression that ate the whole world at record low. Skyscrapers that once boasted a city’s success were now crumbled on desolate grounds. Nations that once stood as a hub for international trade were now left with nothing more than zinc roofs topping up wooden walls. People, once wealthy, were now roaming homeless scavenging food scraps all around abandoned cities. Governments were crippled, all of them, from the time the inflation bubble burst when they were over printing money to supply the war, to the time when the war was over and there was nothing to stabilize the economy with. What good is a country to the government when nobody can afford to pay taxes to finance the country’s overwhelming deficits?
Chris was born in a small village at the outskirts of Kuantan in a Malaysian coastal state. The post-war poverty around the Malay Archipelago was not so badly affected, as no direct war occurred at those areas. But because the rest of the world was badly damaged by the war, the worldwide depression pulled every other remaining nation down to extreme poverty. Within the states where Chris was from, many already resumed trading, but at very primitive scales. Money was still being used, but the barter system was a more widely accepted trading manner. Former tycoons, who’d before the war control the sugar or shipping industry within the South Eastern Asia, now operated sundry shops and food stalls. Poorer citizens now worked for them, bringing back a monthly salary of not more than half a kilogram of rice. Famine was a worldwide pandemic, killing millions every passing day. But the tropical and temperate weathers of Malaysia provided sufficient food for the people, in which imports of supplies were now inexistent.
Born in a family of a single struggling mother, Chris was the third of four children. His father went to war, and died before Chris was old enough to go to school. His mother worked many hours, from the break of dawn till the dead hours. The eldest, his sister, was already old enough to work, and had to dwell into professions that she hated to do the most, prostitution. ‘But it was the only way for us to earn enough money’, she had always thought. Chris and his two other brothers, were living with their aunt and grandmother, which had their own children and grandchildren. The aunt’s husband was from a rich family, so they’d have been living in the higher social classes still. His grandmother would not feed Chris and his two brothers if ever his mother did not provide her with monthly payments to buy provisions. Sometimes, they’d starve.

“Sam, it’s been 3 days since we ate. Mom’s not gonna come see us till the weekend,” Chris, now 10, was routinely walking back home from school with his elder brother.
“Don’t worry,” Sam, his brother, comforted him. “I stole some coins from Aunt Grumpy’s shop last night. We’ll go get something to eat, okay.”
In an instant, the weary eyes of that 10 year old boy glimmered with joy.
That day, they had two packets of white rice, sitting by the river near their aunt’s house. They’d happily swallow the rice and played in the river until the sun sinks behind the mountains. That day, they would forget all the hardship they had to go through, simply because they’d have each other. That day, Chris thought he was the happiest kid in the world, because he had the best brother in the world.
Sam was never any better at studying, so he was merely waiting to hit the age of 13 when he could be strong enough to carry rice sacks to make a living. Chris, on the other hand, loved studying. He’d go home each day from school, and read up on the topics before the school would touch on them. He believed in studying hard so he could make his family’s life better in the future. Sam saved the money he earned, and would buy Chris books and pencils.
“Don’t worry ‘bout me. You’ll make enough money for us in the future so we won’t have to suffer like this anymore.” That would always come out of the brother’s mouth.


I nodded in silence as we walked northbound following Pyut's lead. The stadium was already passing on our left side, lights shimmering from inside. Although the powerplant had been destroyed, there was still enough power in the city's battery plants underground to sustain light for another month. That was Boston City's promise to the people, that there'd be no power-outs forever. I guessed they were true. Forever can only be counted and agreed by people. Now that the power of the city outlived the people of Boston, the statement can only be true.
A part of the ringed stadium has been crumbled by something, maybe a large meteor or something. But no meteor hit this part of the world, or any other parts for that matter. What could've done something like that? From the crumbled side I could see pass the football field inside. There was a fire burning, and the fuel of it were.... bodies. Human bodies.
"It took them a while to realise what was going on in the city. The surviving ones had to burn the deads to contain the infection from getting to them," Pyut explained as we all turned our heads to witness the scene. Night Cat was of no exception.
"So what made him enlist into the Ghost Team?" I asked, still having my head directed at the burn site.
"His mom, sister and his little brother died. His sister was on her way to migrate to England with her new husband along with the mother and the little brother, when their plane was shot down."
"What? Shot down?"
A nod confirmed what I had already heard clearly from Crucist.
"He came into the force to seek revenge. So did his brother."
"And now they're still doing it?"
"Well, you could say that I kinda sorted them out a while back. That's when I heard their story."
We were already way ahead of the stadium now, with much less monsters to shoot at. There were alot of slower human-like ones, but Pyut urged us not to bother with those. It consumes too much ammo, and the heavy blood stench would lure the others to our position.