Free Web NovelChapter 30: William Awakens
Leo looked at William carefully.
"Have you finally come to your senses?"
"What are you talking about, Leo?"
Leo didn’t immediately reply to William. Instead, he stepped forward and cleanly decapitated a zombie that was lunging at him, his heavy machete slicing through its neck with a wet crunch.
"I don’t have time to explain everything to you," Leo said, wiping a splash of dark blood from his cheek. "Just know that there is an alien nearby who can control zombies. Earlier, that thing had controlled you."
Leo paused, pivoting on his heel to drive his blade into the skull of another approaching undead.
"Just be careful and damn, pick up your weapon and help me kill these zombies."
William shook off his daze upon hearing this. The fog in his mind cleared, and he quickly unsheathed the machete hanging from his waist. Gripping the handle tightly, he ran forward. Together with Leo, he began hacking away at the zombies closing in on them.
With William back in the fight, some of the heavy pressure Leo was facing was instantly lifted. The speed at which they cleared the undead increased significantly. Seeing the crowd of monsters thinning out, William used the brief breathing room to ask about what had happened.
While they fought side by side, Leo slowly recounted the events that had taken place right after William had been mind-controlled. Realizing how close he had come to death, William’s heart was instantly gripped by fear. His senses sharpened, and he became much more alert.
"Thanks to you, I am still alive," William said, panting slightly as he parried a clawed hand. "I am really lucky to become your teammate."
"Never mind. I am waiting for you to get controlled again. That way I will have a reason to stab you with my knife." Leo said this with a cold smile on his face.
Listening to Leo’s words, William broke out in a cold sweat. He glanced at his partner’s rigid expression.
"Come on, man, you are clearly joking... joking, right?"
Leo looked at him for a quiet, tense moment.
"Guess."
Leo then shook his head, focusing back on the street. "Okay, enough chit-chat. The number of zombies is decreasing. The sooner we finish, the faster we can get out of this place. I am feeling incredibly weird here. It seems that I am forgetting something very important. Let’s not linger here longer than necessary."
William nodded in agreement. Both of them kept swinging their blades, killing the zombies one after another.
However, neither of them seemed to notice that the flow of the battle was pulling them away. With every step forward and every dodge, they were being gradually led further and further away from the safety of their truck.
After fighting for a few more minutes, the nagging sense of wrongness that Leo had been feeling grew into a sharp alarm.
"William, wait. Something is terribly wrong here. Let’s get back to the truck and get out of here."
Both William and Leo turned around to head back, but as they scanned the empty street behind them, they froze.
"When the hell did we get so far away from the truck?" Leo asked, his eyes widening as he saw the vehicle parked far down the block.
"I have no idea," William muttered, his grip tightening on his machete. "Leo, you are right... there is something wrong going on here. Let’s get out of here."
Saying this, they both took off into a sprint. But they had barely made it halfway towards the truck when two incredibly fast zombies burst out from the buildings on their flanks.
Leo’s instincts kicked in; he ducked and dived to the side, narrowly avoiding a pair of snapping jaws. On the other side, William relied on his raw reflexes. Before the zombie could tackle him to the ground, he planted his foot and kicked it squarely in the chest.
The zombie was sent flying backward across the pavement. William blinked in surprise at his own strength.
"Leo, this zombie may be faster, but its body is very light. This must be the Runner zombie." fгeewebnovёl.com
Meanwhile, Leo had immediately recovered from his dodge. The zombie that had missed him had crashed headfirst into a nearby brick wall and was struggling to stand. Leo closed the distance in a flash and chopped off the zombie’s head in one clean go.
At that exact moment, something suddenly clicked inside Leo’s brain. He froze as a terrifying realization hit him.
Turning to look at William, Leo, with a serious expression on his face, said something next that made William’s expression turn pale.
"William, we have been fighting for so long. Why hasn’t Elena tried to support us in the fight the whole time?"
Hearing this, both William and Leo whipped their heads around to look at the distant truck. Right at that moment, the heavy door of the vehicle slowly clicked and swung open.
Elena was the first one to step out onto the pavement, and then Lily followed closely behind her. Neither of them blinked or spoke a single word. They walked stiffly, and only a blank, glassy expression was on their faces.
William instantly realized what was going on, and his heart leaped to his throat in utter fear.
As if the realization that Elena and Lily had been mind-controlled was not enough, a low chorus of groans echoed through the air. Suddenly, zombies started emerging from all directions—pouring out of alleyways, broken windows, and doorways. Some started advancing towards the defenseless Elena and Lily, while others rushed toward Leo and William. A dense group moved to block the path directly between the two parties.
"Move!" Leo yelled.
Leo and William charged forward, hacking at the zombies at the fastest speed they could manage. They swung their weapons wildly, desperation fueling their movements, but the thick wall of bodies made it impossible to close the distance between Elena and them.
As they fought, both Leo and William could see agile Runners and low-slung Crawlers moving through the horde. Strangely, these specific mutated zombies didn’t attack Elena and Lily, nor did they step forward to block Leo and William. Instead, the normal, slow-moving zombies were the ones being directed toward the two brainwashed women.
Seeing this twisted setup, Leo could easily imagine the unseen alien hiding somewhere nearby. It was likely laughing, looking at their frantic struggle, mocking them, and taking sick pleasure in watching their desperation.
"William, give me your gun," Leo shouted over the noise of the horde. "My gun has a limited number of bullets, and I don’t have time to reload. My aim is better than yours. I will provide ranged cover to Elena and Lily."
Without a second thought, William holstered his machete and handed his pistol over to Leo. Taking a deep breath to steady his hands, Leo raised the weapon. Wherever a zombie approached too close to the two women, Leo pulled the trigger, dropping the monsters with perfect, precise headshots.
With Leo clearing the immediate threats around the girls, he and William began gradually closing the distance. But the alien controlling the horde seemed to have something else in mind.
Suddenly, two nearby zombies drastically increased their speed, breaking into a sprint. They closed in rapidly on the spot where Lily was standing, completely open and defenseless.
Seeing the monsters closing in on his teammate, William’s eyes became bloodshot, and the veins in his neck and forehead bulged violently.
"Stop, you motherfuckers..." William shouted with all his might.
At this exact moment—
Kachaaaa!
Something deep inside William’s body seemed to break, like a heavy metal lock being forcefully unlocked. An immense, burning wave of power suddenly flooded into his limbs and surged through every single corner of his body.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!"
William roared, a primal sound of pure rage. Every muscle in his body swelled with explosive power, expanding tightly against his clothes as if countless invisible chains had just shattered inside his flesh.
William didn’t have the time to think about what was happening or check the sudden, terrifying condition of his body. The only thing driving his mind right now was the desperate need to save Lily from those approaching monsters.
He channeled all of his newfound strength directly into his legs and pushed off the ground. The pavement cracked slightly beneath his boots as he jumped incredibly high and flew forward through the air at blinding speed.
William reached Lily’s position in an instant, dropping from the air like a meteor. Before the two zombies could even register his presence, he threw a devastating punch toward each of their heads.
SPLAT! SPLAT!
The sheer force of his fists caused the two zombies’ heads to instantly burst apart into fragments.
Standing a short distance away, Leo watched the display, deeply surprised at William’s sudden, superhuman speed and strength. But inside his mind, he quickly connected the dots and came to a swift conclusion.
It seems William has finally awakened, Leo thought, a grim spark of hope returning to him. Looks like the X-gene serum was not useless after all.
