The World Cataclysm - Chapter 73: Disgusting Smell

Ten minutes later, Luther went out of the staff room, followed by foul-mouthed Oscar, who was cursing every object he saw, and a 6’8” tall Brook, who was silently trudging after his friend. It seemed that Luther explained everything to his companions and convinced them to follow after Dave, making his point that it was their chance.

Weighing down their wins and losses, both Oscar and Brook agreed with Luther since they wouldn’t lose much if they followed after him: they would either die trapped in the cloth shop or die following Dave. Both options were bleak for them, yet in the latter, they still had a higher chance to survive if they moved by an underground pathway.

Packing their belongings that wasn’t much, Luther came to Dave and informed him, “We’re ready to move!”

‘Hah! They didn’t take much time to think about it. Considering it, Luther seems to be quite business-minded. I like it!’ Dave thought inwardly as he nodded to Luther. He appreciated it when people didn’t take up much of his time and made independent decisions.

“Hey, Rob, lead us to the underground pathway you told me,” Dave commanded the male student who shared everything he knew about their base and their gang. While Luther was convincing Brook and Oscar to follow after him, Dave was able to obtain more useful information about their foes.

As far as he learned, their gang consisted of more than 30 students that their boss gathered all over the university. Their numbers would have been twice as higher as now if Richard hadn’t killed most of the students who went against his decisions. ‘There were quite a bunch of brave and self-righteous students among them.’

Although their numbers were quite big for a self-gathered, untrained group of students, soon, they had encountered a pretty predictable problem: they were short on food. No matter how much they tried to find food from empty and forsaken buildings, it was never enough for them as they normally would run out of food in a few days.

Therefore, their boss positioned some of the people on the surface and divided their group into two divisions. Ones lived in one of the empty buildings near to the food source, and others lived underground and sent collectors on the surface to gather “protection fees” from survivors on the surface. Later, if they found any other survivors, they automatically became food providers without any consent.

‘As far as now, I know that zombies can’t bite through their boss’s skin. Therefore, it’s highly possible that he has an innate ability related to defence.’ Dave made conclusions on the basis of what he heard. He didn’t know how accurate their information was, so he didn’t make any rash decisions about that innate ability, but it was better than nothing.

When the male student, Rob, heard him, he jolted in his place as he hesitated a bit, but still decided to follow his words. He just didn’t want to die!

Following their guide, Dave and others exited the cloth shop by the main doors, heading to the narrow opening made by two buildings. Dave immediately recognized it. ‘So the way into that underground pathway is in that alley from where I first detected them. Right, I found it strange that they made a long way here, risking their lives, to just collect food from three surviving students. But they seem to have a shortcut. How convenient!’

And his guess was pretty much accurate! Moving further into the alley, Dave scanned the alley and didn’t detect any zombies in it. Except for several trash bins and discarded boxes, he found nothing of his interest. If there hadn’t been stains of blood on the walls and ground, clearly indicating signs of the apocalypse, he would have even thought that nothing particular had happened in the world.

As they followed after Rob, they stopped suddenly in one place as the male student said, “Here! It’s down there.”

Seeing no door or entrance point around them, Oscar got angered as he said, “Where did you lead us? I see nothing here, you piece of shit!” He seemed to have much more to say, yet he stopped in his words since Luther lightly slapped him on his head and put a finger on his mouth, saying him to be silent.

“I’m not lying. It’s down there under that metal lid.” Rob said silently, almost in a whisper, as he pointed at the metal lid embedded into the ground. Following the direction of his finger, they paid attention to the circular metallic lid.

Oscar’s face changed in colours as he stared at Rob like saying “Are you fucking serious?”. Oscar and Brook also grimaced as they also didn’t like the idea of going down to the sewage, but kept silent about it. They all looked at Rob in a stupor until Dave said, “Fine, show us the way down there.”

However, inside he thought, ‘In all 5 years, I never went down there, so it would also be my first time. It can’t be so bad, right?’

Opening the metallic lid, one by one, they descended by ladders down to the sewage. Dave was the last one to go down as he closed the metallic lid after himself.

As he went down there, the terrible smell hit his nose receptors. It was worse than the smell of rotting flesh as it was more intense and sharper than that foul odour, and it was like his whole being was rejecting it. In simpler words, he had never encountered such a disgusting smell in his two lives.

Pinching his nose and suppressing an urge to throw up, Dave thought ‘Holy shit! I truly pity people whose job is to fix technical problems down here. Their whole lives should literally have been mass of shit.’

Others also didn’t look good as they turned pale as a sheet and pinched their nose, staring desperately at Rob with teary eyes. Understanding their sentiment, Dave said in a hoarse voice, “Lead the way.”

As he commanded Rob, Dave glanced at his surroundings. Scanning the place they had gotten into, Dave noticed rusty metal pipes, two concrete paths located slightly higher than advancing water, if it can be regarded as one, and slowly flowing wastewater.

Thankfully, they didn’t end up stepping on wastewater as they descended to a concrete road made on the sides of slowly streaming water and structured slightly higher than smelly dirty water. Pieces of plastic mixed with pieces of shit floated on the surface of the water.

Following Dave’s order, Rob made several turns and led them to a crudely made metal door that didn’t have any door handle on it. He made several repetitive motions with his hand like saying to follow him and pushed the metal door open.

*Creak*

The metal door opened with a creak, showing that if it wasn’t forsaken, then it was definitely not maintained properly in recent years. One by one, they followed after Rob in a row. And when they passed through the metal door, everyone made a deep breath of fresh air.

*Inhales deeply* Dave had also inhaled deeply as he breathed in a mouthful of normal air into his lungs, trying to savour it as much as he could. Although the smell had still seeped into that pathway, it was much clearer here than in the sewage.

Dave found himself in a narrow pathway with concrete grey walls, ceiling and floor. Some small pipes still passed through along the pathway as small water drops dripped from them. It was dark and humid here as the only sources of light were dim light bulbs that were placed upon the ceiling every 15 meters, giving a creepy feeling like they were in a horror movie. Dark and light alternated between each other as they moved along the long pathway.

“Fuck! You could have warned us that it would so terrible before going down there.” Oscar remarked angrily as he still smelled that disgusting odour of human faeces and urine that contaminated the air of the sewage, though it was less intense in the pathway. He still could ram with curses if he wanted to, but Luther stopped him beforehand as he said, “Stop whining and start moving.”

The three male students’ lips curved upwards a little bit as they fought with their desire to grin from satisfaction. They had also suffered on their first time, so they found pure joy when other students, especially foul-mouthed Oscar who got on their nerves, went through the same hardships as they had.

Was it shallow? Probably, yes. Were they narrow-minded? Definitely. Were they bastards who found satisfaction in other people’s demise? They didn’t argue with it. However, at least, they thought it was fair since they had also dealt with that intense disgusting smell. ‘Suck it up!’ they thought inwardly as they looked at others. It was their little revenge for beating them up!

…

Moving in complete silence, except for occasional water drops that hit the floor, Dave was the first one to break it, “By the way, how come there is light here? This underground pathway doesn’t seem to be used frequently, more like it was forsaken for several years already.”

“We found a generator in one of the rooms and turned it on. Since there are almost no zombies down here, so we took our time to scout most of the pathways. But first, we travelled with flashlights we had found on the surface.” Another male student responded to him. Dave recalled that he was called Stan previously.

On his way, Dave saw that the underground pathway started to branch as more paths, hence, more road options appeared on their way. Making several turns and going through another metal door, they were already moving forward for more than 20 minutes. Finally, making another turn and going straight forward, Dave heard distant sounds of chatter and laughter. A short while later, he stood before another metal door, behind which he could hear several people chatting with each other.