Chapter 18: Winged menace

Tracel was about to ask him to pass the cellphone to the old soldier, but then thought better of it. The old man was as stubborn as a mule, so he wasn't easy to deal with. Tracel hung up even more worried, Trim's group was one of the most numerous he had ever contacted and the fact that no one answered was worrisome. He then called two others, in Block 1 and 3. Luckily, these had made some progress, but they were nowhere near completely clearing their buildings.

A bit frustrated, Tracel went into his room and tried to think of what other options he had at hand. Adam would undoubtedly want to talk to him at some point.

Meanwhile, Indi, who had hung up moments before, approached Miguel and explained what Tracel had told him. Miguel didn't know the details, but he knew that someone in Block 4 had cleaned out his building and made it a safe haven. He had thought about leading his group to that building, but the scene he had seen in the parking lot stopped him.

Three people had left a building, on the other side of block 2, to kill the zombies in the parking lot. Miguel spotted them while on guard duty on the top floor of his building. Without warning, the head of one of the survivors exploded as it was pierced by a huge white spear. The spear continued on its way and pierced a car before sticking into the concrete.

The two survivors panicked and tried to retreat. Four other people came out of the building and tried to find the enemy. The white spear suddenly disappeared and, moments later, another of the survivors fell dead from the same attack.

Miguel watched the scene in horror. The survivors pointed toward the superblock and screamed, but all to no avail. Two more died before the rest retreated at full speed.

Miguel tried to detect what had killed them, but he did not have the superblock in sight. In the end it was not necessary, seconds later something landed in the parking lot: a winged figure with black plumage holding a long white spear. Miguel could not identify if it was a zombie or some other kind of creature because it was so far away. The monster picked up the corpses of those it had killed and then disappeared from sight into the sky.

From that moment on, Miguel saw the scene repeat itself a couple more times over the next few hours as the same group of people tried to escape from his building. Miguel concluded that something was watching the parking lot intently from the superblock.

"Tracel said the group that cleared your building is clearing the superblock, right? I hope by the time they get here they can kill that thing or we'll be lost," said Miguel.

"Do you think we can hold out another night?"

For a second, the former military man's wrinkled face distorted in fear, but it soon returned to normal.

"I don't know, yesterday we could barely make it. But we'll have to if we want to survive."

Indi tried to remain optimistic, but he remembered the few fights he had had with the zombies and a shiver ran through his body. He could only wait for the group from Block 4 to hurry up and arrive.

Meanwhile, Adam's group reconvened and began the cleanup of the third floor. The only thing out of the ordinary, was that the group encountered a new zombie variant.

[Zombie Robber].

It was a very strange zombie, as it looked like a dog with elongated limbs, brown skin, but not a single hair. It had sharp teeth and creepy front claws. Also, as Marlen found out, his name was not for nothing, for when she approached to kill him, the monster quickly jumped up and snatched her new axe before trying to run away. Luckily, Jane managed to kill him before he disappeared. The zombie didn't prove too difficult, but it gave Adam pause for thought.

So far they had mostly encountered Crawlers and Brawlers and the occasional Glutton. In the superblock there didn't seem to be the Fungi variant, but apparently there were other types of zombies. How many types of zombies are there? Why do some appear in greater numbers than others?

On the third floor they discovered what they assumed was the Robber's lair. The zombie had accumulated a mountain of random objects. The most valuable thing they found were some special packages.

Carlos' group had been in charge of clearing out part of the apartments on floors 3 and 4, so it didn't take them long to finish them off. However, the hard part would come on floor 5, where Rony had detected two dangerous presences.

Adam and the group decided to lure the most dangerous zombie to the fourth floor and kill it in the left corridor, away from the zombie at the other end of the building.

The group set to work, but to their surprise, one of the zombies on the fifth floor turned out to be a Gorger that was trapped in the apartment. Adam breathed a sigh of relief, but something unexpected happened.

The Gorger stopped shooting acid at them when they all hid, but instead opened its mouth and vomited a disgusting white worm.

[Gorger parasite].

"Watch out, the Gorger I killed did not use these worms."

The Gorger vomited a total of five worms, which approached the group by slowly crawling across the floor and shooting jets of acid.

The group backed out of the apartment, where they quickly annihilated all of the worms.

"Well, that was a surprise. If the Gorger can vomit up an army of maggots, then, without a doubt, we're in trouble. Luckily the Gorger can't move, so we should take advantage and kill the other zombie on this floor."

With the change of plans, they headed down the right hallway and prepared to take the zombie to the fourth floor. The group approached the apartment in question carefully.

"Is it just me or is it getting colder?" Miriam asked. Adam had noticed it too, it was abnormally cold in the hallway. When he reached the door and grasped the handle he jumped. He felt the icy metal, even through his gloves.

"Luckily I have my gloves, I don't want to know what would have happened if I touched the handle with my hands," Adam suppressed a shiver. I think we have found a variant that has to do with the cold. We'd better prepare for a tough fight, I don't have a good feeling about this.

Everyone nodded, tense. Adam tried to open the door carefully, but it burst open and slammed him in his face. An icy blizzard erupted from the apartment and flooded the hallway.

"Get back!" Adam shouted, feeling his body give in to the extreme cold. But no one in his group heard him, as the blizzard knocked them to the ground and echoed in their ears with a horrible howl. No one could see anything around them and they all felt their bodies go numb from the cold.

Luckily, this did not last long. The wind seemed to have been locked in the apartment, so it escaped violently and lost strength as it expanded.

Adam and his entire group recovered from the abrupt blizzard and were able to hear and see around them again. However, there was someone else with them. In front of the door stood what looked like a blue-gray ice statue.

[Zombie Glacier].

Adam responded first and fired his flamethrower, but the flame was slow to come out and Adam felt as if the energy in this cold environment refused to turn into fire. The resulting flame paled in comparison to those normally generated by the weapon. But its effect was remarkable.

The fire melted part of the zombie's arm, which screamed in pain and jumped back. But the flame went out almost instantly and the ice that made up the arm began to grow again.

A wall of ice blocked Adam's view at that moment and the temperature around him began to drop again.

"Back to the fourth floor," Noah shouted.

Everyone obeyed and retreated. However, the zombie did not allow them to run so easily.

From the ice wall in front of Adam, multiple sharp icicles shot out and rained down on the group.

Adam managed to dive to the ground in time, but Miriam took one in the hip and fell to the ground. Marlen was hit in the shoulder, but luckily, her armor blocked the impact.

Seeing her sister injured, Marlen lost her cool and changed direction. Miriam, relieved that her wound was not serious, was worried when she saw her sister charging at the zombie.

"Sister, wait!

Adam cursed and decided that retreating didn't seem like the best option now, so he turned and fired the flamethrower at the wall of ice. To his surprise, the second flame was just as powerful as ever. The energy came from the canister and not from the environment, so the conversion went smoothly.

The fire opened a hole in the wall that exposed the zombie. Noah took that moment to fire his new pistol. Jane, however, continued to retreat and had not realized what was happening.