Free Web NovelChapter 18: The Final Stretch
The awareness caught them before their shouting did. freewebnovёl.ƈom
Six men descending the staircase I was on, their spacing uneven, and even through the passive read of the awareness, their body language was wrong in a way that didn’t need explanation.
"... you almost knocked me down, bitch! Watch where you’re putting your feet!"
"Then stop taking up the whole stair, you fat fuck!"
"What the fuck did you just say to me?"
Then came a laugh from someone further up, too loud, going on for too long.
Then a sharp "The hell is funny?"
One man kept scratching the same spot on his forearm, over and over.
Another’s hands shook against the pistol hard enough that he wouldn’t have been able to hit me even if I was 3 feet away from him.
They were seconds from tearing into each other over nothing, and none of them knew why.
But I did.
Pulling a grenade from the inventory, I removed the pin and sent it up through the open spiral of the staircase.
It floated upward slowly, and I heard the exact moment the nearest man saw it.
"The hell is that?"
"Who threw a-"
"Why is it floating?"
"...is that a grenade?"
-BOOM-!
Six presences. Zero presences. And then came debris rattling down.
As I got up to the ground floor, both Tikki’s and my eyes instinctively looked at the two proximity charges I had placed flanking the base of the staircase and thought about what would happen if we walked through them.
[System. Do those things recognize Tikki and me, or I’m about to blow myself apart?]
-Ding!
{They will and will not activate in your proximity. The same holds for the people within your proximity.}
"...Cool." I blinked and started climbing without another word.
The first-floor corridor had three people standing in it, spread across the open width of the hall, looking toward the staircase.
I still had six M84s I hadn’t used even once. So I did.
Throwing and telekinetically correcting course used less mental energy than floating them at the enemy.
So I threw the flashbang hard, caught it mid-arc, and curved its trajectory down the corridor toward the cluster.
"What’s th-!"
"Move!"
"MOVE!"
-BANG-!
I was already running when the sound hit.
-Dich-!-Dich-!-Dich-!
Three center-mass shots and three bodies, and I had turned to the stairs leading above before the last one even hit the floor.
[System, buy me four more proximity charges...]
-Ding!
{Items purchased and stored in the inventory.}
I bought four more proximity charges, placed two flanking the left staircase on the first floor, and looked down the length of the corridor toward the far staircase on the opposite side of the building.
[If I plant charges on both staircases and bring Kara out through the third floor, she’ll trigger every one of them.]
I needed one side clear for extraction. The situation may not allow us to walk out hand in hand, nor does my jacket have a pocket big enough to fit Kara.
So the far staircase stayed... uncharged, let’s say.
As for the two charges I have on those stairs on the ground floor. I’ll handle them with a grenade.
With that, I went up to the second floor.
And as I did, I found every apartment door open and the entire corridor empty.
Even the awareness found no one.
[Either they ran out when the shooting started downstairs and consolidated around the bossman... Or they started turning and walked themselves out.]
After all, people on the verge of turning are pretty much already infected, except they can still form words and do simple things such as opening doors.
I squinted at the door frames and walls for scratch marks. Fresh infected are overdosed on adrenaline and aggression, and could not stay still.
They clawed anything within reach, flooded with aggression hormones that their bodies couldn’t process, and they left evidence everywhere they had been.
But I found nothing on the doors or the walls.
Whatever the case, the floor was empty, and I planted the last two charges at the staircase entry and kept moving.
But halfway up the third-floor staircase, my steps froze, even the grip on the shotgun instinctively tightened till the knuckles were white.
The awareness stretched into the corridor above and counted fifteen men before hitting its range limit, but I could tell there were probably more beyond it.
Barricades filled the corridor. Beds shoved into the hall. A refrigerator lay on its side. Tables stacked end to end.
Every piece of furniture they could move turned into a firing position, all of it oriented toward the staircase I was standing on.
But that was not what sent my heart into a frenzy.
The men behind the barricades were not waiting with their guns up.
Hands were slamming flat against the walls on both sides.
Fingers were screeching across doorframes, leaving red streaks in the paint.
And then came the unmistakable gargling sounds, continuous and animal.
Heads kept jerking at random.
One man clawing his own forearm with his nails until the skin broke and keeping going.
But they still haven’t turned.
Fully turned infected do not stand in a prey-less environment.
These men were standing at the edge of the cliff, there’s still just a tiny fraction of human left in them.
[Kudos to the Bosman... a sneeze and both he and Kara would’ve been dead.]
And with that, I began the setup.
Grenades were out of the question. Kara could be behind any one of those doors and could not risk even a single stray shrapnel going through the door.
The corridor was narrow enough that bodies would stack naturally once the shooting started, and the rifle’s M855 green tips were designed to punch through soft targets without tumbling.
One round could carry through two men, maybe three if the angles lined up.
So I pulled out the DDM4; besides, the 1301’s tube only held seven shells.
The tube would be empty in less than five seconds, and reloads took time I wouldn’t have.
Then came the backup. The 1911 had only five rounds in its mag.
[Buy me a loaded Wilson Combat mag.]
One mag was all I needed; I planned to switch to a better pistol because a 10-round mag was just not enough, no matter how cool 1911s may be.
-Ding!
{Item purchased and stored in Inventory.}
I seated the fresh mag and holstered it back on the chest plate.
The reason I hadn’t switched already was ’The legacy’ gear reward for the Kara quest.
I had been hoping it was what I thought it was. Until then, I’d make do with the 1911.
And then came my signature hold.
I slipped my left index finger through the karambit’s retention ring and let the curved blade settle into my palm.
The other four fingers stayed free. Thumb, index, middle, ring. More than enough to hold and operate the rifle, change magazines, work the charging handle. The retention ring locked around the index finger meant even an open hand wouldn’t drop it while the little finger kept it from dangling around.
It had taken over a year of practice to make it reliable, and it had looked stupid every single day of that practice.
Then an infected had shoved my rifle aside at close range one night in a dark hallway, and the blade already in my hand saved my life, and after that, juggling the karambit and a gun in my off hand had stopped looking stupid.
[Okay... Let’s do this.] I thought, taking in quick deep breaths, eyes wide, already shaking with adrenaline.
"Ready?"
"Mea..."
Three years or thirty, encounters with infected are always a close call.
Finally, after a few more seconds of mentally preparing myself, I pulled out an M84, threw it hard around the corner into the corridor, sending a quick telekinetic correction to push it further down the corridor before releasing it.
The migraine spiked, like pressure between my eyes as though a thumb was pressing from inside the skull, warning that the telekinesis reserve was nearly gone.
The flashbang clattered on the floor deep among them, and every head turned in unison.
-BANG-!
The sounds that came back were not that of truly turned.
These men who still had enough human left in them to scream human things.
"MY EYES!"
"I CAN’T!"
"WHAT THE-AAAAHHH!"
And I dashed around the corner and opened fire.
-Tish-!-Tish-!-Tish-!-Tish-!-Tish-!
I deliberately aimed for center mass.
Heads moved, flinched, ducked, and I couldn’t miss, couldn’t afford a single wasted round, so every shot went into the chest, and the M855 rounds carried through the first body and punched into the second and sometimes the third, and the front ranks of the corridor went down in layers.
But the rear ranks hadn’t been close enough to the flashbang, and they were already barrelling through the corridor, climbing and clawing over the bodies of the front rows.
And as if that wasn’t enough, more were pouring in from the intersection further down the corridor, and the corridor now had at least three times as many of those fuckers as the awareness had initially caught.
But there was no stopping now.
-Tish-!-Tish-!-Tish-!-Tish-!
-GHARRRRAA-!
Took four rounds to stop one reliably.
Within seconds, bodies were stacking, rounds were still ripping through them, but the math was failing, and the distance was collapsing.
And at the worst possible moments-
-Click-!-Click-Click-
[Fuck!]
I pulled the shotgun out.
-Dich-!-Dich-!-Dich-!-BOOM-!-BOOM-!-BOOM-!-BOOM-!-BOOM-!
First three shots whispered. The remaining four hit at full volume, and the corridor shook.
But four seconds were all it took to empty the tube; at least I managed to push the charge back long enough to matter.
The shotgun went back into inventory, and the 1911 came out.
-Thard-!-Thard-!-Thard-!-Thard-!-Thard-!-Thard-!-Thard-!-Thard-!-Thard-!-Thard-!
Ten rounds in a few seconds, 4 bodies, and the last five were already on me.
I threw the pistol at the nearest face and pulled the axe.
The first one came, hands reaching for my throat, and I stepped left and swung the axe with everything my shoulder had.
The blade shredded through his face from the jaw upward while the momentum of its own run carried it forward a few more steps before it dropped, and I was already pivoting because the second one was right behind it.
With no room to swing, I drove the karambit forward in a punch to the chest and the curved blade hooked it right in, holding it at arm’s length while its claws swept inches from my face as I brought the axe down into its skull and it went limp the very next moment.
But the axe got stuck in its skull.
And before I could wrench it free, the third one slammed into me, shoving me hard into the wall, shoulder first, tumbling Tikki out of his pocket.
I didn’t even have enough time to turn my head to see if he’s alright.
The damn thing pressed in close, snarling, fingers finding my jacket, but through sheer instinct, I shoved a leg between our bodies and shoved, sending it staggered sideways and tangled in the bodies on the floor.
Before I could even take a breath the fourth one was already swinging it claws at me.
I bounced off the wall, and shoved my fist straight into its snarling face, sending it to the floor.
But the fifth one was already on me with both arms outstretched.
I sidestepped just enough, let its momentum carry it past me, and drove the karambit upward into the base of its neck from behind, through the brainstem, and it dropped straight down.
But the third one was back up. fɾeewebnoveℓ.co๓
And managed to shove a stance-less kick into its chest, shoving it back just as the fourth one leaped at me.
I punched it in the face again and sent it sprawling before scrambling toward the corpse that still had my axe buried in its skull, nearly slipping on the blood twice.
By the time I had grabbed the axe handle and wrenched it out, the third one was right behind me.
Blindly, I turned and swung the axe, and as luck had it, the swing connected, obliterating everything from the nose down.
But even still, the damn thing only stumbled.
I threw a left hook at its face with my karambit hand deliberately short, the curved blade angling into its temple as the punch connected, driving the blade through until the blade shoved into the brain.
But the fourth one was already barreling at me.
And I threw the axe at its head with no stance to speak of, not daring to expect a kill.
The blade buried into its head, staggering it back three steps, and I had already closed the distance and grabbed the handle.
-GHRRRAAA-!
-ARRHHAAA-!
Ripping it free, I matched its roar with my own, and I brought the axe down into the top of its skull every ounce of my being. And it went limp the next second, with a final snap of its teeth.
[Done... fuck...]
The corridor was now finally quiet except for the blood dripping from the barricades and my blades and my own panting.
And so, I stood in the middle of it, my chest heaving, my hands shaking through the adrenaline and fear as I snapped left and right, breathing in fully only after finding Tikki on the stairs leading up, cleaning his front paw.
"Dude..." I panted, "You could’ve aggroed at least one."
He looked at me as if I was stupid.
I looked down the corridor, at the bodies stacked from the staircase entry to the far intersection, and for a moment I just couldn’t move.
[This never gets easier.] The thought floated up. [At least it’s done... Just the final stretch.]
I reloaded the DDM4 and the 1301, ran the awareness through the corridor, confirmed nothing was moving, and started walking over the bodies with Tikki following close behind.
The intersection opened left towards the white double doors in the middle of that corridor.
And inside, the awareness caught two people.
A woman and a fat man.
The man had a pistol aimed at the door and the woman in front of him like a meat shield.
[Finally. I swear to god... if that asshole said my princess is in another castle, I will lose my shit!]
