Chapter 116 Shrieking Through the Rain

It was a high, shrill, prolonged shriek that echoed off the tall concrete high-rises farther down the street toward the hospital.

The sound carried across the flooded district like a piercing siren, sharp enough to make the skin on the back of Dion's neck prickle.

Every single person in the small group froze in mid-stride.

Paris raised his bloody dagger, his eyes widening as he looked down the dark, fog-covered avenue.

Basil brought the shotgun up to his chest, his thumb instantly sliding the safety lever off.

Dion's eyes narrowed into the grey mist ahead, his jaw locking tight as the distant shriek died away into the rain.

What told Dion that this was something potentially far more dangerous than one might initially think was the second scream that came to the south of them, as if immediately answering the first.

"Keep moving," Dion said, keeping his pace steady. "We should get off this road at the next corner. They're calling to each other, and we're between them."

"Calling?" Basil asked. "Zombies don't..."

"These do, apparently."

Nobody argued past that.

Florence took Julian's hand and lengthened her stride, while Paris fell in behind her with his heavy hunting dagger gripped in both hands.

Dion led them off the wide road into a narrower street between concrete buildings and he focused his hearing as much as he could, trying to filter through the rain.

Through the rain, as his eyes sharpened and he kept himself from looking at anyone so they wouldn't see, he could hear the groaning of zombies in varying distances around them.

The aimless sound of the scattered dead, as soon as the screeches had happened, began to gain direction, turning towards them as if they were iron filings pivot toward a magnet.

The things in the buildings understood those screams and answered them.

'The screamers are pointing them at us.'

The street behind the group filled with the wet thud of bodies shoving through broken doorways.

"Run!" Dion ordered, and as he broke into his sprint towards the mouth of the alleyway, the others followed.

They broke out into another street between buildings, and before they could turn to look for more cover to travel through, the first runner came out of a stairwell mouth ahead and to the left, from one of the buildings.

Dion continued his run ahead with his hand stretched out and red blood mist condensing into the dark length of his longsword.

He noticed in those moments a second one rushing in right behind after it.

He threw his arm into a long, wide slash, shearing the runner across the neck without his stride breaking. Its head flew off, and the corpse collapsed onto the ground behind him, blood spraying all around.

{You have felled a Level 14 Destitute Zombie, harvesting its essences.}

He slashed a back swing to slash off the head of this second one, collapsing it to the ground as well without breaking stride.

{You have felled a Level 13 Destitute Zombie, harvesting its essences.}

Then, Florence shouted over the roar of the rain.

"Coming from out left side!"

The street that they had exited onto was a relatively narrow one, and the buildings were rather wide, so for the most part, the tight space kept them from being snuck up on from alleyways that they couldn't see into. The zombies had to run through from buildings or out of alleys where they would have enough time for them to react to their appearance from.

Dion snapped his head in the direction she had indicated, and he saw runners racing down from the far mouth of the lane.

Eight of them were rushing through at once, shoulder to shoulder, tripping over their own feet and catching themselves repeatedly with their arms flailing.

Dion charged forward to plug the gap.

They threw themselves straight onto his blade, and he cleaved the first two down.

{You have felled a Level 12 Destitute Zombie, harvesting its essences.}

{You have felled a Level 15 Destitute Zombie, harvesting its essences.}

The momentum of four more slammed right behind them, a heavy mass of cold muscle shoving against his blocking sword and forcing his boots back, grating across the slick concrete.

'As much as possible, I need to avoid using mana!' he grimaced internally, distantly thinking that this would have been the perfect moment to kill them all with blood.

He drove his shoulder forward, shoving them off of him as he briefly drew back.

The moment his back foot landed as securely as he needed, he shoved off the ground and chopped clean through the neck of the nearest one.

At the same time, behind him, the CZ barked.

A single round cracked out, followed by silence.

Basil stood a few paces ahead of Florence and Julian, side-on, holding the pistol in both hands. He fired with deliberate care towards the right of them, and the shot blasted through the face of one of the five zombies that were coming in from that right side.

Paris immediately, though his footing slightly unsteady, jumped between them and the approaching zombies, his grip tightening around the scarred leather handle of his hunting dagger.

The four runners had closed the distance within the moments he had taken to gather himself, their grey feet slapping the flooded concrete in a ragged, rapid cadence.

He felt his heart hammering wildly against his ribs, his breath coming in short, jagged gasps that tasted of iron and cold rain.

Back at the shelter, he had begged Dion for the chance to stand on his own feet, promising he would not be a burden.

Staring down at so many of them rushing it at once, he had no idea what the best way for him to attack them all at once, and he found himself stuck at the indecision of analysis paralysis.

If he stepped backward now, those reaching hands would be on the others within barely a few seconds.

Paris braced his boots against the wet stone and lowered his stance.

The four runners closed the remainder of the gap in a heartbeat, their grey fingers clawing the air.