A pack of at least ten, cutting off his only escape route. He was trapped.
"Fuck!" Tysone cursed.
Between the horde in front, and the pack behind. They had herded him perfectly. At long last, luck seemed to have run out for Tysone.
Pain throbbed in his leg with every step, a love bite courtesy of the Alpha's barbed tail. It had gotten him good.
Blood slicked his fingers around the halberd's shaft, making his grip slippery.
The pack of obsidian creatures behind him chittered in that bone-grinding language of theirs, their claws scraping against asphalt as they closed the distance. Up ahead, the sea of undead swarmed against the Apocalypse Mule like mindless, moaning waves against a rocky shore.
He could see them clearly—Saeko's graceful, deadly arcs with her katana, Rei's spear thrusts from the truck's roof, Kohta's precise shots from his elevated position, Takashi's desperate lunges with his weapon.
They were holding their own, but the sheer number of zombies pressed against the vehicle threatened to overwhelm them. The truck's reinforced frame shuddered under the collective weight of the dead.
It was like two unstoppable, moving walls were about to crush them from both sides. Even if they retreated inside the Apocalypse Mule, it'd be quickly crushed into a mangled ball of steel under so much pressure.
Tysone's mind raced, desperate for an opening, a miracle, anything.
His chest ached where the Alpha had crushed him against the pavement earlier. Each breath came ragged, sharp. The energy from his core had dwindled to a faint ember, leaving him cold and exhausted. It was sheer fucking will that kept the man himself going despite the hopelessness of it all.
The creatures behind him were gaining. Their shadows stretched long. One of them let out that piercing shriek that set Tysone's teeth on edge. They knew they had him cornered.
Tysone's eyes saw the small pile of dead zombies that slowly accumulated all around the Apocalypse Mule.
Then it clicked.
The pile of bodies they'd passed earlier. Torn apart. Chewed on. Bones broken open for marrow. These creatures didn't just kill zombies. They fed on them. They were predators in this new ecosystem, and zombies were their food source.
A desperate, reckless plan formed in Tysone's mind. Would it even work?
"GET BACK IN THE TRUCK!" He roared, his voice hoarse but carrying through the chaos.
His companions glanced back, confusion warring with desperation on their faces.
"TYSONE!" Rei screamed, her eyes widening as she saw the pack closing in behind him.
He didn't answer. Instead, he pushed through the pain, pouring the last of his energy into one final sprint. He angled his run not toward the truck but toward the thickest part of the zombie horde, a writhing mass of grasping hands and gaping mouths.
The obsidian creatures behind him were confused by his trajectory. They probably expected him to steer to either side and avoid the danger ahead, but he was running straight into it.
Their chitters changed pitch, becoming more excited, more aggressive. Tysone had just led them to an all-you-can-eat buffet.
He burst through the outer edge of the zombie horde, shoving and pushing his way through decaying bodies. Flesh tore under his boots. Hands grabbed at him, but he shook them off, the smell of rot filling his nostrils.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Takashi yelled from the truck roof, his voice strained with disbelief.
"JUST WATCH!" Tysone bellowed back, emerging into the vacuum zone his companions had created in the middle of the horde. He was bloodied and panting.
Not an impressive look to back up his triumphant return.
He turned to face the creatures, who now stood at the edge of the zombie sea. Their eyeless heads tilted, considering the feast before them. They had forgotten about Tysone for the moment, their predatory instincts overridden by hunger.
With one final, desperate roar, Tysone, with a mighty kick, swept a bunch of zombies off of their formation and tumbled straight into the pack, drawing the creatures' attention away from the truck. It worked. The pack stilled, their attention divided between Tysone and the abundance of food.
Then chaos erupted.
One of the creatures could no longer resist. It lunged into the horde, its claws tearing through three zombies at once.
Another followed, then another. The zombie horde, which had been a mindless collective focused on the truck, now had a new threat to react to.
The obsidian creatures moved with renewed purpose, tearing through the undead with their claws and teeth.
Zombies turned to face these new threats, to no avail. The pack was simply built different, while the zombies were weak bags of decayed flesh, moving without intelligence, only instinct.
Perhaps if there were a few evolved zombies, the situation would've been different.
As of now...
It was a massacre. Zombie parts flew through the air. Black ichor mixed with red blood on the slick ground. The air filled with the sounds of tearing flesh and cracking bones.
"GET INSIDE!" Tysone screamed again, his voice ragged. "NOW! WHILE THEY'RE BUSY!"
His companions finally understood. Saeko and Takashi dropped back through the roof hatch, followed quickly by Rei. Kohta slid down from his sniper position.
They sealed the hatches just as a few of the pack of creatures, perhaps not sated, saw their meal slipping away. They disengaged from the zombie feast and tried to make a run for it.
Tysone stood between them and the truck. He raised his halberd.
The creatures, seeing the lone, bloodied warrior, didn't hesitate.
Tysone bit his lip and poured everything and more into the swing of his halberd. It felt like every muscle group in his body was bursting at the seams, as if his bones were breaking, his skin cracking.
Blood trickled down his nose and settled on his upper lip.
He cleaved through two of them, sending their halves flying, along with any poor zombie caught in the crossfire. A blender of blood and flesh sprayed all over the horde.
Tysone didn't wait for them. He turned and sprinted toward the truck, pushing through the thinning crowd of zombies that hadn't yet been caught in the frenzy.
He reached the passenger door, yanked it open, and threw himself inside.
"GO! GO! GO!" He yelled, slamming the door shut just as the pack was getting dangerously close to their position. "Drive over them!"
Kohta, now back at the wheel, didn't need to be told twice. He slammed on the accelerator.
The Apocalypse Mule roared to life, its massive tires churning as it plowed through the remaining zombies. The truck shuddered and groaned, its frame protesting, but it held.
The truck sped down the street, leaving the carnage behind.
"Ty!"
Rei screamed as Tysone couldn't even muster enough strength to sit down before collapsing on the truck's floor with a hard thump. He gasped for breath, squeezing eyes shut as his body temperature began rising.
"...Huh?" Was all he was able to rasp out, the taste of blood sticking to the inside of his throat as he felt someone shake his shoulders in an attempt to keep the barely conscious man in the world of the waking. He groaned and forced open an eye, his vision slightly blurred.
He could briefly see the concerned faces of his companions before a shooting star of absolute pain took his vision away.
"HOLY SHIT, KOHTA!" He heard Takashi's voice cry out, full of a dread so intense and palpable.
"What?! What is it?!"
Kohta's equally stressed, but no less shaky tone responded, his hands still glued onto the steering wheel.
"THE BRIDGE! IT'S GONE!"
Takashi's scream tore through the cabin, pointing a shaking finger through the windshield.
Kohta's eyes widened behind his fogged glasses. The headlights cut through the gloom, illuminating... nothing. The overpass they were speeding across had collapsed, likely weeks ago, leaving a jagged, yawning chasm about thirty feet across. Below, the dark waters of the canal churned, a graveyard of submerged cars and rebar.
"BRAKE!" Rei shrieked, clutching Tysone's battered form.
"NO!" Kohta roared back, his face twisting into a serious frown. "TOO HEAVY! WE'LL SKID OFF! HOLD ON TO YOUR BUTTS!"
Instead of hitting the brake, the gun nut slammed his foot down on the gas pedal.
The engine of the Apocalypse Mule roared like a dying dragon. The speedometer needle trembled as it climbed. The truck, laden with heavy steel, electronics, and the massive carcass of the evolved arm, hurtled toward the edge.
"KOHTA, YOU MANIAC!" Takashi braced himself against the dashboard.
"PHYSICS, DON'T FAIL ME NOW!"
Kohta prayed to the physics gods as he held onto the steering wheel for dear fucking life.
They hit the incline of the broken concrete—a makeshift ramp formed by the debris.
For a heartbeat, gravity released them.
Author's Note:
If you're enjoying the story and want to read ahead or support my work, you can check out my P@treon at [email protected]/LordCampione. But don't worry—all chapters will eventually be public. Just being here and reading means the world to me. Thank you for your time and support.