City Z.
In a deserted street filled with abandoned cars and debris, a pair of acquaintances fought their way through the city.
It was not easy navigating through the darkness—barely lit with dim damaged lamps and the depressing moon—but thankfully their improved physiques managed to make it doable somehow.
Ansel had been to this city many times for business trips. But the once-thriving street now lay in ruins, consumed by the darkness that was the apocalypse.
However, neither he nor Tom had the energy to mourn for humanity's losses, as they were too busy trying to avoid getting bitten.
Ansel and Tom moved forward together, guarding each other's backs as they ran.
Somewhere along the way, they found out that covering themselves with zombie innards could hide them from the monsters' sense of smell.
Only for regular zombies though, because they discovered almost as soon as they celebrated their new discovery, a pair of upgraded zombies sprinted towards them.
One could imagine the feeling of falling from hell just as they stepped into heaven.
Anyway, back to the present, the zombies let out eerie groans as they attacked them, also gathering the attention of the ordinary zombies.
Ansel darted forward, slashing through the horde with his machete. His movements were both lethal and graceful, and the brute Tom couldn't help but admire him even in this situation.
However, while they were making decent progress. Exhaustion had long begun to creep in.
Dirty sweat dripped down their skin, their breathing became labored, and their movements became slower. Their spirits were already a third down.
"Watch out!" Ansel yelled, kicking a nearby bin under his feet to an upgraded zombie about to attack Tom.
"Thanks!" The older man uttered and took advantage of the zombies' distraction due to the noise the bin made.
Afterward, he ran to stand closer to Ansel, guarding his back again.
As they fought, they actively ran to their destination. While they should be looking to rest now, there were only less than 2 hours left and they had to get closer to their loved ones as soon as they could.
The two sprinted and ran over the crashed cars. It was really a challenge to jump from one car to another, especially since they were different heights and different textures. Some cars even had their front glasses destroyed. There were also some that were turned to the side.
"Ah!" Tom had a misstep and his leg fell on one of the openings on an upturned car without a whole side door. Fortunately, Ansel managed to hold his arm and he didn't completely lose balance.
The redhead managed to get him moving and they jumped to the next car, barely avoiding the claw that came to them.
Their change of elevation was sudden, but he somehow managed to keep himself and Tom on his feet.
Ansel was very proud of his balanced center.
The damned training regime popped to mind again.
Damn it! He did NOT miss Garan!
He frowned, annoyed, and whipped his head at Tom, venting at the poor guy. "What are you doing staring?! Let's go!"
Tom-who-had-been-waiting for him to move: "..."
In any case, the duo continued to run and go over cars and they soon realized that the zombies became fewer and fewer.
As they ran, they turned their heads to look and saw that the obstacle that hindered them worked even better with the zombies.
They watched as the zombie fell down the broken car by itself, head first, unable to move further.
"For creatures that are said to eat brains, they sure are stupid."
Ansel looked at the zombies with various parts bitten off.
"You don't see them choosing which body parts to eat, right?"
"Maybe this one eats more poop." Tom cackled, remembering plenty of upgraded zombies whose stomachs were open and had their innards following them around.
It was absolutely disgusting.
However, their path seemed to become a landmine of sorts for the zombies. For ordinary zombies, they were blocked outright, while upgraded zombies could jump and skip, but not avoid the 'traps'.
Eventually, they did manage to escape, finding a small building to lock themselves in for a short breather and snack.
There were about a dozen zombies inside that turned their heads simultaneously to the newcomers.
Sighing, the duo quickly took care of all the zombies. Fortunately, they were all ordinary zombies, so they were dealt with with little effort.
It was a convenience store and they also took away what they could, filling up the remaining free area in their respective spaces.
There was no way, their spirits were getting way too low.
What they didn't expect to hear was the soft thump near them. They turned to see it came from the door of the freezer.
The two men blinked and looked at each other, slowly approaching the door.
After all, zombies couldn't turn knobs. This meant one thing: There could be survivors here.
This made their hearts rise, but in a good way.
A few steps in and the twisting of metal sounded. The metallic door fully opened the next moment, revealing a small group of five people, shivering from the cold.
The group of five was really diverse. The one who opened was a relatively aged man. Closely following behind him was a middle-aged man with a balding head, a pretty girl in her twenties, a horizontally-blessed woman, and a dark-skinned man around his 30s.
Tom and Ansel's eyes widened and they looked at each other.
Really survivors!
Since meeting, they hadn't met other people at all!
It was getting very depressing!
Finally, there were others..., and there were even five of them!