Ronan, finding the perfect moment when everyone was otherwise occupied, gently jumped down from the rafters. Landing in a crouch to reduce the impact on his body as well as the sound, he slowly rose to his feet, cradling his rifle in his arms.
"You know," he murmured softly, stepping out from behind Dimitri's massive frame. "Yous seem to be knowin' a lot of what's goin' on around 'ere. And just hows it that you know so much about these them creatures?"
"Ronan, you know me," cried Alicia in anguish as she looked around the room as best she could. The lights were down low and she would have given her right arm for some actual light, not just the moonlight.
She had never witnessed the zombies from before in her last life; it was only the mutated creatures that refused to die. They took their time with the kill, wanting to draw out as much fear as possible. They wouldn't attack until the perfect moment, so she still had some time to change the situation around.
This time around, she would hug the thigh of the highest power in the world. René LaPierre and his team ruled Country M, becoming a god amongst men as he fought back the zombies, crushing them in a massive battle and preserving humanity as a result.
He restored the monetary system, created homes and jobs for the population, and was unanimously elected King of the entire country. But back then, she could only watch him from afar, always dreaming about what it would be like if she was his.
When she was reborn ten years before the apocalypse, she knew that the gods had pitied her and had given her a second chance at getting everything she wanted and deserved.
Suddenly, there was an excruciating pain in her right arm before blinding lights lit up the food court of the mall.
"What?" she gasped as she clutched her left hand to the limb. Feeling the arm under her palm, she was momentarily stunned when she was unable to move her arm at all. It hung there, utterly useless.
"I think what Ronan is trying to say," interjected yet another one of René's teammates, "is how and why you have all this information."
"Max," sighed Alicia, trying to force down the panic. She trained herself since she was 10 to become a doctor. She would be able to fix her arm, but she had to live through the current situation first. "That is a discussion better off for later. We need fire, and we need a lot of it. That is how we can destroy the zombies. Trust me."
Luca chuckled from where he stood on the other side of the food court from René and Alicia. "Trust is in short supply right now, I'm afraid."
"Fine," replied Alicia, pushing away from René. "Because of my family, we possess certain powers. Ones that we don't reveal to outsiders easily. But since you are technically considered family, I'll tell you. I can see the future and am able to access a separate space in a completely different dimension. I have everything we need to kill the zombies; you just have to listen to me."
"Alright!" grunted René, looking over at the zombies that were studying them like they were the foreign creatures. "This is getting us nowhere. I already knew about her space and her ability to see the future. She told me years ago. How else do you think we got out of so many sticky situations?!?"
His posh accent was back and Alicia took that as a sigh that he was, once again, under control.
"Here, swords and flame throwers. Someone needs to remove their head to slow down their regeneration, and then someone else needs to burn them to ashes. That is the only way we can walk out of here."
"Or," grunted the childlike woman in Dimitri's arms. "And this is simply a suggestion. But there are five zombies and 30 of us. I really don't think they are going to eat all of us."
Alicia gasped, her hand clutching to her white pearl necklace around her throat. "You would really be willing to feed five of us to the zombies? We have a way to kill them!"
"What type of monster is you?" demanded one of the other survivors as he huddled behind René. "Whys don' yous be the one to die?"
The doll slowly turned her head to where the man was standing, and out of the corner of her eyes, Alicia could see the zombies mirroring her actions.
In her last life, the zombies never attacked this mall on the first day. She had purposefully come here to hit up the one-stop retail store to get her hands on more camping equipment, flame throwers, and everything else.
She should have been able to get her hands on the supplies before everything happened, so what changed.
"You," she whispered, her eyes wide as she stared at the girl.
That was the difference. The girl wasn't around in her last life. Maybe the zombies were taking their lead from the girl. If she was their Alpha, it would make sense that they weren't attacking anyone; they were waiting for her cue.
With this newfound knowledge, Alicia looked the girl up and down once again. Taking in the pale blue shade of her skin and the sunken features of her face, it wasn't beyond reason that the doll with Dimitri really was an alpha.
"I'm bored now," sighed the doll, closing her eyes as she rested her head against Dimitri's chest. "Something needs to happen now, or I'm gonna go back to sleep."
As if her words held some type of command that only the zombies understood, the six of them disappeared under the bright lights, their movements so fast that they were almost invisible.
Another scream broke out as the man who had originally spoken out against the doll had his head, arms, and legs all ripped off in an instant. The sickening wet sound coming from the zombies as they dove into their feast was enough to make Alicia gag.
However, with the zombies occupied with the body, it left the only exit to the lower floors unguarded.