Mutagen

1:02 PM – City Mall Bacoor, West Wing, Emergency Exit Access

A sci-fi agent, uh no, Mark, who is now wearing his cool looking black colored sports armor that took him more than half an hour wear, is cautiously descending the ladder towards the emergency stairs below. Just following above him, two tied up metal sheets dangled while being carefully lowered by Bernard and the rest of the men.

Somehow, it looked like a scene of an infiltration agent scaling the wall of the mall with how he looked like but two things ruined the image. Hooped on his shoulder is a roll of construction wire and hanging on his side is a small green ecobag with the message "Save Mother Earth" designed on it. On the mouth of the ecobag, the ends of different colored sticks can be seen along with a metal pipe wrapped in electrical tape. If this was placed as a scene in a movie, the audience would surely laugh on the supposed to be suspenseful part.

As the metal sheets were lowered, Mark would assist below so the metal sheets won't accidentally hit the ladder he is descending on and create unnecessary noise. At first, Mark only planned to go down to the stairs and wait there until the metal sheets are lowered down. Unfortunately, the weather is not on their side. By the time they are all ready, the wind blowing is already unstable and strong gales would come from time to time.

Under their cautious actions, Mark successfully reached the top platform of the emergency staircase together with the metal sheets.

Without making any noise, he leaned the metal sheets on the wall beside the emergency door and decided to peer through the door window. When he can finally see the corridor inside, he sighed in relief as there are no zombies inside in the close proximity.

Then he proceeded with the plan.

He removed the rope tied to the metal sheets and signaled the men above to pull the ropes. He then inclined the two metal sheets on opposite ends of the top platform. One end of the metal sheets rest on the waist-high railings while the other end remained on the floor of the platform.

Mark took out a pair of pliers and cut portion of the wire he brought and pushed one end of the wire through the holes drilled on the metal sheets. With several twist of the wires, he firmly affixed the metal sheet on the staircase.

He tried to move the metal sheet several times to check it would easily come loose but it didn't making him satisfied with his work.

Now, the next part is to lure the zombies out.

Mark took out a number of whistle rockets from the ecobag and lined the rockets in his left hand in a way that the fuse of the rockets can be ignited all at once. With his right hand, he twisted emergency door's knob and opened it slightly. He took out a metal lighter, which he borrowed from Calvin, and pushed the igniter with a clink.

The fire of the lighter danced along with the wind as he breathed deeply.

Whishhhhh!

BAM!!!

Two sounds suddenly echoed across the corridor as he wildly kicked the door open and lit the rockets at the same time. Without waiting for anything else, he threw the ignited rockets inside the corridor and immediately ran back up to the ladder and climbed it.

He threw the rockets inside since he didn't need to aim the rockets anywhere. He only needed to make as much noise as possible to attract the zombies inside.

WHEEEEEEEEUT!!!

Despite the small size, one whistle rocket flying in an open field is already noisy. Then how about several whistle rockets ignited at the same time and put in a closed space like this corridor?

The whistling sounds were deafening. Even Mark who already climbed about two and a half meters on the ladder can't help but cringe by the loud noise that escaped the opened door. He still reacted that way despite the fact that he is wearing a helmet and his ears were blocked by his earphones.

He also noticed that even the zombies on the car park below were startled trying to find where the loud noise is coming from.

The rockets inside that had been thrown flew erratically in random directions, several rockets managed to fly out of the door and one even whistled past Mark and flew diagonally upward.

It did not take long and Mark started hearing popping sounds as the rockets started exploding.

The whistling and popping sounds soon stopped.

"It didn't work?"

Of course, he had to chant those magical words for further guarantee. When people say the magical chant, "Did it work?" on uncertain but important events, what they did failed to do what they intended. So, why doesn't he chant the opposite?

And as if responding to his magic spell, growling voices and multiple sounds of heavy and fast footsteps escaped from the door.

Hearing those sounds, he went to the next phase.

He knew that the sounds the rockets made inside alone is not enough no matter how loud it is. He still needed to bring the zombies out of the door.

Mark hooked his left arm on a horizontal bar on the ladder and used his left hand to hold the metal pipe he borrowed. The pipe he took out now looked different. One end of the pipe is covered with electrical tape which where he grasped the pipe. The remaining part of the pipe is covered with whistle rockets loosely taped on the pipe. The tape is loose enough that the rockets will fly off once ignited.

Mark pointed the rocket covered pipe at the door and started lighting up the rockets at fixed intervals. One by one, the rockets whistled past the door. Some of the rockets flew through the spaces on the platform's floor while some bounced off and flew somewhere else. There are a few rockets that bounced and flew into the door. He did not intend to do so but it works in his favor as he can't make the rockets fly into the door on purpose. The ladder he is hanging from and the door he is firing at is built on the same wall after all.

The growls soon became louder and louder and so as the steps.

Following the whistling sound outside, a zombie stepped out of the door. After that, Mark just needed to fly one last rocket.

***

The zombie looked up and saw the source of the whistling sound. The last rocket flew past its face but it did not move and continued looking at the person hanging from above.

It saw the person above wave his right hand at it. Then, the person started bashing a long thin thing on what the person is hanging on making a sharp clanging sound.

***

Mark continued hitting the ladder with the metal pipe and also shouted from time to time until more zombies came out of the door.

The first zombie started growling more aggressively. It ran up the inclined metal sheet below Mark and raised its hands trying to reach him. Of course, it is just a wishful thinking for the zombie, not like they can think in the first place, as Mark is more than a meter beyond its reach.

It seemed that its aggressive growling is more effective than the fireworks and noises Mark made as it immediately alerted the zombies inside the door. Afterwards, aggressive zombies flooded the top platform of the staircase some are even pushed to the stairs below.

The numbers grew and they are all trying to reach Mark.

And…

The zombies pushed one another and what Mark anticipated happened. It was just one at first, and then was followed by another. As the zombies flood out of the door, the zombies outside started to get pushed over the inclined metal sheets. One by one, they fell to the hard cement below at the height of three mall floors, around ten meters.

Mark stayed like that hanging on the ladder but he already stopped bashing the pipe on the ladder. The noises these zombies are making are enough to make a person deaf!

He decided to use this precious chance to observe the zombies up close while being safe.

SPLAT! SPLAT!

Mark looked below where the zombies landed after falling. He can see some zombies below who are visibly crippled and zombies who are dead. At this height, even a normal average human can still survive, albeit having serious injuries, so he isn't expecting that all the zombies that fall will die.

Another zombie fell under his watch. The zombie's back and the concrete ground below made a sweet contact. It was sweet enough that its spine might have melted into several hundreds of pieces upon impact. The zombie just laid there over a growing pool of blood.

More and more zombies fell and Mark can see that those who fell later had lesser injuries. It's not like Mark can't understand. Those zombies fell unto the bodies of their comrades that stopped moving below.

Mark started to get numb and bored. Just how many zombies are inside? Counting the zombies that fell below and the zombies crammed on the platform, there are approximately 50 zombies already and they are still flooding out.

Five minutes later…

His arms are already numb hanging on the ladder so he shouted at the men above to lower a rope. After getting the rope, he tied his waist to the ladder. Afterwards, he took out his phone and took pictures of the zombies for reference.

He already lost count of how many zombies came out but he think it haven't reached a hundred. They already stopped flooding out of the door and the only ones left are pushing each other trying to reach him.

Mark thought that the number is too large compared to the number of people who entered the TechZone so he is sure that most of these zombies came from somewhere else. Maybe, there is a breach somewhere or worse, the idiots in the TechZone opened the metal shutters while trying to escape. Well, no matter what is the reason, they just have to deal with it later.

He looked down. Below him, just eight zombies remained raising their bloody claws not giving up on their target.

'This much is fine I guess?'

He signaled at Bernard who was watching above to lower the rope he prepared earlier.

Mark caught the rope which was lowered to him. The end of the rope he caught is tied into a large hoop similar to what cowboys used.

He threw the rope down towards the zombies several times until he managed to put all the zombies inside the hoop. Then he shouted.

"Okay! Release it now!"

Immediately afterward, a heavy broken cooling machine was tossed over the wall not far from Mark. There was a thick Manila Rope tied on the machine and the other end of that rope...

Is the hoop that currently encircled the zombies below Mark.