"Alright one, two, three!"
A group of guards hauled both Dillon and the injured man off towards the town, making sure that Dillon was really out cold this time. I took a glance at the man's now-mauled leg, which had a decent size chunk of flesh ripped out. The surprising part was that the man was actually wearing leather shin pads and along the leg as well, which was pretty tough in general but got bitten right through.
I stayed behind along with Jacob and Charles. There was definitely going to be an investigation on what exactly happened for him to attack one of the guards so savagely. This meant that it was our job to find out what the hell happened.
"Jacob, you stay out here. Me and Charles are going into the forest and investigating what the hell just happened."
Jacob nodded and set the butt of his spear on the ground while Charles drew his short sword and I held my sword out in front of me just in case any monster tried to pounce me. It was already bad enough that we had a monster-infested forest right next to us, if our own guards started to attack us like this then what was even the point of trying?
Charles cut away a few brambles that ran down from the trees to clear the view of the forest so we could get a better view; which was when we ran into the biggest concern all day.
"Um, where the hell are all the monsters?"
As I looked around and Charles stumbled towards the other side of the forest opening I was extremely worried to find not a single indication of a monster in the so-called monster forest.
The monster forest, as I had stated earlier, is an extremely dangerous and hostile area. We rarely go in here unless there were monsters that were breaking out of the forest and even then, we avoided going in. Every time we went in, multiple monsters would immediately pounce us and we would be running for our lives.
I surveyed my surroundings. Pine and oak tree's with brambles, bushes, and the occasional boulder in the ground was the usual scenery, that wasn't rare, but I had never in my life witnessed the scenery of the forest because I would have a goblin or something jumping at my and try to claw my face off.
And right now, it was the quietest it had ever been before. I didn't even hear birds chirping or anything, literally dead silence. Something was wrong.
"Charles, you got anything?" I called out, looking left to where he was still looking. He shook his head in response.
"Nothing. Doesn't look like he was attacked or anything, but no footprints either. Actually, we haven't seen any footprints around him the whole time, it was like he just...teleported or something."
"Teleported..."
For a moment, the image of the man with glowing eyes disappearing into thin air flashed into my mind. Clearly those were dreams, they had to be dreams.
What to do now, we have no leads.
I glanced at Charles, who had given up looking for anything in that area. Everything happening was unnatural, especially since it seemed like anything that lived in the forest was gone. Unless some catastrophe-level event had happened, monsters never fled their habitat.
I gestured for Charles to leave the area, to which he looked at me questioningly. I sighed at this. Though I wanted to tell him everything was probably fine, I couldn't disregard the fact that my heart was beating so fast that it felt like it was going to explode any minute now as chills crept up my spine.
"I've got a bad feeling about this, we should head back while the sun is still up."
Charles and I hurried out of the forest, grabbing a confused Jacob who didn't even have time to question anything with me. Dragging him along, we followed the trail that led back to the town.
The huge crowd of guards had already gone back, though it had only been around 10-20 minutes of us searching. The town itself had around 30 guards, which was generally much more than a town of 150 needed. When I said it was a small town, it really was small but at least everyone felt safe. There were guard towers and armed guards that patrolled around due to the dangerous monsters that inhabited the area as well as bandits.
"Guys, what in the world is going on!?"
Jacob, who hadn't questioned what was going on at first, finally asked the question both Charles and him wanted to know. I grimaced at this, but it did make sense why they would question this. I was even questioning myself after all.
"I..just have a really bad feeling about this. I'll need you guys to trust me on this. Please."
The two just stared at each other for a moment before shrugging.
"We don't get paid enough for this anyways, I don't see a problem."
I internally let out a sigh of relief that my coworkers were too lazy to care about and actual investigation.
We entered through the main gate, two guard towers with sentries on each of them. The actual entrance and outer area of the town had no walls, but the interior where the rich and government workers lived was outfitted with high walls, though the gates were usually open regardless since there was no need to close them anyways.
We rushed past the streets of people who were clocking off for the day, quickly avoiding them swarming onto the streets and headed towards the commercial district, where the pharmacist would be.
However, when we arrived there the whole area was crowded by guards. Oddly, they had all their swords drawn and shields at the ready. I pushed past the guards, who were more focused on whatever was happening in the pharmacy than anything, and we finally made it to the center of the group. All the men had beads of sweat running down their faces, which I found weird since we were in the interiors of the city.
But then I saw what had caused all the ruckus.
"Oh.."
I was about to start hurling profanities but withheld myself as I looked at who caused this mess. The man who was bitten and Dillon were both strapped to tables with ropes. Now the man also had glowing red eyes, as well as elongated teeth and was currently attempting to break out by gnawing at the ropes holding them down.
"GUARKKK"
The man, who I wasn't sure if he was a human any more, let out a guttural scream that made everyone on site recoil backwards. I physically cringed at the sound.
I turned towards the guards at the scene.
"What the hell happened!?"
Shakily, one of the guards answered my question.
"we don't know what happened! We were bringing both of them back before that person said he wasn't feeling well, before trying to bite us as well! We needed four guards to actually tie him down, we have no idea what's going on! What in the world type of plague is this!?"
I didn't want to make early assumptions, but I agreed with him. This was definitely not a one-off thing, it was a type of plague. This man, who was a perfectly normal human being, had now changed into some type of creature that was aggressively lashing out like a wild animal of some sorts. Saliva and blood dripping out as their mouths started to foam, almost like they were infected with rabies.
I glanced back to see curious bystanders trying to get a look at what was causing the situation. However, the guards were doing everything they could to stop them from coming in.
If this got out into the wilderness or, god forbid, the capital cities then society would fold in on itself indefinitely. Charles and Jacob both looked hesitantly at the scene, much like the rest of them. They were confused and concerned and to be honest, a bit terrified at their previous friend turned monster.
It's starting...
"What?"
I looked left and right as I tried to look for the source of the voice, even though it felt like it was right beside me I saw all the other guards still concentrated on the groaning "men". However, Charles was one of the people that heard my callout.
Charles looked over at me confused
"What?"
"That voice, did you not hear it?"
"What voice? You good man?"
I shook my head again, looking around the area. As more and more people pooled around us I noticed that even the sentries had gotten distracted. They started looking towards us from their towers, trying to figure out what the mess of people were huddling around. This caused them to momentarily turn away from their posts.
You need to run... you need to live!
The voice was coming back again. A soft, smooth tone that felt like it was tickling me behind the ear. I really didn't understand what was going on but looking back at the two struggling, with other guards inching forwards with spears, I felt the tension of the situation increasing and I really didn't want to stick around for the climax of the tension, something was going to happen and it was out of my hands.
"Do we put them down? What's the protocol for this type of situation, is this treason or..."
I didn't stick around to listen to what their final verdict was because I rushed back towards the gate, leaving my fellow guards bewildered as I left them in the dust. Looking at my surroundings, I felt the cold wind swirling around me as the torches on the sides of buildings and lit street lamps started to flicker with a few getting snuffed out.
I huffed as I finally got back to the outskirts of town. I heard the breaths of the person who was speaking to me but still didn't know where it was coming from, not like I cared about that at this moment. The one thing I cared about was the dreaded feeling of danger that surrounded the town that sent shivers down my spine.
Perhaps it was because I was warned much earlier than anyone else, but the usually loud streets had gone completely silent. Food stalls had paused their business and glanced towards the gate while the blacksmith had set down his hammer, both of which never happened EVER.
Looking towards the forest again, I noticed with alarm that it was no longer uninhabited. Tens- no - hundreds of glistening red eyes were emerging from the forests. Those dead, ferocious eyes that were increasing by the second, groaning and shuffling through the forest and towards the vulnerable town.
The guards weren't at their normal stations because of the two, which meant to the town was in a much more precarious situation than it could've been. But luckily, though the guards were gone the sentries on the guard tower weren't and they saw the mass of creatures start to walk, limp and crawl towards their over-exposed town.
And that was when the most dreaded words that could ever be spoken were said.
"ZOMBIE HORDE!"
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A bit shorter but there's another chapter! I don't have much to write about before the actual "turning" of the protagonist so I just need this chapter as a setup to the eventual invasion of the town, when the story actually starts.
Hopefully you guys enjoy it so far, not the most original plotline since this was partially copied from a youtube series (guess's in comments) but I put my own spin on it. I'll give whoever get's it right a free patreon subscription because why not?
Anyways, see you guys tomorrow for another chapter!
W.O.V