System Of The Undead

Chapter 181: For Better Or For...

Andre had successfully gotten them out of there and he wasn’t looking back, they had to leave this area as soon as possible.

If this was what awaited them in the apocalypse then there was no way they would last long.

"You want to tell me what that was about?" Andre asked Brayden but Brayden’s hands were trembling.

Andre knew that now might not be the time to question Brayden but there was no time.

He was surprised that Jason was alive but there was no telling if luck was on his side but there was no way he was coming out of his current predicament alive.

"Brayden! Snap out of it! I need information," Andre barked, bringing him back to reality.

Brayden did snap out of it but his mind was elsewhere.

"He is alive..." Brayden muttered.

"What do you mean he is alive?" Andre questioned him.

"Jason, he survived the fall and somehow found us. He is the only reason we were able to get away and we... we abandoned him," Brayden said.

"And? He told us to go! He is the only reason we could escape in the first place," Andre reminded him but Brayden felt shitty.

He wasn’t happy that they were abandoning them but he was worried about Clementine.

If Jason was alive there was a possibility that Clementine was too.

"It killed her," Franklin muttered, Andre got the gist from that single word.

"Did you find her alive?" Andre asked, he wasn’t the sensitive type and knew that he had to get the information he needed one way or another.

"Yes but... It ate her," Franklin said with a burst of awkward laughter like he was losing his mind.

"I’m sorry to hear that," Andre didn’t care but he was glad that they were done with this as it meant that they could return. Andre wasn’t going to risk losing his people to strangers.

He already put Brayden at risk with this fool’s errand that nearly got the two of them killed, not to mention failing to save the woman that they had set out to save, making this whole trip pointless.

"We need to hear back," Andre muttered.

"Andre, we need to go back," Brayden said and Andre was confused as to what came over his friend.

Andre wasn’t about to test fate, they just managed to get away and he wasn’t about to risk it.

"No, we cannot go back. The chances are, they’re dead," Andre made it clear.

"Franklin, say something..." Brayden urged him but Franklin didn’t back Brayden up.

"Andre is right, we need to return. We have spent too much time out here," Franklin muttered.

Brayden didn’t like this response he got, he looked sickened by it.

"You’re pathetic Franklin," Brayden said outright.

"That’s enough Brayden," Andre cautioned him because removing the emotional component out of the equation. They were right, Jason was one man and it was better to lose one than four.

Andre made the most logical choice and while Brayden didn’t like it, he had no choice but to accept it.

-

Kenny saw that the people around him were resting, they were scouting the area and left him unattended due to the wound in his leg.

He couldn’t run so there was nothing to worry about as they could easily catch him.

However, Kenny was waiting for his opportunity to escape because there was a look in Franklin’s eyes that told him he had no intention of bringing him back to the camp.

A few stray zombies were roaming around and they understood what it was that they needed to do.

They disposed of the zombies but noticed that there were more and more coming with each wave.

They had to leave here soon before the area was flooded with the undead, the gunshots must have drawn them here.

"Shit, what’s taking them so long!?" A man barked and the zombies soon encroached the area, swarming them as they were coming from every angle.

They had no choice but to use their guns, melee weapons were no longer working.

They opened fire on the zombies and this only drew more of them.

Kenny found the opening he was looking for, he crawled into the car through the window.

He was laying low as the others fought the zombies, they needed all hands on deck to fend off the undead.

Kenny checked the car and realized that there were no keys inside it but before he knew it, a hand grabbed his shoulder.

Kenny looked up, hoping that it was the hand of the living but it belonged to a zombie showing that they had breached the parameter that they had set up.

They were a lot more than they could deal with and at this rate, they would have to abandon this area.

Kenny tried to scream but the zombie sunk its teeth right into his neck, ripping out his jugular as it began to feed on him.

Kenny bled out in the car, he clawed away at the zombie but that didn’t help.

Kenny was dead within seconds before the zombie met its end with a bullet through the head.

"Secure the fucking car! We need to hold on until Andre returns!" A man shouted.

"No! We need to leave or we won’t be alive when he comes!" Another responded as he charged towards the car.

He was right, this area was flooded and they already ransacked the place so there was no place hanging around.

They risked a mutiny as they weren’t on the same page but the car that was there was rather small.

It couldn’t fit them all in so that meant that they would have to leave some behind and this was where the problem was.

"What do you think you’re doing!? We need all the help we can hold this place down!" The man who wanted to stand their ground barked.

He was occupied with the zombies on him and this allowed the other man to drag Kenny’s corpse out of the car and jump into the car.

He realized that they couldn’t see any keys inside but he could easily hotwire the car and he did just that.

The car started and a few others entered inside, the man that was holding the place down hissed the moment he saw this but he soon heard a loud horn from that car.

"You guys should leave the area! I will try to draw as many of them away!" The man shouted, showing that they still had each other’s back despite their differences.

This was what did it, the zombies became scarce as they began to follow the superior sound.

This was all they needed and he immediately instructed them to return to melee weapons.

It would defeat the purpose otherwise and in less than five minutes, Andre arrived on the scene.

They didn’t waste them in entering the truck, Andre could tell with a glance that the situation was dire and they needed to get the fuck out of there immediately.

-

Jason relayed the situation to Clementine and she was speechless, she didn’t know how to react because she knew that these zombies were terrible creatures.

Clementine was relieved when the zombie retreated but she was now being told that they had to kill it. Jason told her everything the zombie was capable of.

"What the hell are you saying!?" Clementine barked, furious that Jason would even suggest this.

"Have you forgotten Clementine? The last zombie that ran found us," Jason reminded her, it was unknown how it managed to do this and the last thing he needed was this zombie following them back to the community.

Clementine took a deep breath, this journey has made her more uneasy than she had felt in months.

"You’re right, we cannot risk it," Clementine finally composed herself, the look in her eyes changing to one of determination.

"We have established that this is a special zombie that will be even more powerful after it has assimilated whatever that thing is, fully, correct? And it can return the bullets trapped in its body but that shouldn’t matter when it blows a hole in it," Clementine said.

The shotgun she was using was the key to killing it and she knew this, this was the only way to kill it.

"The fragment is located within his chest," Jason told her and Clementine knew that she needed to blow it out of its chest but with what Jason told her, the zombie was blocking it with its arm.

Clementine knew there was no way that it could defend against the bullets from her shotgun.

Those arms would be blown off and with no way to defend itself, it would be a sitting duck.

"I can track it," Clementine muttered, she knew what they were about to step into could very well be their last moment on Earth.

"Chronos, how long until it fully assimilates the fragment?" Jason asked Chronos.

[[10 minutes until full assimilation]]

"We can make it!" Jason reassured himself and the journey to eliminate this zombie began.