The rotblood fell back, chest caved into an amorphous mass of broken flesh, ramming into the group behind it and tumbling all four into a heap of spasming, flailing limbs. I surged in, stamping my boot into one’s skull, bursting it to mulch, and braining another with the pommel of my sledge-axe.
Gnarled hands, blackened with gangrenous rot and tipped with splintered, blood caked nails grasped for me in hectic, uncoordinated movements, and I jumped back, clearing a solid four meters in a single backward leap, rearing my arms back, ready to meet the small horde that was already clambering over their fallen kind.
The stomach-churning, wet noise of pulped flesh and cracking bones sang out as prone rotbloods got stampeded into a red, pulpy mess by the maddened flesh-lusting herd and I rolled my shoulders, eyes focused in front, steeling myself for the impact.
For the first time, there was no need to watch my six. I wasn’t alone.
A chopping sound, followed by a body thumping onto the concrete floor came up behind me and the grim shadow of a smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. There was no need to even turn and confirm that Tina had dealt with the two stragglers that had passed by me. This had been the fourth group of rotbloods our ragtag band had faced in the corridors and, up to this point, Mina’s three pronged defense strategy had made this entire expedition a cakewalk.
Just like we’d done before, the moment the herd came within four steps of me, we started. I launched myself into a charge, slamming the length of my ax like a clothesline into chests and faces, using weight and strength to bull them back, ramming the leading ones into those behind, opening enough space to properly swing my weapon.
Small objects whooshed above me, falling sonorously behind the herd, the thumb sized nuts and bolts clinking and clanking against concrete floor with strident, high-pitched dings, audible even over the din of combat, drawing the attention of those in the far back. They turned and spasmed, lurching and lunging at non-existent prey, reducing the press of bodies even more.
This was Mina’s doing, the little genius having been the one to ask me to go back into the hardware store and bring an entire bag’s worth of the small bits and bobs. Where anyone else would have thought that glass bottles would have been better for drawing attention, Mina had assured me that the frequency of metal on concrete will be more than enough to confuse the rotbloods. Especially in an enclosure as tight as the service corridors.
She’d been right. With every nut and bolt she arched over the “frontline”, more and more rotbloods peeled off from the press, some moving towards the noise, others simply hovering in momentary distraction. It was enough for me to take advantage.
To bull and push, slamming ambulatory corpses into one another, crushing them against walls and pulping them under boot, lashing out with ax-head and haft. Skulls shattered, bones splintered and old, rotting gore coated the concrete.
Every now and again, either through sheer dumb luck or the nature of their erratic, unpredictable motions, one of the shambling dead would slip under my blows. And this was when Tina, bare-footed and silent as a hunting cat, would dispatch them, her sinuous body moving with all the quiet lethality of a panther.
For all that she still had a slight limp to her gait, against the slow and sloppy rotbloods, she was like a striking serpent. Unbalancing them with sharp strikes to ankles and hips, lightning-fast lunges, splaying them onto the floor and executing the flailing abominations with quick slashes from the machete I’d lended her.
Step forward, swing, step forward. The advance was a steady, monotonous tempo, and I was still doing the overwhelming majority of the “heavy lifting”. But it was so much easier, knowing that all I had to do was focus in front, with Tina covering my flank and Mina providing both distraction and checking on our six to make sure no other rotbloods hit us from behind.
All I needed to do was advance. And the simplicity of it was almost meditative.
Step forward, swing, step forward.
Four rotbloods left.
I hissed out a breath, more out of reflex than need, and swung my blade in a large hewing blow that cleaved through a skull, only to continue its arc and bite deep into another rotblood's collarbone, burying into its ribcage. Instead of wasting time to dislodge my weapon, I heaved and swung again, the walking corpse reduced to a makeshift club as I slammed it into the third one, breaking them both against the wall.
By sheer coincidence, happenstance or bad luck, the fourth corpse spasmed into a snapping lunge at the worst possible moment. My backhand arched a hair too late, and I struck it in the temple with my elbow instead of the ax-head. Not enough to kill it, but more than enough to send it tumbling, its own momentum and inertia carrying the monster behind me.
A quick pivot and I was there, grime slick axehead raised for a crushing blow, but stopped short. There was no more need for me to strike. A pale, muscular arm had already snaked around the rotblood's throat as Tina grappled it into a perfect chokehold, legs wrapped and pinning the monster's arms to its sides like a straightjacket. A sharp shift of her bodyweight and the zombie’s head jolted 180 degrees as she snapped its neck with the ease of a child breaking a dry twig.
Like a damn boa constrictor this woman was. Damage to the cervical worked as well as damage to the skull. A quick stomp of my boot and the flopping, immobile thing's head burst.
I motioned for us to keep going. We’d been doing our best to keep noise to a minimum, and the sound of Mina’s distractions didn’t carry too much, but fighting still made noise. Just because we’d been lucky enough to not get swarmed up to this point, didn't mean I was willing to push it. From my experience, lady luck was a fickle bitch and her ire wasn’t something worth courting.
“That went well” Mina whispered as we walked, reaching down to gather up as many of the nuts and bolts as she could without slowing us down.
“Mhm” I grunted, ears peeled for any sounds of those damned zombies.
“Yep, we got ourselves a pretty good game plan here. How much until we reach the cargo hall?” Tina piped up, a little too loud for my liking.
Credit where it was due, she was oddly chipper for someone who'd just killed seven walking corpses with her own hands. I suppose the apocalypse will jade you quickly. Either shape up or die, not much room for a third option.
I put a finger to my lips, shushing the taller of the two sisters and then pointed a finger to the two double doors at the end of the corridor.
“Cargo depot’s just behind those doors” I whispered and Tina nodded, holding her hands up apologetically.
As soon as we reached the doors I pressed my ear to the metal, listening for any sounds, shuffling or chittering.
Silence.
Either the corpses were not there or just lying dormant. Turning back to the Miller sisters and pressing a finger to my lips again, I mouthed “no talking” before slowly opening the doors.
For once, Lady Luck was in an acceptable mood, downright tolerable, as the only thing that greeted us was row upon row of huge metal rafters and produce pallets.
Roughly two stories tall and nearly half as large as the mall proper, the cargo depot was a massive open space, filled with row after row of metal rafters packed with pallets of produce, clothing, knick-knacks, and all manner of goods that the mall’s stores had had in it's inventory before the "apocalypse". Most of it was for the in-mall supermarket, though the rafters were clearly marked for other stores too, their designated sections offering a faint sense of order amid the chaos.
But the real problem was that the place was a maze. The sheer size of it, combined with the labyrinth of iron scaffolding and stacked boxes, made it impossible to see the whole layout at once. You couldn’t tell where you were or if the cargo gate was open or closed.
I didn’t like it.
Too many blind spots, too many corners from where a rotblood could just lie in waiting and too many opportunities to get flanked.
This wouldn’t do.
I locked the thick metal door behind us and moved toward one of the rafters, boots barely making a sound as I kept my steps light and deliberate, and glanced back at the girls, giving them a quick, silent gesture to follow.
"Grab onto my neck, and don't make a sound," I murmured, voice barely a whisper. "I'm taking us up."
The twins glanced at one another, confusion fairly obvious in their gazes, but nodded and followed my instructions wordlessly. Slender arms snaked around my neck as I crouched low, giving them time to get ready.
Despite their slender frames, the two women were still grown adults, and combined with my gear and the weight of my backpack, I was carrying a lot on my back. All in all, I would have to jump with an extra hundred kilos weighing me down.
And yet, I had no choice but to jump. The rafters were huge, yes, but I wasn’t about to climb up the side and risk sending the whole thing toppling down.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
Well, in for a penny, as they say. No point in taking unnecessary risks, may as well use the “Blood Buff” and make sure I clear the entire thing in one leap.
A surge of heat twisted in my gut, blood whirling and roiling inside, and with a single thought, I gave that strength both form and function.
*Tha-Thump*
Just like before, my heart beat. Once.
A spasm of motion that sent a portion of blood crashing through veins and capillaries, travelling like a wake towards my legs. Muscles flexed, swelled, and coiled like iron chains, pressing against the rough fabric of my pants as raw strength coursed through every fiber and tendon.
I pulled my arms back, crossing them over the small of each woman's back, making sure they wouldn't be shaken loose by the force of the jump, and then, with all that power concentrated in my legs, I leaped.
The pallet racking stood as tall as three grown men, give or take, but with the surge of power in my legs, I cleared it easily—overshooting by at least two meters, my head almost colliding with the ceiling. Almost, but thankfully not.
“Shit” I cussed as we landed on the metal rafter’s top platform with a dull thud, my face twisted into a grimace. I really needed to get more used to using “Blood Buff”. Two feet higher and I would’ve bounced my skull off the damn ceiling. The Miller sisters would’ve never let me live it down.
“Dude, that was awesome…” Tina whispered in my ear as I leaned forward so the twins could clamber off me.
“Quiet. Let me listen,” I whispered back “And be careful where you step”.
We lingered on our perch for a few tense seconds, the silence from below stretching longer than it should have. When nothing stirred, we continued, moving swiftly along the racking’s length, leaping from one section to the next, making our way toward the outer wall.
For a fleeting moment, a thought crossed my mind—could we be so fortunate as to find the entire warehouse completely empty? But I dismissed it almost instantly. No, that wasn’t going to happen. Lady Luck had a chip on her shoulder and took great pleasure in making it everyone's problem.
I heard them before I saw them—the soft, unsettling skitter of insect-like chittering, barely audible but unmistakable. It was accompanied by the occasional low groan, the kind that crawls under your skin and settles inside your gut. By the time we reached the midpoint of the last rafter, I knew we weren’t alone. Slowing to a crawl, moving cautiously toward the edge, every muscle tensed in anticipation, we glanced over the edge.
“Oh no, that’s a lot of them” Mina whispered beside me.
"Yeah," I muttered, eyes locked on the abattoir that had taken root in the middle of the cargo depot. In the middle of the cargo loading bay, a twisted scene of decay unfolded. Among the wreckage of gore and discarded bits of flesh, at least eighty of the mindless, rotting dead either shuffled or swayed like junkies caught in the grip of a drug-fueled haze. Slack mouths dripping brackish blood and pus-yellow ichor, orb-less eyes staring vacantly at the floor, lost in the pretension of dormancy.
And yet, I couldn’t help but exhale a relieved sigh. Because, despite the reek of rotting flesh, despite the abhorrent show playing in front of me, beyond the dead, the doors stood shuttered. Made of thick folding metal sheet, with several latches securing it to pins bored into the concrete, the large cargo depot door had been closed, locking out the world of death and securing this small slice of sanctuary from the horrors outside.
It might not have been fast enough to save those inside. Or maybe the infection had spread after the doors were sealed. But none of that mattered now. What mattered was that this place could still be made safe.
“Damn” Tina cussed.
“Too many for us to brute force our way through. They’ll overwhelm us”
Mina nodded.
“Most of them are concentrated around the docking door. If we could… no that won’t work, there’s just too many and…" she stammered, the poor girl chewing on her thumbnail as she wracked her brain trying to come up with a plan.
She was going nowhere fast.
I, on the other hand, had been too busy counting.
“Eighty-four. Right. Let’s go.” I muttered, pushing myself back towards the back-end of the rafter.
The two women stared at me, bug-eyed and slack-jawed, quickly scampering after me.
“What do you mean? We’re not giving up, are we?” Mina whispered.
“‘Course not” I whispered back, holding a hand to her.
“Hand me those plans, would you?”
With a concerned nod, she pulled out the folded paper from that surprisingly spacious fanny pack of her’s and handed it to me.
“Right. Three entrances on the southern wall, one more on the western wall and then there’s the supervisor and logistics offices on the eastern side.” I mumbled, more to myself, holding up a finger for each entrance.
“Good. Alright then. We’re going to head to each entrance, close them, barricade them as well as we can, as quiet as we can…”
My words caught in my throat as Mina gingerly raised a hand, as if she was still in class or something, in an action so out of the blue it made me do a double take.
“The fu… woman, just ask.”
“Oh… right, sorry, force of habit” she spluttered, red around the nose.
“I, uh, okay, why do you wanna seal the doors?”
“Fairly obvious, ain’t it? Don’t want any uninvited rotbloods to interrupt me while I take care of the ones by the entrance” I deadpanned, as if it was the most self-evident answer in the world. And it was, at least from my perspective.
The two women stared dumbfounded for several long seconds, until finally Tina spoke up.
“You can’t seriously tell me you’re considering killing that horde. It must be a hundred of ‘em”.
“Eighty-four actually. While we take care of the doors, we’re also gonna be making sure there’s no stragglers around to flank me. I want all my targets where I can see them…” I answered, keeping any inflexions from my voice, as I rolled the paper and handed it back to the bug-eyed smaller sister.
“Jon, wait. It’s too dangerous. Let’s think of something that won’t put you in that much of a risk…” Mina started.
I shrugged and dropped back into a crouch, motioning for them to come closer. Their voices were starting to rise, too loud for my liking, even though we were still up in the rafters, well out of immediate danger. But noise had a way of bringing trouble, and I wasn’t about to take chances.
“Alright listen, you’re paying me to do a job, right? If we block all entry points, make sure no other deadheads blunder their way in or get attracted to the noise, it’s just a matter of attrition to get rid of the ones already here. I can run circles around them, whittle them down, draw them into choke points, so on and so forth.”
The twins exchanged looks but nodded eventually, their reticence obvious.
“Yeah but… you’re taking all the risk, dude.” Tina mumbled.
“No offence Tina, but the bigger risk would be having to keep an eye on you two while getting this done. I’m not trying to be a prick or edgy here, but between the three of us, the one that’s the strongest, fastest and completely tireless, is me. Not you. This is just the most practical way to do it.”
The twins shifted uneasily, glancing at one another, faces betraying the struggle to find the right words to argue. But I knew they wouldn’t win this one. Deep down, they knew it too. The plan made the most sense, and no amount of protesting would change that.
Truth be told, it was also the simplest choice for me. I was used to getting things done by myself.
“Wait, hold on. You’ve got a point, but that doesn’t mean we can’t help” Mina said suddenly, a glimmer in her eyes, and pulled out the bag of nuts and bolts.
“We go with your plan, but me and Tina will keep overwatch from the rafters, use these to divert their attention, keep them from swarming you.”
I quirked an eyebrow, looking at the little bit of metal she was clasping between slender fingers.
“Think that’d work as well as it did in the corridors?”
She shook her head, her smile never fading.
"On concrete? No. Space is too open. But against metal..." She paused, then without warning, moved toward the edge of the rafter. With a flick of her wrist, she sent the bolt flying in a smooth, underhand arc. It struck the iron edge of a distant rafter with a resounding clang, the noise cutting through the stillness.
A chorus of spasming, twitching rotbloods erupted into frenzied motion, their bodies lurching and tumbling toward the sound like a twisted pack of flesh-eating lemmings.
"...the sound carries better," Mina finished, turning back to me, her smirk sharp with that blend of triumph and smug satisfaction.
"Nice shot," I whispered, a faint smile tugging at the corner of my mouth as I crossed my arms. The little lady was full of surprises, that much was clear. I hadn’t expected that kind of precision from her, but it seemed I was always underestimating her.
“Darts is a hobby of mine” she smirked, puffing up her barely-existent chest.
“Alright then, I ain’t gonna stop you if you wanna help. But keep on the rafters while I fight. The dead won't get you there. But if you fall, I can’t make any promises that I can get to you in time.”
Both girls nodded in silent agreement, and I turned, heading toward the right-most wall. Securing every exit would be the first priority—and it was time to get back to work.
