I didn’t waste another second on hesitation or second-guessing my decision.
The nearest Infected was already close enough that I could see the decay spreading across its face, skin sloughing off in patches to reveal discolored tissue and bone beneath, milky eyes tracking my movents.
I moved first.
Pushing off with my leg, I launched myself forward in a explosive burst of speed that would have been impossible before bonding with Dullahan. The Symbiote’s power surged through my muscles, amplifying every movent and making my body respond with precision that felt almost supernatural.
The lead Infected barely had ti to raise its grasping hands before I was already inside its reach.
I ducked low beneath its outstretched arms, feeling the displaced air as rotting fingers passed inches above my head. My hand axe ca up in a tight, controlled arc, not a wild swing but a precisely aid strike targeting the creature’s knee joint.
The blade bit deep into deteriorated ligants and bone with a wet crunching sound. The Infected’s leg buckled imdiately, structural integrity compromised beyond the point where even its unnatural animation could compensate.
As the creature toppled sideways, I was already moving past it without pausing to confirm the kill.
Two more Infected were converging from my left both shambling forward with their awkward, jerky movents. Their coordination was poor, their reaction tis sluggish for soone like , but their numbers and the confined space of the corridor created genuine danger if I allowed myself to beco surrounded, especially for that girl who was hiding...
I angled my trajectory to create separation, moving toward the right wall of the hallway to prevent them from flanking effectively.
The first of the pair lunged with surprising aggression, its jaw dropping open in a soundless attempt to bite. I sidestepped the clumsy attack with minimal effort, my reflexes making the Infected’s movents appear almost comically slow.
As it stumbled past , carried forward by montum it couldn’t properly control—I brought my axe down in a devastating overhead strike that split its skull from crown to temple.
The blade embedded itself deep in bone and brain matter. I felt the impact travel up my arm, the distinctive resistance of a killing blow.
But I didn’t have ti to properly extract the weapon.
The second Infected was already reaching for , its fingers curled into claws that grasped at my jacket sleeve.
I released my grip on the axe—leaving it lodged in the first creature’s collapsing skull—and instead grabbed the second Infected’s outstretched arm with both hands.
Using its own forward montum against it, I pivoted sharply and redirected the creature’s trajectory.
The Infected flew past and crashed directly into the wall with bone-cracking force. The impact was hard enough to shatter ribs and compress its chest cavity, and the creature slid down the wall leaving a sar of dark fluids.
I spun back to the first Infected, the one I’d struck in the skull and planted my boot against its shoulder. One sharp kick freed my hand axe from where it had embedded, pulling the blade loose with a wet sucking sound.
Four Infected down in perhaps ten seconds of continuous movent.
But there were still at least eight more visible in the corridor, and I could hear additional moaning echoing from the darkened shops on either side. More of them were being drawn by the commotion.
I couldn’t afford to slow down.
The next cluster of Infected was positioned roughly thirty feet ahead—three of them bunched together in the hallway’s center, blocking direct passage. Behind them, I could see more shapes shambling in the shadows.
I charged directly toward the cluster, axe held ready in a low guard position.
When I was maybe fifteen feet away, the rightmost Infected suddenly lurched forward with unexpected speed.
The creature moved faster than I’d anticipated, closing the distance in a stumbling rush that would have caught a normal human completely off guard.
But my perception registered the acceleration imdiately, giving plenty of ti to adjust.
I dropped into a slide at the last possible mont—my montum carrying forward across the debris-littered floor while my lowered profile took completely underneath the Infected’s grasping lunge.
As I slid past beneath the creature, I swung my axe upward in a brutal arc that caught it across the back of both knees. The blade sheared through tendons and ligant savagely.
The Infected’s legs gave out completely, dropping it to the ground behind while I continued my slide toward the remaining two in the cluster.
I ca out of the slide in a rolling motion that brought back to my feet with barely any loss of montum, now positioned between the two remaining Infected in the original cluster.
They turned toward imdiately.
I didn’t give them the opportunity to adapt.
My axe swung in a horizontal slash that caught the left Infected across the throat with devastating force. The blade nearly decapitated it completely—cutting so deep that the head lolled backward at an unnatural angle, connected to the body by only a thin strip of tissue and spine.
Before that creature had even begun falling, I was already pivoting toward the other one.
This Infected managed to grab my shoulder—its grip as expected strong despite the advanced decay visible across its body. Fingers dug into my jacket and the muscle beneath with enough pressure to bruise.
I drove my knee up into its midsection with enhanced strength, feeling ribs crack and compress under the impact. The creature’s grip loosened involuntarily as its body folded around the strike.
I followed up imdiately with an elbow strike to the side of its head—putting my full body weight and Dullahan’s augnted strength behind the blow. The Infected’s skull cracked audibly, and it dropped like a puppet with cut strings.
Seven down.
The remaining Infected were spreading out now, instinctively trying to encircle from multiple directions.
Damn it.
This was never ending.
I shouldn’t forget that I was basically a walking Infected-Magnet. So obvious along the sound I made and Dullaha, they were attracted toward .
I counted at least five still standing in the imdiate corridor, with movent visible in at least three of the darkened shop entrances suggesting additional threats waiting to erge.
I needed to break their attempted encirclent before it could fully form.
I sprinted toward the nearest shop entrance on my right—where I’d seen movent in the shadows—and drew the Infected lurking there into the open.
Two creatures erged from the darkness, both wearing the tattered remains of retail employee uniforms. They’d probably been working here when the outbreak began, transford while still at their jobs.
I t them at the threshold with a devastating double strike—my axe cleaving through the first Infected’s face in a downward diagonal slash, then imdiately reversing the angle to catch the second one across the collarbone with the backswing.
Neither strike was instantly fatal, but both inflicted crippling damage that eliminated the creatures as imdiate threats.
However, I caught movent from deeper inside the store—a third Infected erging from the shadows between toppled shelving units.
This one moved differently than the others. Faster, another Hybrid.
It rushed toward , arms already swinging in a vicious attack.
I reached out with my free hand and caught the creature by the throat mid-charge, stopping its montum completely. In the sa motion, I swung my hand axe in a brutal horizontal slash that split open its neck in a deep, gaping wound.
Before it could recover or adapt, I used my grip on its throat to physically hurl the Hybrid over the store’s paynt counter, sending it crashing into the space behind the desk with bone-jarring force.
"Hyaa!!—OH GOD!"
I snapped my head around at the sudden terrified scream, the voice belonging to the girl I’d been chasing.
It was coming from below the paynt desk, from the exact spot where I’d just thrown the wounded Hybrid Infected.
She’d been hiding beneath the counter this entire ti.
Shit.
I’d just thrown a partially-decapitated monster directly on top of her.
"Get off!!" She shouted, her voice filled with panic as she clearly struggled against the thrashing Infected in the confined space beneath the desk.
I moved imdiately, almost diving toward the counter.
Leaning over and reaching below, I grasped the Hybrid Infected that was still very much alive despite the devastating neck wound I’d inflicted. The creature was weakened from blood loss and trauma, but still dangerous enough to kill an unard person in close quarters.
My fingers closed around the scruff of its neck—grabbing a handful of deteriorated clothing and decayed flesh—and I hauled it bodily out from beneath the desk with one sharp pull.
The mont it cleared the confined space, I drove my axe blade through its skull with a final, definitive strike. Only then did I throw the now-truly-dead corpse away from the counter, letting it crash into a nearby display rack.
I should have made absolutely certain it was dead before throwing it. I knew I hadn’t killed all the Infected properly because I’d been rushing through the fight, prioritizing speed over thoroughness. But at least I’d found the girl finally, and hopefully she was unhard.
I reached beneath the desk again, this ti finding her arm.
"What—!" She started to protest as my hand closed around her wrist.
I pulled strongly, probably too strongly, not properly calibrating my strength for the task—and hauled her easily up and over the paynt counter. She landed awkwardly on top of the desk surface, sitting there with disheveled hair and wide, startled eyes.
"Are you okay?" I asked imdiately, my gaze traveling urgently across her exposed skin as I searched for any signs of bite marks or scratches.
She was wearing a sleeveless shirt that left her arms completely bare, and the sight honestly made wince internally.
What was she thinking, dressing like that in an Infected-infested environnt?
I understood that it was sumr and the heat could be oppressive, especially without air conditioning. But wearing light, short-sleeved clothing instead of protective long sleeves that could at least help prevent bites from Infected seed like an unnecessary and dangerous risk.
Whatever. Not my business to criticize her wardrobe choices when I needed to confirm she hadn’t been injured.
"Turn around for a second," I said, already reaching to grasp her shoulder and physically rotate her to check her back and neck.
"D...Don’t touch !" She flinched violently, slapping my hand away.
But my gaze had already traveled across the visible skin of her back, shoulders, and neck during the brief mont before she pushed away.
Nothing. No bites, no scratches, no breaks in the skin that would indicate infection exposure.
She seed physically fine, at least from what I could observe.
What a relief, every damn ti I was scared that I had to ’cure’ a woman I barely t and the awkward conversation I’d have to have with them...
When I looked back at her face and t her glaring aqua-green eyes, I suddenly felt awkward about how invasive my examination had been.
"I was just checking for bite marks," I explained defensively. "Making sure you weren’t infected...."
"You could have just asked instead of grabbing !" She shot back.
"Right... sorry," I said, recognizing that my approach had been unnecessarily forceful and probably terrifying from her perspective.
However, from the corner of my eye, I caught movent—her hand fumbling across the desk surface toward sothing tallic.
A pair of scissors that had apparently been lying there among the scattered office supplies.
Her fingers closed around the implent and she imdiately swung it toward my head in a stabbing motion, aiming for my temple or eye.
I caught her wrist instantly.
"Is that really how you thank soone who just saved your life?" I asked, staring at her.
"I’d rather die than be taken by Callighan’s group and forced into whatever he has planned," she retorted, still trying to pull her arm free.
"I am not with Callighan," I said.
"I don’t believe you," she replied imdiately, her expression hard and distrustful.
I took a breath, recognizing that I needed to provide actual evidence rather than just repeated denials.
"I know Callighan, yes just from na," I explained patiently. "But I’m not part of his organization or community. My na is Ryan. I arrived in Atlantic City recently with my own independent group of survivors. I even visited your community just a day ago after so misunderstanding between our groups. Your doctor, Shawn, he treated my friend after she took a bullet from one of Callighan’s n so believe when I say I am absolutely not affiliated with him."
I watched her expression carefully, hoping my detailed explanation would be convincing enough to at least reduce her panic.
Her features softened slightly as she processed the information, her gaze dropping from my face as she seed to be thinking through what I’d said and whether it aligned with things she’d heard.
"I did hear that another survivor community had arrived in the area recently..." She said slowly, her voice losing so of its hostile edge.
"Yeah, that was us," I confird with a nod.
"Then what were you doing lurking near our barricade—" She started to ask, but stopped abruptly as her eyes widened at sothing behind .
I swung imdiately, my hand axe coming around in a tight arc that intercepted the Infected that had been shambling up behind during our conversation.
The blade caught it perfectly across the neck, and the creature’s head separated from its body in a spray of dark fluid. Both pieces collapsed to the floor with wet thuds.
"What were you saying?" I asked calmly, turning back toward her.
She had her mouth hanging open slightly, as if shocked by what I had done. Her gaze traveled from the beheaded Infected corpse back to my face, and I saw her fingers clenching more tightly on the desk’s edge.
She still seed extrely wary, and I couldn’t really bla her.
Now that I thought about it, I’d essentially trapped her—making her sit on this desk while I lood directly in front of her, blocking any easy escape route, covered in blood and holding a weapon. From her perspective, this probably looked deeply threatening regardless of my actual intentions.
"I’m genuinely not here to hurt you, I promise," I said, trying to make my voice sound as non-threatening as possible. "Everything I’ve done has been to make sure you’re safe."
"You chased after through an Infected-filled mall while wielding a blood-covered axe and looking like a serial killer," she pointed out with a stare. "Your actions are not exactly screaming ’friendly neighborhood helper.’"
"Well..."
She had a point. That was hardly convincing behavior for soone claiming peaceful intentions.
"Let’s get sowhere safer first," I suggested. "More Infected are definitely being drawn by all the noise we’ve made. Once we’re secure, I’ll explain everything properly and answer whatever questions you have."
She looked at my face for a long mont, clearly weighing her extrely limited options.
Finally, she nodded slowly. "I know a safe place not far from here. Co with ."
"Just don’t try running away again," I said, then imdiately realized how that sounded.
"If you’re genuinely trying to convince you’re a good person, you’re failing spectacularly at it, Ryan," she said with another pointed, unimpressed look.
I opened my mouth to say sothing that might salvage the situation, but honestly, I could see how my words kept coming across as vaguely threatening. "Sorry... I just ant please don’t run. I will explain everything, so there’s no need to make chase you again through dangerous areas."
"That’s sohow even worse than before."
"Just... walk, then," I said, giving up on trying to phrase things diplomatically. "Lead the way to this safe place."
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