Return Before the Apocalypse: The Countdown Only I Remember

Chapter 13 - The Horned Nightmare

Conrad's group fell silent. After a moment, Conrad spoke as their leader.

“Of course we'll look after ourselves. We only want to follow you and find somewhere new to go.”

“Then we agree.”

Kil turned and left with Axel. He listened to the six sets of footsteps following them. A warning was easy to give; he doubted it would stop Axel turning back if they screamed.

After two hours and forty minutes on the road, the eight of them reached a police station with more than a hundred zombies outside.

Kil stopped beyond the horde's reach. The numbers were much as he remembered.

People had flocked here for weapons or police protection when the apocalypse began.

Now the same crowd filled the street as zombies.

Kil looked back at the six survivors. They had stopped several steps behind him, staring at the crowd outside the station.

“Welcome to a cruel world, where only the strong survive.”

“T-That's…”

Conrad's companions drew closer together at the sight of the horde.

Kil, meanwhile, remained calm. He glanced at Axel.

“A real test. Don't get scratched or bitten.”

Though nervous, Axel tightened his grip on his sword and shield. A smile crossed his face.

“Interesting. Challenge accepted, buddy!”

Kil grinned as well. Gripping his spear tightly, he shouted savagely,

“Kill them all!”

Axel charged at the cry. As several zombies attacked him, he slammed his shield into one of them.

“Kil!”

Kil slipped around Axel's shield and struck the zombies held against its far side.

WHOOSH!

SPLAT!

Several zombie heads came off with a sweep of his spear.

“Come on!”

Axel cut through an exposed neck and turned toward the next attacker. Beside him, Kil's spear thrust and swept without pause.

They separated just enough to give their weapons room, each guarding the other's back. Dozens of zombies pressed around them, but neither tried to withdraw.

Their first breakthrough had made them stronger. Neither yet knew how long that strength would hold against so many.

Elsewhere, Conrad's group was also surrounded by dozens of zombies, but they were arguing among themselves.

“This is all your fault, Tristan! We told you we shouldn't follow those two. They're obviously not normal!”

The blond girl rounded on him. She had obeyed without a word until now, but the sight of the closing zombies broke through her restraint.

“My fault? I told you, if you two could have seduced them, none of this would have happened!”

Tristan rounded on them, still expecting the women to buy his safety with their bodies.

“What do we do now?”

Conrad looked from one of them to the next. No one waited for an order.

“Asking for help is clearly out of the question,” Felix said, looking miserable.

Kil and Axel were dozens of meters ahead and moving farther away. Felix drew a breath and turned back toward the nearest zombies.

“Like it or not, we have to survive on our own.”

“The problem is, how do we survive against dozens of zombies?”

Briggs glared at Tristan, then shifted his pipe toward the approaching horde. There was no time to wait for an answer.

“They're coming!”

Felix's warning snapped them into motion. Pipes and the baseball bat hammered the nearest zombies, driving them back even when the blows failed to kill.

After a dozen or so strikes, a zombie would finally fall!

The four men kept striking while Scarlett and Daphne waited behind them with their kitchen knives. Blows grew slower, and the gaps between them widened.

After an unknown length of time, the zombies' numbers had begun to thin, but Conrad's group could no longer hold out. Kil and Axel had already killed more than sixty, while they had managed only a dozen or so.

With more than a dozen zombies still surrounding them, Tristan reached his breaking point and screamed.

“I'm sick of all this! I'm going to live!”

Tristan swung his pipe into Briggs's knee, then Daphne's. Both buckled with cries of pain; the blows seemed to damage, perhaps even shatter, the joints.

As they cried out in shock and pain, Tristan shoved Daphne forward and Briggs backward. Both fell into the street, immediately drawing the zombies' attention.

“Tristan, you—”

Furious, Felix tried to stop him, but Tristan swung his iron pipe wildly and forced him back.

As the zombies rushed toward Briggs and Daphne, a gap opened. Tristan sprinted through it at incredible speed, looking overjoyed.

“Ha ha ha ha! Finally, I—”

SPLAT!

His head exploded. Blood and brain matter sprayed everywhere, leaving Conrad and his group stunned.

Tristan's headless body stumbled a few steps and fell, twitching, onto the road.

“Aaah!”

The two girls screamed as blood and brains splashed onto them. Then everyone looked in the same direction.

A zombie unlike the others stood there.

It stood nearly two and a half meters tall, with bulging dark red muscles that gleamed like metal. Its face resembled a white skull, with two small horns above it.

The ordinary zombies looked frail beside it.

It looked toward Briggs, who lay nearby. Unlike ordinary zombies that rushed wildly at their prey, it seemed to possess a little intelligence.

WHOOSH!

Something sliced through the air. While everyone was distracted, a spear flew straight into the red creature's neck.

Just as Conrad's group began to feel saved, Kil's indifferent voice rang out.

“As I thought. Even with an opening, killing it won't be that easy.”

The red zombie stood with a spear lodged in its neck, but the tip did not seem to have penetrated very deeply.

It pulled the spear free, snapped it, and turned its gaze toward Kil.

Seeing the human who had managed to wound it, the creature roared and charged at him in a frenzy.

“Help! Help me!”

Conrad and his companions turned toward the cry. Briggs was surrounded by zombies, swinging his iron pipe to drive them off. Their claws and teeth sank deep into his flesh.

The special zombie's arrival had not distracted the ordinary ones from their prey. The survivors scrambled back. Felix caught Daphne under an arm, taking the weight off her injured left leg.

“We have to get out of here!”

CRASH!

Kil struck the hood of a car hard enough to dent it. He rolled off and came up with blood at the corner of his mouth.

With a katana in each hand, Kil stared at the cuts covering the zombie's right arm. Black blood dripped onto the road, and the creature roared in fury.

ROAR!

Despite his fatigue, Kil grinned savagely. His eyes were cold as he murmured,

“This time, I'll make sure to kill you sooner.”