Chapter 118 - 4 Corpses

"What...?"

Fredrinn stood frozen, speech temporarily failing him.

The storage facility was supposed to be a fortress. The heavy roll-up steel shutters had been bolted from the inside. He had left behind a loaded firearm, Maya possessed her own service pistol, and Jacob—while far from an elite combatant—was an Awakened whose enhanced physical capabilities easily outstripped any ordinary human.

How in the world could there be casualties under those conditions?

"Just... hurry back, okay?" Andrea’s voice trembled slightly over the speaker before the line abruptly went dead with a sharp, hollow click. She hadn’t bothered to offer further details.

Fredrinn stared down at the dark phone screen, his features settling into a cold, hardened mask.

Beside him, Jenny sat in stunned silence, having absorbed every single word of the brief call. Her mind was reeling. Four people died. And Christine was among them.

She knew full well how much Max cared about Christine. If he found out about this, he would probably go feral...

Jenny swallowed a bitter breath and pulled her legs aside, clearing the narrow row to let Fredrinn step into the aisle.

Fredrinn moved forward toward the front of the coach. As his boots met the ribbed aluminum flooring, something peculiar occurred—or rather, failed to occur.

No heavy clatter echoed through the enclosed space. No creak of metal, no scrape of rubber soles. It was as if he were treading across thick, sound-dampening wool.

Thanks to Assassin’s Stride, his movements were rendered entirely noiseless.

Naturally, none of the surviving students or faculty noticed the eerie silence of his footsteps; civilians in the middle of a frantic evacuation rarely paid attention to the acoustic signature of a man walking down an aisle.

Fredrinn himself had only noticed Jenny’s stealth earlier because she had managed to ghost right up behind him while he was meditating—a feat that normally required exceptional finesse.

Within a few quiet strides, Fredrinn reached the driver’s partition.

"Aadav. How long until we pull up to the storage facility?"

Aadav glanced up into the wide rearview mirror. "At this pace? About ten minutes, give or take."

"Cut it down," Fredrinn said, his voice flat. "Can you push this thing faster?"

Aadav’s brow furrowed, a flicker of irritation crossing his face. "Faster? Look out the windshield, man. The boulevard is littered with stalled sedans and wandering corpses. I can’t just floor a sixty-passenger school bus without risking us flipping the damn chassis—"

"Something went sideways at the shelter," Fredrinn interrupted smoothly, cutting the complaint off at the knees. "There are four casualties."

The irritation vanished from Aadav’s expression in an instant, replaced by a pale, sick dread. "W-What? Who died? Did someone breach the perimeter? Zombies"

"I don’t have a list," Fredrinn replied with a quiet sigh. "Which is why you need to step on it. You can flirt with your pretty co-pilot once we’re parked and secure."

Without waiting for a reply, Fredrinn turned on his heel and strode back toward his seat.

Aadav swallowed the lump in his throat and gripped the oversized steering wheel with white knuckles.

He slammed his boot down on the accelerator, forcing the massive diesel engine to roar in protest as the bus surged forward, aggressively weaving through the wreckage.

Fredrinn was right—he had been taking his sweet time, enjoying the lighthearted chatter with the cute student beside him. But the party was officially over.

Beside him, the twin-tailed teenager clamped her lips shut, terrified of distracting him. She gripped the metal handrail with both hands as the heavy vehicle bounced and shuddered violently over debris.

Even amid the rising panic, a faint warmth crept onto her cheeks; she hadn’t missed the fact that the handsome Awakened leader had casually referred to her as a ’pretty girl.’

That was supposed to mean something at least... Right?

Back in the rear row, Fredrinn slid into the vinyl bench. Rose immediately leaned in, slipping her cool hand into the crook of his elbow.

She felt no sorrow or concern regarding the deaths at the shelter—human lives were entirely expendable in her eyes—yet seeing the stern tension in Fredrinn’s jaw, she tilted her head against his shoulder and gently rubbed his back.

"It’s okay..." she murmured softly, clumsily trying to mimic the comforting gestures she had seen humans use.

Fredrinn offered her a faint, reassuring smile. Truthfully, he wasn’t particularly devastated by the casualties either.

Andrea, Naomi, and Rhea were confirmed alive, which meant his core interests remained intact. Still, a sudden breach in a secure base was a dangerous variable he needed to investigate immediately.

What if there were further dangers? He still needed a voluntary thrall and he wouldn’t accept anyone other than Andrea for that position.

Thanks to Aadav’s aggressive driving, the ten-minute trip was shaved down to barely six.

The bus screeched to a halt outside the commercial warehouse complex. Aadav hit the dashboard toggle, and the folding hydraulic doors hissed open with a sharp release of pneumatic pressure.

Fredrinn stood up first, stepping down the metal stairs into the humid air, with Rose and Jenny flanking him closely.

Before clearing the exit, Rose cast a flat, pink hearted glance at the front row where Selene and Charlie sat rigidly. "Do not move from those seats."

Both undead thralls remained frozen like stone statues, offering no resistance.

Max was the next to disembark. A strange, twisted grimace contorted the man’s face.

He hadn’t heard the phone call, yet an inexplicable, suffocating dread seemed to have settled over his chest. His brows were knit tight, his breathing shallow. Driven by a terrible, instinctual premonition, he bypassed the others entirely, breaking into an anxious sprint toward the warehouse’s heavy loading entrance.

The roll-up door was firmly locked from within.

Max slammed his fists violently against the corrugated metal, the concussive bangs echoing down the alleyway. "Open the fucking door! It’s Max! Open it now!"

Muffled voices rustled behind the steel barrier, followed by the frantic clinking of heavy padlocks and the rattle of an iron chain. A moment later, the door creaked upward just enough for a person to duck beneath.

Max shoved his way inside without hesitation.

Fredrinn, Jenny, and Rose stepped through the threshold right behind him, entering the dim, cool air of the concrete warehouse.

Before Max could even take three full strides into the main floor, his momentum died entirely. His boots skidded against the dusty floor, his entire frame locking up as the breath was violently knocked from his lungs.

There, laid out in a neat, horrific row near the forklift staging area, were four shapes.

They were covered under crude white bedsheets, the cheap fabric already soaked through with dark, blossoming patches of crimson.

Max’s eyes darted frantically toward the partitioned corner where the infected survivors had previously been quarantined between the cage of shelves.

The area was completely empty and one shelf had fallen over, creating a massive gap.

Blood could be seen on the floor near the shelves.

A dry, cracked whisper tore itself from Max’s throat, barely carrying over the hum of the facility’s ventilation fans as he glanced back at the collection of corpses placed nearby.

"C... Christine...?"

-------------------------------------

A/N: Drop the comments, gifts, power stones and golden tickets! Thanks in advancee!!!