Adam hit the zombie with the back of the flamethrower, freeing Jane. The other Stalker approached Adam, but Adam easily knocked it away.
He had leveled up and the Stalkers, even powered by darkness, were no problem for Adam. It wasn't long before Adam killed them and approached Jane.
From what he could see, Jane had killed two more before they reached her and was now crying on the ground as she tried to raise her arm. Wasting no time, Adam pulled one of his antidotes from his backpack and made Jane swallow it.
"Go upstairs and wait for Miriam or take a potion." Adam said.
At that moment, Krieg opened the door to his house and came out, angrily. The old man did not look in good shape, his eyes were tired and he was short of breath. Darry, was nowhere to be seen.
Adam realized that yesterday's fight might have been too much for the old man.
"What's all the fuss? I've barely been able to sleep and now they come to disturb me with their shouting."
Adam, with no time for explanations, went down to the courtyard, where the fight was starting to get out of control. More and more Stalkers were entering the building by scaling the outer walls. Marlen and Miriam had a mountain of corpses next to them, but there were more and more zombies they had to fight.
Marlen swung her axe with such force that the zombies around them turned to pieces, Miriam, for her part, was helping Marlen with a new spell.
The strange halo of light that Adam had observed was coming from her. As Adam stepped into the light he felt a deep relief and his body filled with energy. The zombies, on the other hand, moved slowly. The closer they got to Miriam, the worse the effect became. Adam remembered his new ability and decided to try it out.
He aimed the flamethrower at a group of zombies to Marlen's left and fired a flare, thinking to burn the zombies and leave everything else intact.
When he fired, he felt a little tired, as if he had been fighting for a long time. The fire set the zombies on fire and, under Adam's guidance, began to spread everywhere, even reaching Marlen.
"What are you doing?"
Miriam approached her, still channeling the light and frowning.
"Relax, the fire can't harm her, it's part of my ability."
However, the fatigue he felt grew more and more until he was forced to extinguish the fire he had spread.
The effect was devastating, but more and more zombies kept coming from the parking lot and walls....
Marlen backed up to where they stood and Miriam noted with satisfaction that Adam had told the truth.
"Adam, if you ever scare me like that again, I swear I'll beat the shit out of you."
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, there was no time to explain. However, I don't know if it was worth it, now I'm exhausted and I don't quite understand what's wrong with me."
"I think it's the overuse of a skill. When I use too much holy light I feel the same, but if I rest for 10 minutes I'm as good as new. Now let's get out of here, they are coming again"
The three of them backed up to the building.
"Marlen, don't go out and fight in the open, you better defend the entrance. I'll keep them from scaling the walls to the stairs."
Krieg was waiting for them on the second floor, more awake and alert.
"I'll show those bastards what happens when they mess with my house."
"Miriam, go up to Jane's apartment and cure her, then come down and support us."
Miriam nodded and ran up the stairs. Seconds later, Marlen started killing the zombies trying to climb the stairs. The usual clumsiness of the Stalkers was gone, as they were able to run up without stumbling. To Adam's surprise, some of the zombies came from the apartment where they had killed the Spore Spreeder.
Adam stood on the stairs, between the second floor and the first floor, shooting small flames at all the zombies that came up and trying not to use his new ability.
Also, with Krieg's help, the zombies fell one after another. There was a tense moment when some zombies inexplicably came out of Miriam and Marlen's apartment, but Krieg killed them before they got close to Adam. It wasn't long before the attack was over and everything was back to normal.
Marlen sat down on the stairs and immediately fell asleep. While Krieg went back to his house.
"Krieg, wait a minute, what happened to Darry?"
Krieg seemed to hesitate for a moment, but finally explained what was going on.
"I don't know, it's partly because of him that I haven't slept. After eating a surprising amount of zombies, he laid down like dead and no matter what I try, he won't wake up," Adam frowned. He thought about what could be the cause, until an idea came to him.
"Well, we'll have to wait and see what happens. I think Darry might be evolving, so don't worry, he's liable to get a lot stronger."
Krieg nodded and went back to his house. He didn't show it, but Adam's words lifted a weight off his shoulders.
Miriam was standing next to her sister, checking to make sure she didn't need an antidote.
"Why were there zombies in your apartment?" Adam asked.
"Because we took the grille off the window. Remember? That's how we noticed the attack, some zombies came into our apartment. After we killed them, we realized there were more zombies in the building. Good thing you arrived, because the situation was getting out of our control."
After the attack, Adam had difficulty falling asleep. He was thinking of a way to block the zombies from entering through the windows. He also thought about reinforcing the walls so the zombies couldn't climb them. In addition, he had several shivers just thinking about what would have happened if they hadn't cleared the building and parking lot the day before. The horde, no doubt, would have been much larger.
After hours in his bed, morning surprised Adam still awake. Even tired from the night's commotion and the few hours of sleep, Adam got up to start planning the attack on the superblock.
At least he got some good news that morning. Rony was back up and running.
"I'm glad you were able to repair Rony."
"Me too, but don't think I'll send him back into harm's way."
"Speaking of which... we're going to clean up the superblock soon and I have a not-so-dangerous task for Rony."
Terry didn't like this news, but the fact that he hadn't cut off the conversation with Adam was a good sign.
"Explore. Rony's task will be to approach the building and try to detect the major hostile presences within each apartment. Also, if I'm right, an apartment free of hostiles means there is someone alive inside. After Rony returns, I don't know if you could create a map of the 12 floors of the superblock with that information."
"I think Rony can do it. As for the map, I think it won't be much of a problem, you'd be surprised what Rony's program is capable of."
"By the way Terry, did you get any sleep? You look terrible."
Through the screen, Adam could see Terry's red eyes and the tiredness in his face.
"Not much, I've been fixing Rony all this time."
"Well, sleep for a few hours while we get ready."
"No thanks, I have a lot of things to experiment with. Do you think Rony's program will get better on its own?
No, but I'm sure the new skills you gain when you level up will be very helpful for that."
Terry opened his eyes, he had completely forgotten about leveling up when he slept.
"See you in a few hours."
Terry turned off the screen and Rony closed the apartment door. The next few hours, Adam spent talking to Marlen about an important matter, food.
"How much do we have left?"
"Enough for now. Luckily, the zombies never touch the supplies in the houses and the fridges are kept running. According to your instructions, we have left intact those houses whose owners might still be alive, but the rest we have collected all the food. I think that will be enough for a few weeks. However, we should start looking for a steady source of food."
"Well, at least we don't have to worry about getting food for Darry."