395 The Recreation House, Starting the Haunted Nigh (1/2)

Day 67 - 7:22 PM - MaryHill Retreat House, Ortigas Avenue Extension, Taytay, Rizal

The darkness of the night loomed over the end of the world once more.

Being far from the middle of the city did not lessen their wariness towards their surroundings, however.

The nighttime in the middle of a city filled with infected was scary. Yet, spending the night in a place surrounded by nothing but trees and darkness was scary in its own way.

Along with the fact that the retreat house itself was giving them strange feelings, no one would be able to rest properly in this night.

***

As they decided to spend the night here, they used one corner of the building as their resting area. This way, it would be easier to gather everyone if something bad happened in the middle of the night. They occupied the rooms around the stairs from the first floor to the third floor.

The first floor was occupied mostly by soldiers. The second floor belonged to the rescued survivors and the families of the soldiers. Lastly, the third floor was occupied by Mark's group. Of course, the soldiers on shift to be on the lookout would patrol the first and second floor. Although there was no need to, it was to make the people on the second floor relieved. Most people would feel secure when they knew that there were guards outside than having nothing, even if it was unnecessary.

For the third floor, Mark made it off-limits unless it was an emergency. The soldiers knew that Mark's group did not need any guards. If fact, if it came to a shove, even the little girls in Mark's group would perform better than the soldiers.

Mark's rules for not allowing entry on their floor aside, there were not many rules that restrict the others. Although the soldiers told their families and the rescued survivors to stay inside their rooms unless necessary, they did not strictly restrict them from going out. It was as long as they stayed away from restricted places and they had at least a single to escort them.

It was to maintain their psychological state. Some might feel safe by confining themselves inside closed spaces, but there were also those that get more anxious as they would not know what was going outside. It was especially the case since they knew nothing about this place.

Furthermore, the survivors were feeling uncomfortable with the place for some reason.

***

”You guys saw that girl, right? How beautiful. They also had cute girls and women. There's also Miss Karlene with them. How lucky.”

A man's quite annoyingly toned voice echoed in a room on the second floor.

”Hah... Prince, can you stop that already. You're just being annoying again.”

A voice of a woman complained at the man although her voice showed obvious jealousy with her tone.

”It's both of you that is annoying.”

Another voice chimed in. It was a man's stern toned voice reprimanding the two.

There were also other people in the room. By listening to their muffled voices and tones, the relationship between these people was not bad. Well, except for one person it seemed.

These people were the survivors they rescued from the Municipal Hall of Taytay, Rizal.

The leader of this group was no other than the stern man, Harold Buenavista. As for the other two, the annoying man was Prince Jeremy Mendoza and the jealous woman was Kate Torres.

These three people led this group to survive in that Municipal Hall for these past two months. Actually, there were more of them before along with some of the municipality's officials. However, those that were not here did not make it. If not for these three, the ones left would not have made it either.

”Still, we are finally away from those bastards.”

Kate voiced out which affected everyone in the room. They all knew who she was talking about.

”Those bastards left us alive but made our lives miserable.”

Another person in the group voice out and everyone agreed.

What they were talking about was the group that made the resort hotel as their base. Those people were a group of notorious gangsters. Their group was not stationed here in this part of Taytay before and was more known in the urban and squatters areas. A few days after the outbreak, they moved on that less populated area and started to terrorize other people that managed to survive the initial outbreak.

It did not take long and their group was the only ones left. It was because to deal with their group having three mutators would not worth the risk. Instead, that notorious gang lured the infected away from their base and gathered the infected outside the municipal hall. The gang used them to lessen the threat on their base by luring the infected to another.

That was the reason why they started to have a harder time surviving. Because there were more infected around the municipal hall, the infected in the surrounding areas also moved there and left the resort hotel alone. Luckily, before the supplies they managed to gather ran out, the convoy with strange vehicles and soldiers passed by and rescued them.

THUMP! THUMP!

While they were talking, someone knocked on their door. Although the knock was not hard, the material used on the door made it sound like someone was pounding on it.

Kate being the one close to the door, opened it to see who was outside. There, a soldier stood.

”Sir, do you need something?”

Kate asked with a bit of a strange tone. This made Harold shake his head. This was one of Kate's odd sides. Every time she faced someone with higher standing, her tone, and actions turned like this all the time. It was the same when she was talking to him. She looked like she was appealing to be treated well every time.

The soldier outside was not prepared for it. As the door opened, a good looking woman fidgeting like she had seen her crush talked to him. He froze for a bit and saw the other people behind her. That was when he regained his composure and cleared his throat with a cough.

”Ahem. Dinner has been prepared. Please go down to the first floor and our men there will guide you all to the dining room.”

After telling them the message, the soldier turned around not waiting for any reply. However...

”Thank you for telling us.”

The same woman's voice echoed with a suggestive tone. The soldier felt goosebumps. He's a married man with two children and his family was with him in this mission. Such temptation should not affect him.

Thus, he scurried away.

”Kate, can't you do something about that habit of yours?”

Harold immediately spoke as the soldier left.

”What habit?”

Kate replied which made Harold rub his temples. That was the problem, Kate was oblivious to her behavior. How could she change if she did not understand what she was doing?

”Yeah, what did she do?” Prince chimed in. ”Anyway, let's go! We can finally eat proper food. Maybe, those girls are also there!”