Mark hurriedly followed his parents around the city in a car they had found on the road earlier.
Zombies rushed towards the car, but where either run over by the car to left to eat dust by John who drove speedily.
"Dad, do you know the way to the police station?" Mark asked curiously as he peeped out through the window and vigilantly observed the zombies who fanatically rushed up towards them.
"Yep, but that place will be flooded by these 'zombies' so trying to get into the building without a powerful group of trained elites would be nearly impossible.
"Besides Mark, diverting our attention from our original goal will cause us avoidable danger." Mary added before letting out an exhausted yawn.
"...Okay. Well, I just hope we get to the military base before things get blown out of proportion." Mark points out before looking at his mother who was anxiously sitting besides him.
"If we're lucky we'll be in the base in approximately two to three days." John points out before taking a sharp turn, and avoiding the blockade of zombies ahead.
'Things are already tensing up, if we're not careful, we might even attract a large force!'
Mark thoughtfully looked around himself, spotting some strange zombies among the whole bunch.
Their movements were more fluid and refined, but still a bit clumsy. Their eyes were of a darker shade of gray while their slightly reddish pupil was completely visible.
'They can also evolve like those zombies in the [Undead Civilisation] video game, and were a very frightening version of your regular zombies because they had awakened a dormant elemental ability.'
'Some heavenly defying ones even awakened Intelligence at this level and became even more dangerous.'
(A/N: Zombies are ranked E-Z. E being the weakest and Z being the strongest.)
One of the zombies fiercely lifted his chin to look directly at Mark before immediately letting out a growl.
Mark gulped as he saw a wisp slowly condensing within the zombies eyes before growing rapidly. The zombies' eyes were now all completely scarlet as they rushed towards the car.
'Don't come any closer!' Mark screamed in his mind as he closed his eyes, not knowing that the zombies somehow stopped advancing but instead dashed away in different directions.
Mark slowly opened his eyes, and sighed in relief after those zombies had left.
Those were evolved [D] ranked zombies with [Level 1] elemental abilities! Their elemental powers made them impossible to kill without a small group of trained gunners.
Mark wasn't a naive little fool, he understood that if they were to engage in a fight with such frightening creatures, they have to face the extreme consequences.
The car drove for some hours before finally running out of gas.
John sighed loudly before stepping out of the car, followed by Mary and Mark. They looked around themselves before the family exclaimed in relief.
'Thank heaven, there's no trace of a single zombie here!'
"We'll take shelter in that building over there. I think it's further away from the zombies than the buildings here." John said while pointing at a building about fifteen metres away from their current position.
The building John was pointing at was a relatively small house. Surprisingly, there were no mutant plants or animals around the house, and it was furthest away from the wandering zombies.
"I think this will be enough." Mark said before running towards the house. He looked back at his parents who were following, before dashing forward.
"Hey, you brat. Wait up!" John yelled as he ran after Mark with a frown on his face.
"Don't call him a brat!"
----
In a forest, a horde of zombies were instinctively approaching a relatively small cluster of various buildings.
Military Base 54,
Zone 1.
Unfortunately, their sudden instinctive advance was met with quick retaliation from the military forces.
The zombies were instantly being suppressed by a group of militants who had just arrived at the base.
Bang Bang Bang Bang!
Countless zombies were falling down dead after being ruthlessly shot in the head by a powerful bullet from [Skyrise].
Rata ta ta ta!
The rapid firing from the machine gun resounded throughout the forest as zombies were being torn apart by the rain of bullets. They couldn't offer any resistant before the group at all!
"Die for me..."
Bang!!!
A bullet tore through the wind at a speed greater than that of sound, aiming at the head of a tall red eyed zombie!
The shooter, who was a little girl was blown back by the recoil force from the gun firing the devastating bullet.
"Little Lynn! Are you okay?!" A tall slender lady in her prime roared in anxiousness as Lynn suddenly put her feet to the ground before skidding back involuntarily.
"Yeah, I'm fine. [Skyrise]'s charged blast was really too much for me this time." Lynn said, feeling a metallic taste in her mouth, while her vision blurred due to extreme dizziness.
'I don't think I should be using that taboo gun's charged blast anymore. If I'm not careful, I could be blown to bits by the recoil force from that monster.'
'Firing single rushed shots are less strenuous for my little body.'
The group leader confirmed the death of the zombie before suddenly dashing back to the team, and ordering them to retreat immediately before being swarmed by the horde of wild zombies.
Lynn instantly grabbed her weapon, and pack before dashing towards the base. The tall slender woman from earlier led two men drenched in sweat after Lynn while their leader followed, clinging on to his machine gun possessively.
The group arrived before the military base in no less than an hour after dealing with the horde of zombies.
The gates was immediately opened for the group, as they immediately rushed in. Lynn looked back at the forest curious before following the rest into the base, as the door shut behind them.
Not too long from then, a little girl in tattered clothing step out of the back of a tree with a frightened expression on her face.
Her eyes were completely gray with no traces of white or black in them. One would mistake her for a zombie if not for the perfectly safe way she acted, and the vitality in her body.
"Thank goodness she didn't see me this time. I would have been ad good as dead if they all attacked me now." The little girl said before instantly running into the horde of zombies.
Strangely the zombies didn't even look her way, completely ignoring her as she pushed her way through the barrage of zombies.
'My friend Mark, and his father! They'll no what to do, I know they haven't been turned yet!'
The little girl kept speeding past the zombies while tracing Mark's scent with her heightened sense of smell.
Mark on the other hand had no idea someone was tracing him to the house he currently slept in through his scent, He casually kept his gun by his side before laying on a makeshift bed and falling into a deep sleep.
----
Few minutes later, a deft and nimble figure lept across the wall between the house and the road outside.
The silhouette of a female flashed into Mark's room, as the leaves around the building fluttered.
'There he is!'
The feminine shadow crept towards the sleeping mess of Mark before sighing to herself silently.
----
Whoosh...
The sound was low, almost inaudible, but Mark strangely heard it and reacted in a heartbeat. He stretched his arm and started groping besides him.
'Oh fuck, my gun!' Mark swore almost instantly as he groped faster only to find that his gun had disappeared.
"Sorry for taking your gun, I just didn't want you to attack me without taking first."
The silvery human voice calmed the storm of chaos in Mark's mind slightly. He slowly turned on the lights and opened his eyes.
Seeing the gray eyes of the speaker, Mark nearly went berserk!
'Zombie!'
He rose up to his feet, ready raise an alarm if the other took a single step forward.
"Please don't freak out. I'm really not a zombie." The girl standing before Mark wore torn and tattered clothing, except from her glowing gray eyes, everything seemed normal.
'Even the strongest zombies can't regain their vitality, so perhaps she really isn't a zombie...'
"Who are you?" Mark asked in apprehension as he worriedly stared at the grayed eyed girl who was staring back at him.
She then proceeded to toss his gun to the side before sitting down casually on the ground with a friendly grin on her face.
"Fydel...?" Mark blurted in shock before suddenly tensing up, as he instinctively shifted backwards with a wry smile.
"Aha! You remember me now! You bastard, you just left for home the moment you were given a chance." Fydel chirped before looking away from Mark to the side to avoid his gaze as she said, "Everyone is still alive, except Frank. He was trampled upon by the first wave of zombies. They all got to the base, except me who ended up like this."
Fydel solemnly pointed to her glowing gray eyes before heaving a heavy sigh.
"Can't like, you know, turn it off or something? Just like in some fictional zombie movie!" Mark blurted out subconsciously, but reality was harsh...
This wasn't a movie.
"It doesn't work like that. At least I get to keep my humanity and didn't get the impulse to feed on human flesh." Fydel said solemnly before looking back to Mark with tears at her eye corners.
"Everything would have been fine, but everyone thinks I'm a brainless monster!"
Mark felt the pain behind Fydel's words, before he rose up before vigilantly coming at close as possible to Fydel, then, warping his arms around her and pulling her into a hug.
Accepting the friendly embrace, Fydel buries her face in Mark's neck, as the latter wince slightly. Fydel began letting out low 'wuwuwu' sounds during the warm hug as she tightened her grip.
'Maybe this is the point where she laughs like a supervillian, then, nibbles on my neck.' Mark thought as he turned extremely vigilant, but still maintained the hug.
"Thanks." Fydel said as she pulled away from the hug before looking away with a red tinge on her cheeks.
"You're welcome." Mark said before swiftly grabbing his gun, and putting it into his bag besides him.
"Markie, my little sunshine! Your grumpy old dad is nagging again! We should follow him out of here or we'll never hear the end of it." Mary called out from below, before jumping into a truck found by John.
"Markie?" Fydel teased while tiling her head to the side with a bright smile on her slightly pale face.
"We have to go, and you'll need new clothes. Those are just rags." Mark said before grabbing Fydel's wrist and pulling her out of the room, but not without taking his bag, and a small dagger he found in the building's kitchen.
'These were fancy set of clothing before the apocalypse." Fydel complained, but still allowed Mark to drag her along with him.
"Shut up." Mark retorted before taking a sharp turn to the right, and arriving at the front of a door which was wide open.
----
"So you two said you had actually found a large monster that was telepathically controlling the zombies around area four and ordering them to block the path between the base and it's nest?"
In a office sat three people opposite each other. The group of three consisted of a male adult, and two female children who looked completely identical except from their hair patterns.
One of the female children, Fay had her hair tied back in a ponytail while her twin, Lily had her hair tied in two buns which bounced as she moved her her from side to side.
The adult was a tall spiky haired man wearing his signature jet-black glasses lined in a crimson light. He wore a loose fitting hood, and sat casually before the twins who wore identical pink gowns each.
"Captain Ray, you know that if this matter isn't dealt with it immediately, a large problem might blossom." Lily said with a cold and indifferent expression on her face as she caressed the cold surface of her one and only pistol, [Doom Caller].
"We have to deal with that monster soon or else things will get really rough around here." Fay butted in with a broad grin on her face as she leaned back casually onto her chair.
"If it's so deadly that the Gold Lion were forced to move, then, this matter isn't something to be trifled with. What are we up against?" Ray asked with a frown as he looked straight at the cold and ever-stoic Lily.
"We're dealing with a mutated turtle the size of a full building. We determined it's strength is sufficient enough to wipe out a dozen men in an hour."
Rank B Threat!
****
No chaps for TGOPC and MDL today, and don't forget to check out my new book Black Virus: Dawn Of The Bio-bots